MORE ARTICLES
All of the Above: Nick’s Year of Homeschool, Virtual High, Online College, and KaiPod MicroschoolJanuary 31, 2025 - 11:15 am
Notre Dame Law Assoc. Dean Nicole Stelle Garnett on Catholic Schools & School ChoiceJanuary 29, 2025 - 11:45 am
Pioneer Institute Study Compares MA Workforce Development System to Those in Peer StatesJanuary 29, 2025 - 11:32 am
Alexandra Popoff on Vasily Grossman & Holocaust RemembranceJanuary 27, 2025 - 9:32 am
Navigating Personalized Learning: Meghan’s Role as a Guide at KaiPod MicroschoolJanuary 23, 2025 - 11:54 am
Pioneer Institute Study Calls for Reforms to Ensure that Pharmacy Benefit Manager Practices Benefit Patients, Healthcare PayersJanuary 23, 2025 - 9:22 am
Mapping Mass Migration: New England State and County Population Change, 2020 to 2023January 21, 2025 - 1:48 pm
Stanford’s Lerone Martin on the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & the Civil Rights MovementJanuary 17, 2025 - 11:13 am
Microschool First Impressions: Curious Mike & Spencer Blasdale Visit KaiPodJanuary 16, 2025 - 12:00 pm
McAnneny’s January Musings – Legislative Transparency Takes Center Stage in the New YearJanuary 15, 2025 - 1:55 pm
Farm Subsidies, Part XXXVI
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government /byThis space takes a dim view of almost all farm subsidies as market-distorting and wasteful. And as part of the nascent Pioneer Staff Caucus for good food, I find the evidence that the incentives contained in the farm bill to produce a handful of commodity crops — in essence creating a market through government interference — is neither healthy nor good for farmers in the long run. Yesterday’s NYTimes ran an op-ed from a farmer in Minnesota who pointed out another wrinkle in the farm bill — if you try and plant fruits and vegetables on land that had commodity (corn, soybean, rice, wheat, cotton) crops, you lose your government subsidy and you are penalized the market value of that […]
Counterintuitive News
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government /byIt’s too early, I realize. But the state is $245 million ahead of where we projected we would be at this point in the fiscal year and $674 million ahead of the same point last fiscal year. Given all the chatter about a recession, its interesting that we aren’t (yet?) feeling the pinch tax-wise. If that $245 million holds, keep an eye on where it ends up — spent out in a ‘supp’, flushed into the Bay State Competitiveness Trust Fund, or put back into Stabilization. What, you thought it would fund an income tax rollback?
Healthcare Cost Control
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Healthcare /bySenate President Murray presented her ideas about controlling medical costs today. I don’t agree (or fully understand all of them) but I give her credit for setting out a broad array of potential areas for reform. And count me in as a fan of Section 20, expanding the role of Nurse Practitioners.
So, which is it?
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Blog: Better Government, Economic Opportunity /byOur friends at CURP and A Better City held an event on Oct. 31st to promote a new study that advocated for additional transit spending to aid the biotech industry in Boston and Cambridge. But this Sunday’s Globe reports that biotech firms are moving to the less costly suburbs. Which suggests that additional transit spending is not required to aid this industry.
Debating biotech on NECN
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /bySome improvements in the House version of the biotech bill resulted from the good work of Pioneer and other groups like the Associated Industries of Massachusetts. For Pioneer’s testimony click here, for a Pioneer op-ed in the Globe click here. That said, apart from the research components and some of the infrastructure funding, the bill still stinks, as I think came out in the back and forth on NECN’s NewsNight with Jim Braude. In retrospect there is a better answer to Jim’s query “If the bill is so bad, why is it getting the support of the Governor, the Senate President and the Speaker?” I should have said something like the following: It’s borrowed money (a kind of funny money), […]