Demand Transparency in Education Spending

In most states, education is the most expensive item in the budget. However, there is frequently some question on exactly how much is being spent and on what. The Cato Institute dug in to see what they could find out about transparency in educational spending around America.

In Cato’s new report Cracking the Books: How Well do State Education Departments Report Public School Spending?, they take a look at just that issue of transparency. The transparency of different states was scored by four criteria: per pupil expenditures, total expenditure, average salary, and public accessibility. States were assigned a certain number of points in each category, and total number of points corresponded to a letter grade.

In case you were wondering, it’s not looking good out there, folks. Only one state, New Mexico, scored an A, and only eighteen states scored a C or higher. Ten scored an F-, with an additional eight coming in with an F. That means that most states in our union stink at reporting public education spending. When a government operates behind closed doors like this, how are voters and taxpayers supposed to make informed decisions? Wasn’t this supposed to be the most transparent administration in history?

In Obama’s America, the government seems to think that they know best and that the people don’t really need to know much of anything. They seem to have forgotten that they work for us, and that we expect timely and accurate reporting. Let’s stop accepting this and remind them who is in charge.

We have a special kind of power in this country of ours. That is the power to boot officials out of the government. We don’t have to accept this behind-the-scenes form of governing. Contact your elected representatives at every level and demand more accountability.  We deserve to know where our tax dollars are going. 

Via: Freedom Works

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This year, make your children lunch

As summer winds down, parents begin to focus on the many back-to-school tasks ahead of them. The to-do-list may already feel long, but parents should commit to adding one more item: This year, take personal responsibility for feeding your children.

Some may be surprised that such an addition is necessary: Aren’t parents already performing this basic task? The truth is that, tempted by promises of “healthy” school meals, many moms and dads have been swayed to cede this responsibility to their local school. Many schools serve not just lunch but three meals a day so it’s not unusual for kids to be primarily fed, not at home, but in a cafeteria setting.

Sadly, government has applauded, even encouraged, this trend. The goal of the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010 wasn’t just to improve the quality of food served, but also to increase the number of children eating school lunches. Upon its passage, policymakers on both sides of the aisle praised the bill, but two years later, school lunches haven’t improved much and may have gotten worse.

Stories abound of massive waste, irritated and still-hungry children who refuse to eat the “new and improved” meals, and a thriving black market of snacks brought in from outside the schools. Vending machines have been stripped of the foods kids like to eat too.

Notwithstanding the overall student dissatisfaction with these new school meals, enrollment in the program has increased. Today, a whopping 32 million children receive school meals and these numbers are expected to rise even more due to a provision in the new law that allows children to be automatically enrolled in the program.

Taxpayers should note that the kids eating these meals aren’t all from needy families who can’t afford to pack a school lunch. In fact, middle-class and even affluent parents make use of government-subsidized school meals for their own convenience. The public should ask themselves: In an era of explosive government debt, calls for sequestration and shared sacrifice, why are taxpayers being asked to pay for parents who can’t find the time (literally, a few minutes) to make a homemade lunch for their school-aged children?

The breakdown of just who eats these meals bears this out. Of the five billion meals served during the 2011-12 school year, 33 percent were paid in full — meaning a large percentage of the kids eating these meals didn’t need or qualify for a free or reduced cost meal. In other words, these are kids whose parents can afford to pack them a lunch. According to the School Nutrition Association, on average, full priced school lunch costs $2.08. While that might seem reasonable, that’s a pretty high price to pay if kids won’t eat what’s being served.

Via: Daily Caller

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Secret Service Must Produce Some White House Records

U.S. Secret Service records of visitors to the White House, except those pertaining to people visiting the president’s office, must be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act, a federal appeals court ruled.

Congress didn’t want to impinge on executive branch authority by requiring disclosure of people who meet with the president in his office, Circuit Judge Merrick Garland wrote for a three-judge panel in Washington.

“In order to avoid substantial separation of powers questions, we conclude that Congress did not intend to authorize FOIA requesters to obtain indirectly from the Secret Service information that it had expressly barred requesters from obtaining directly from the president,” Garland wrote.

Records of visitors to most of the White House complex are agency records subject to FOIA, the court ruled. The court could have used disclosure exemptions in FOIA to protect the confidentiality of the most sensitive presidential meetings, instead of putting them completely out of reach of the open records law, said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, the Washington-based legal activist group that filed the suit leading to today’s ruling.

‘Held Accountable’

“A president who doesn’t want this information available is a president that doesn’t want to be held accountable,” Fitton said in a phone interview. “We’re considering an appeal.”

Brian Leary, a spokesman for the Secret Service, didn’t immediately respond to phone and e-mail requests for comment on the ruling.

Via: Bloomberg

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Nov. 25 date set for trial of American and US Airways merger

A U.S. District Court judge set a Nov. 25 date for the start of a trial over the proposed merger that would create the largest airline in the world.

AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines, was set to merge with US Airways earlier this month when theU.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit, saying a merger would hurt competition and lead to higher fares.

The Justice Department had requested that a trial for the lawsuit begin March 3, 2014, while lawyers for the airlines requested that the trial begin sooner, on Nov. 12.

The decision by District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly is a victory for the airlines, whose lawyers argued that a prolonged delay to the merger could hurt the financial future of the carriers.

Despite the objections of the Justice Department, several analysts predict that the merger will take place, either after a short trial or following a settlement to the lawsuit.

"We think there is still an excellent chance this case never goes to trial since it can and should be resolved with a negotiated settlement, but if it does, we expect the airlines to prevail," according to an analysis by the independent research firm Gimme Credit.

New York-based Wolfe Research agreed.

"We still ascribe at 75% likelihood of this deal happening."

Via: LA Times

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John Bolton: After Years of Dem Bush-Bashing on Iraq, I’m ‘Delighted’ to See Shoe on the Other Foot

Impending military strikes in Syria have invited comparisons to the Iraq lead-up ten years ago, but members of the Bush administration have been divided on whether President Obama should fire a “shot across the bow” at Syria for the use of chemical weapons, as neatly documented in this POLITICO piece. In particular, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton warned against the “feckless use of military force” that could damage the U.S.’ credibility. On Fox News today, Bolton couldn’t help but point out howPresident Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry were all very critical of unilateral action under Bush, saying he’s “delighted” that now the shoe’s on the other foot for them.

RELATED: FLASHBACK: Joe Biden Calls for Impeaching Bush If He Attacks Without Congressional Approval

Bolton found it “fascinating to watch” the current run-up to possible strikes in Syria, especially for the political parallels. He said Democrats criticized the Bush administration for “reliance on imperfect intelligence,” when really “all intelligence is imperfect.” Bolton also noted Bush was attacked for acting unilaterally, first making it clear Bush had a coalition of nations behind him, before deadpanning, “So far in this episode it looks like we have France.”

Bolton couldn’t help but find the Obama team’s actions somewhat amusing, considering what they were saying about him and Bush years ago.

“Personally, as somebody who was frequently criticized by Joe Biden and John Kerry and Barack Obama… for being a unilateralist, while I oppose the use of force against Syria, I am delighted that the Obama administration is about to act unilaterally with no approval from the U.N. Security Council. I think we should all take due note of that.”

Watch the video below, via Fox News:

Via: Mediaite.com

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Morning Examiner: Unpopular at home, abandoned abroad, Obama scales down bombing campaign

If you want to know why President Obama will not ask Congress for permission to bomb Syria, you only need to look across the Atlantic, where British Prime Minister David Cameron suffered a humiliating defeat Thursday, when the British Parliament defeated his motion for British backing of the use of force against Syria.

Unilateral is as unilateral does
Since both Russia and China would block any United Nations Security Council resolution approving an attack on Syria, and now that the British people have told their government they don’t want to participate, Obama has no one else to act with him, should he choose to go ahead with his bombing.

Faced with a total lack of international help, Obama is scaling back his bombing plans. “Here, what’s being contemplated is of such a limited and narrow nature that it’s not as if there’s a similar imperative for bringing in different capabilities from different countries,” a senior administration official told The Wall Street Journal.

A skeptical Congress
More than 100 House Republicans have signed a letter, written by Rep. Scott Rigell, R-Va., demanding that Obama seek approval from Congress before he bombs Syria. And they are not alone.

And more than 50 House Democrats have signed a separate letter, written by Rep. Barbara Lee, R-Calif., demanding a similar vote. “While we understand that as commander-in-chief you have a constitutional obligation to protect our national interests from direct attack, Congress has the constitutional obligation and power to approve military force, even if the United States or its direct interests (such as its embassies) have not been attacked or threatened with an attack,” Lee’s letter reads.

Via: Washington Examiner

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The Wrong Conversation on Voter ID Laws

Last week, President Obama's Justice Department filed suit against the state of Texas over Texas' new voter ID law. It wasn't surprising, but it's the latest salvo by progressives to delegitimize the effort by many states across the country to pass voter integrity laws.

One of those laws, signed by North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory recently, was written about last week by Phyllis Schlafly - and she defended the measures that would cut down on early voting, party-line voting, and institute voter ID requirements.

Progressive writers have seized on Schlafly's column and other conservatives' comments on voter ID laws to be a trend in which, as Kevin Drum writes, "conservatives are finally admitting what voter suppression laws are all about." Drum was following what was written by Steve Benen, and the theme was picked up by Jamelle Bouie. Progressives think that what conservatives are earnestlyafter is the suppression of voting demographics that are unfavorable to Republicans.

That's wrong, and it's wrong for an obvious reason. Conservatives are genuinely concerned about voter fraud nationwide. The typical response is that voter fraud is not a big deal (something that is contentious, obviously). If voter fraud is not a legitimate issue to be concerned with, progressives have done a lousy job of doing the convincing. The impetus for voter ID laws is not voter suppression - it's ensuring clean and fair elections. And this is not to mention that the arguments about who would be disenfranchised by such laws are egregiously trumped up by progressives.

Via: Townhall

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New boss at ICE ineligible for job, says critic

The acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement—who oversees the nation's second-largest federal investigative agency—may not be eligible for the permanent position under laws set up to keep politics out of the agency, according to one former high-level employee.

When John Sandweg, a former Arizona criminal defense attorney and associate of outgoing Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, was named acting director of ICE, several critics questioned his credentials. Some told FoxNews.com his appointment seemed to be political, and others said the agency needed a leader who had come up through the ranks.

“Given that there are literally dozens of people within ICE who have more experience in management/law enforcement and meet these qualifications, there is no excuse for placing Mr. Sandweg as acting director of ICE,” said Anthony Ho, who was assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Francisco division before retiring in December.

Ho noted that the 2002 law which established the agency, then known as Bureau of Border Security, explicitly requires that the director “shall have a minimum of 5 years professional experience in law enforcement, and a minimum of 5 years of management experience.” The law was designed specifically to prevent the agency from becoming politicized, Ho said.

It was not clear if the same requirements apply to an acting director, but one source told FoxNews.com it was likely the intent that they would, otherwise an acting director could be installed indefinitely simply to get around them.

Via: Fox News

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The Gang of Eight’s ‘Can’t Cut It’ Argument

Amnesty would undermine the integrity of the country’s immigration laws and would depress the wages of its lowest-paid native-born workers. . . . The better course of action is to honor America’s proud tradition by continuing to welcome legal immigrants and find ways to punish employers who refuse to obey the law.

One might reasonably assume that these words were plucked from a recent National Review editorial inveighing against the Gang of Eight’s immigration-reform bill. In fact, the passage comes from a New York Times editorial published in February 2000 in response to the AFL-CIO’s call for the legalization of illegal immigrants, as well as the repeal of penalties for employers who hire them.

The union’s proposal was “unfair to unskilled workers already in the United States,” the Times’ editors argued, while noting the obvious benefits for Big Labor (“a huge new pool of unorganized workers”) and Big Business (access to “cheap labor”). It is an argument that many Democrats echoed when opposing President George W. Bush’s push for comprehensive immigration reform in 2006, specifically in regard to the proposed guest-worker program, which would have provided legal entry to more than half a million low-skilled workers.

Via: National Review Online

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