It’s Friday!
Quotations
– “The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.” -William Havard
– “Perform, then, this one act of remembrance before this Day passes – Remember there is an army of defense and advance that never dies and never surrenders, but is increasingly recruited from the eternal sources of the American spirit and from the generations of American youth.” – W.J. Cameron
Energy and environment
– Climategate update: The University of Virginia was hauled into court this week and ordered to produce communications involving Dr. Michael Mann stored on a backup computer, more than four months after the American Tradition Institute’s Environmental Law Center requested the emails and other files. The ATI finally received the first 20 percent of 9,000 pages that UVA says are responsive to the request: specific communications sent and received by Mann during his tenure at UVA in which he corresponded with or discussed leaders in the climate alarmist perspective. Seminal among them include discussions about his now infamous and discredited 1,000-year temperature reconstruction known as the “hockey stick.” Source: American Tradition Institute
Events
– Save the date: The Foundation’s 20th anniversary celebration is scheduled for the evening of Monday, October 24. Details to follow.
– Save the date: The Foundation’s second annual Legislative Policy Briefing is scheduled for Friday, September 30. Last year, more than 250 people attended to hear nearly three dozen experts discuss Georgia public policy. Details to follow.
– American Enterprise Institute President Andrew Brooks spoke about why conservatives should make the moral case … not the money case … for economic policy change when he addressed Georgia Public Policy Foundation members this month in Atlanta. Click here to read Mike Klein’s article on the GPPF Forum. Visit the Foundation’s Facebook page to view event photographs! Go to http://tinyurl.com/64h5sbv. View the event at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcXNSu1I8J4.
Government
– Redundant and unaccountable: An ongoing review of 80 federal economic development programs at four agencies is finding that the design of each of these programs overlaps with at least one other program, a congressional committee was told. Also, the four agencies – Commerce, HUD, SBA, and USDA – don’t appear to be taking steps toward developing compatible policies or procedures with other federal agencies or to search for opportunities to leverage physical and administrative resources with their federal partners, and appear to collect only limited information on program outcomes. Source: Government Accountability Office
– Legislators in Louisiana are proposing the “Public Employee Bargaining Transparency Act” (PEBTA), which would make Louisiana only the seventh state to have transparency in collective bargaining agreements, according to the Web site openmarket.org. Louisiana would join Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Montana, Tennessee, and Texas. The act specifically calls on the state to “provide for legislative intent; to provide with respect to public access to collective bargaining sessions and to documents; to provide definitions; and to provide for related matters.” Basically, it allows the taxpayers in the state to observe the actions of elected officials in matters of how their tax dollars are spent.
– News you can lose from the agency you can’t: Today – the Friday before Memorial Day – is “Don’t Fry Day, a time to remind people at the start of summer about the dangers from exposure to the sun’s harmful rays.” Thanks to the helpful folks at the Environmental Protection Agency for the reminder.
– U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the United States borrows about $125 billion per month. With that amount, the United States could buy each of its more than 300 million residents an Apple iPad. The U.S. government borrows more than $40,000 per second. That’s more than the cost of a year’s tuition, room and board at many universities. Source: Reuters.com
– When does a three-year job equal three jobs? When it’s counted by the Obama administration, according to Carolina Journal, the monthly publication of North Carolina’s John Locke Foundation. The backers of the $545 million, federally funded high speed rail project got an assist with their job-creating projections thanks to Obamaflation. Supporters claimed that the rail endeavor would create 4,800 jobs. In reality, it was closer to 1,200. But they counted “job years” a metric invented by the Obama administration transition team to sell the stimulus plan. For instance, if a single job is created for a project with a three-year duration, it would equal three jobs.
Transportation
– Freight trains have become 65 percent more energy efficient in the last 50 years – without government mandates, according to Steven F. Hayward of the American Enterprise Institute.
– A survey of metro Atlanta residents finds they see congestion relief as the most important reason for investing in “transportation alternatives,” according to the Atlanta Regional Roundtable. See the survey results here: http://tinyurl.com/3kjqmaz. Also, “Respondents overwhelmingly chose rail over bus, local shuttles and streetcars when asked their preferences for transportation alternatives.”
– Visit www.georgiapolicy.org to read the Foundation’s latest commentary, “USDA’s Feeding Frenzy,” by Harold Brown.
Have a great Memorial Day weekend. Remember those who have died to keep this nation free.
Kelly McCutchen
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