Monadnock School Taxpayers Association News

Wall Street Journal

The Harlem Armory in upper Manhattan was built in 1933 to honor the celebrated 369th Regiment—also known as the Harlem Hellfighters, the first black regiment to fight in World War I. On a recent Saturday, however, the Art Deco edifice at Fifth Avenue and 142nd Street hosted an army of parents and educators who are fighting to provide Harlem children with decent schools.

Despite heavy snowfall the night before, more than 3,000 people trekked to the third annual Harlem Education Fair.

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Wall Street Journal

Everyone knows Democrats are planning to use the budget reconciliation process to get ObamaCare through the Senate. Less well known is that Democrats are plotting add-ons to that bill to get other liberal priorities enacted—programs that could never attract 60 votes.

One of these controversial measures rewrites the Higher Education Act to ban private companies from offering federally guaranteed student loans as of this July. Congress has already passed laws in recent years discouraging private lenders from making loans without a federal guarantee. But most college financial-aid departments still want private companies to originate and service the guaranteed loans. That’s because the alternative—a public option run by the Department of Education—has been distinguished by its Soviet-style customer service.

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Wall Street Journal

The devastating consequences of the financial crisis are all too familiar: billions of dollars and millions of jobs lost, and along with them lost confidence in the might of the American economy and the U.S. role as a global superpower. The question now is: What can we learn from the crisis and how can we prevent something like this from happening again?

Leaders in Washington are devising new regulations to govern the operations of large financial institutions. But if we’ve learned anything from the bailout of Wall Street, it’s that sensible policy making is difficult in the midst of crisis. Embracing new regulations now—while the financial industry remains in distress and emotions still run high—is the wrong strategy.

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NY Post

It’s amazing what a mass of pink slips can do to make a teachers union see the light — especially when the layoffs are publicly hailed by the president of the United States.

On Monday, President Obama endorsed the decision by Rhode Island’s smallest, poorest city to fire the entire unionized faculty of its notoriously underperforming high school.

Just 48 hours later, the union caved — and publicly pledged to support reforms that it had earlier rejected.

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Wall Street Journal

Fiscal storm clouds are upon us. In five years, federal spending has skyrocketed to 24.7% from 19.9% of our economy. That’s the highest level since World War II. Borrowing has ballooned the national debt to $11.9 trillion from $7.3 trillion, a five-year increase equal to the accumulation of debt between President George Washington and President Bill Clinton.

Unfortunately, the long-term fiscal picture is worse. As the Baby Boom generation retires and the cost of health care continues to escalate, entitlement programs will cause federal spending to rise to 40% of our economy, double its post-World War II average. This is assuming that spending does not increase even further, an assumption that the trillion-dollar “stimulus” bill and the 84% increase in non-defense discretionary spending President Obama signed into law argues against.

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