SUMMARY Maryland’s state and local pension and retirement benefits plans are in for some hard times ahead. Facing budget shortfalls, governments are underfunding their retirement plans, while at the same time expanding the benefit promises to public employees. This unsustainable financing places both taxpayers and public employees at risk. Today, the Maryland State Retirement and […]
The recent, ringing defeat of a referendum on school vouchers in Utah – generally thought of as America’s most conservative state – should be a wake-up call to critics of our public school system. The proposal failed for several reasons apart from the might of the teachers unions. Chief among these is that it was […]
A rash of recent newspaper stories have proclaimed, a year in advance of the Presidential election, Sen. Hillary Clinton to be the next Democratic nominee, and the next President. The fixation of these stories is on campaign contributions and poll results, a sort of ‘inside baseball’ that our great newspapers now seem to regard as […]
The new administration has now been in office for nine months, an acceptable period of gestation, and it is now not too early for a preliminary assessment. Let us first accentuate some positive developments: 1. The administration appears to have placed the Departments of Public Safety and of Juvenile Services in the hands of fully […]
A year into the new administration, and a few months or weeks before the next legislative session, special or general, there is no sign that any study inspiring public confidence has been undertaken of the state’s revenue and tax structure. Instead there is vague talk of conversations between the Governor and Senate President Miller, inspiring […]
The Baltimore Schools Readers of the Baltimore newspapers have been regaled by a series of advertisements placed by the Baltimore Teachers’ Union, which has reached an impasse in contract negotiations with the school board. The school board proposes to slightly reduce the allowed weekly amount of what is quaintly called ‘preparation time’, in order to […]
The only indication of the Governor’s thinking, if it can be called that, about the school system, is that supplied by his task force on education, whose report was publicized by, and not repudiated by, the Governor’s office. The three co-chairmen of the task force were selected so as to be totally protective of existing […]
The Calvert Institute’s George Liebmann Preaches The Common Sense Of Thinking Locally And Acting Locally Frank Klein Baltimore has its own conservative think tank, but don’t confuse it with the Heritage Foundation. There’s no sign-in book, no large glass door, and no view of Dupont Circle. The Calvert Institute for Policy Research is discreetly tucked […]
– Endorsement by major media organs like The Washington Post and many “liberals” in the nation’s political establishment of the proposed “hate crimes” bill exists in strange juxtaposition with recent articles and editorials on the U.S. attorneys scandal deploring the abuse and over-centralization of federal law enforcement. But the supporters of the hate crimes bill […]
Think again George Liebmann hopes his book will give new life to a decade’s worth of Calvert Institute colloquies BRENDAN KEARNEY Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer August 19, 2007 6:39 PM Established in 1995 as a conservative counterweight in left-leaning Maryland, the Calvert Institute for Policy Research ruffled feathers and got people talking with reports […]