by AZ Free Enterprise Club | Jul 2, 2021 | Opinion
By the Free Enterprise Club |
They’re still trying to scare us. Apparently, some people in our country just don’t like seeing businesses reopen, people unmasked, and a return to normalcy. So, as the threat to COVID largely dwindles, it should come as no surprise that the media is now pushing a new threat: the Delta variant.
Of course, the messaging is predictable:
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- More contagious (CNN)
- Exploded in the UK (CNBC)
- Worst and scariest variant yet (MSNBC)
It will be interesting to see how state and local governments across the country respond to this so-called “latest threat.” As you’ll recall, it didn’t go so well the first time around with most seizing the opportunity to abuse emergency powers, even here in Arizona. And although Arizona’s COVID response puts it ahead of most other states in the country, there’s still work to be done.
Thankfully, our state lawmakers haven’t ignored the problem. And with various provisions in a series of Budget Reconciliation Bills, they have taken important steps to protect Arizona from more COVID mandates and government overreach.
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by Richard Vedder | Jul 1, 2021 | Opinion
By RICHARD K. VEDDER |
Universities have played a consequential role in the fight against the coronavirus that has swept the globe—their research tries to prevent the disease or mitigate its effects, their classrooms and labs train the future physicians and others trying to save lives, and their hospitals and clinics try to heal those with not only this sickness but all sorts of other serious aliments afflicting humankind. About 100 institutions with med schools and hospitals are particularly critical.
With all this is mind, I recently chatted with Dr. Harold Paz, Executive Vice President and Chancellor for Health Affairs at Ohio State (OSU), and CEO of its Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Paz has run university medical centers at Rutgers and Penn State as well, and was the chief health executive at Aetna for several years. He also has had close professional associations with several private schools, such as Rochester, Johns Hopkins and Yale. He is an articulate, bright individual.
The health care component at massive universities like Ohio State, as measured by spending, now sometimes exceed 50%—it is around $4.5 billion a year ($500,000 an hour) at OSU, bigger than all other parts of that huge school combined—an institution with 60,000 or so students in Columbus alone. Dr. Paz spends 20 times as much as the athletic director overseeing OSU’s superstar status athletic programs.
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by John R. Ammon | Jun 29, 2021 | Opinion
By John R. Ammon |
The next Republican Prescott Mayor will be chosen in the August 3, 2021 primary. The two candidates are Phil Goode and the incumbent, Greg Mengarelli. Early voting begins on July 7th.
When people ask me why Prescott is so special and what does it mean to me, I always respond that Prescott is traditional America with the values and the culture that Americans have always loved and sought.
Many of us are fed up with the political class in Washington, D.C. and throughout state and local governments that holds its citizens in low regard and favors itself rather than the citizens it supposedly represents. Such a culture appears to be raising its head locally in this election.
Let’s look at the two candidates seeking victory on August 3rd. Which of these two candidates can best represent American values and protect Prescott culture, its small town feel, and critically, its future, with governance of water policy and development that is competent, honest, transparent and without even the perception of self-interest?
The key question is who will best “serve” the citizens of Prescott as Mayor? A generic description of the individual who will best “serve” the citizens of Prescott is the candidate who has a history of service for fellow citizens and community organizations and proven leadership roles in the real world not conflated with personal gain and profit.
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by Chloe Anagnos | Jun 27, 2021 | Education, Opinion
By Chloe Anagnos |
A recent GoBankingRates survey found that over 50% of Americans want student-loan forgiveness for everyone with any student-loan debt. Considering Democratic lawmakers are hoping President Joe Biden will keep his promise to cancel $50,000 in student debt per person, this data could certainly be used for leverage. But while the number of Americans who now want to see all higher ed-related debt simply erased from the books is growing, it doesn’t mean that we should follow along.
Pandemic and lockdown-related unemployment coupled with a slow economic growth following the low reopening of most states have, indeed, made it difficult for countless Americans to pay off their debt. It is thus natural to see U.S. residents wanting to help those in difficult situations. However, blanket loan forgiveness isn’t a response to hardship. It isn’t even a response to the broken American higher education system. Instead, loan forgiveness will only remove our attention from the errors of subsidized higher education.
Despite politicians’ best efforts, there’s simply no bottomless pit of money anywhere. Taxpayers, and even the Federal Reserve, will eventually run dry.
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by Goldwater Institute | Jun 26, 2021 | Economy, Opinion
By Victor Riches of the Goldwater Institute |
The Arizona Legislature just approved the Goldwater Institute’s plan to dramatically reduce income taxes and simplify the state’s tax code, making Arizona one of the lowest-tax states in the country. This historic reform will restore Arizona’s competitive advantage as a low-tax state and provide a boost for small business owners still struggling to recover from the COVID pandemic.
This plan collapses Arizona’s pre-Prop. 208 tax rates into a single, low 2.5% rate, and it caps the maximum tax rate at 4.5%. This means that no one’s taxes will increase because of Prop. 208. In fact, everyone’s income taxes will go down as a result of this victory.
Additionally, the Goldwater Institute has challenged the constitutionality of Prop. 208, and we’re now awaiting a decision from the Arizona Supreme Court. Fortunately, this new tax reform measure will mitigate the negative effects of Prop. 208—which otherwise would have decimated our economy—and help ensure the state’s future economic success.
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by Doug Ducey | Jun 26, 2021 | Economy, Opinion
By Doug Ducey, Karen Fann & Rusty Bowers |
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