Category: Poverty & income gap
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Why Released Felons Fail
by Sarah Scarbrough Society chastises criminals, felons, addicts and others getting out of jail. The average citizen today thinks this population consists of bad guys. Why should people care about repeat offenders? They deserve to be locked up and the key thrown away. But in the next breath, people decry generational cycles of criminality and…
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Breaking the Cycle of Debt and Suspended Licenses
by James A. Bacon Joe Herbin has always been a hard worker. When he was 15 years old, he’d accumulated the $1,200 it took to buy an old Cadillac. The fact that he didn’t have a driver’s license — or was too young even to get one — wasn’t a deterrent. He installed a bad-ass sound…
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Conservatives, Planned Parenthood Is the Wrong Target
by James A. Bacon Like millions of other Americans, I was horrified by the videos detailing the traffic in aborted fetal tissues and organs in which Planned Parenthood takes part. But I’m not joining the parade of conservatives calling for the de-funding of the organization. Not only would de-funding be a meaningless gesture — Planned Parenthood doesn’t use…
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Income, Ethnicity and Student Indebtedness
by James A. Bacon Both sides of America’s ideological divide acknowledge that student debt is a huge and growing problem, and both sides deem the climbing delinquency rate on student loans to be a bad thing. The question is what to do about it. The Obama administration has chosen to target private career colleges, whose…
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Virginia's Tax Code the 35th Most "Unfair"
On the subject of state and local taxes (see previous post), a 2015 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says that Virginia has the 35th “most unfair” state and local tax system in the United States. By “unfair,” the Institute means regressive — poor households pay a larger share of their income…
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Virginia’s Tax Code the 35th Most “Unfair”
On the subject of state and local taxes (see previous post), a 2015 report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says that Virginia has the 35th “most unfair” state and local tax system in the United States. By “unfair,” the Institute means regressive — poor households pay a larger share of their income…
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Purge the Algorithms
by James A. Bacon It’s Labor Day, a suitable occasion for opining on the future of work… One of the great questions of our era revolves around the impact of robotics and artificial intelligence on the job market. People have fretted about automation since the days of Ned Ludd, the knitting-frame wrecker. Machines have been replacing human…
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Pell Grants: Soaking Taxpayers and Creating Debt Slaves?
by James A. Bacon Earlier this month the Hechinger Report found that a large percentage of the beneficiaries of federal Pell grants to students from low-income families never graduate. The study also found that the federal government, despite spending $300 billion on the program since 2000, doesn’t keep track. The feds have doubled their commitment to…
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Amherst Ordinance Violates Basic Human Right
by James A. Bacon I have little sympathy for criminals. I don’t buy into the Officer Krupke school of thought that people “are depraved on account of they’re deprived.” And I’m all in favor in getting tough on crime. But I also believe that once a criminal has served his sentence , government policy should be geared…
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Want Social Justice? Create Jobs.
by James A. Bacon I’m all in favor of people earning higher wages. I want to live in a society in which people make enough from their labors to live on without government assistance. I just don’t think that mandating a minimum wage is the way to go about it, for all the reasons that foes…
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Cutting Virginians No Slack: Colleges and Universities
by James A. Bacon The rocket-like ascent of college tuition in Virginia continues unabated, with tuition and fees across the state’s higher ed system averaging six percent in the 2015-2016 academic year, according to a new State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV) report. That compares to an inflation rate of less than 1.0% between 2015…
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Conserving Energy, Helping the Poor
by James A. Bacon Marjorie Wilson has lived in the same 1,000-square-foot bungalow on Texas Street in the City of Richmond since 1953. Two sons and a grand-daughter share the residence with her but it isn’t easy keeping up with the bills, including the electric bill, which averages about $120 per month. “We’d talked about insulating…
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Alpha Natural Resources: Running Wrong
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TaxesBy Peter Galuszka Four years ago, coal titan Alpha Natural Resources, one of Virginia’s biggest political donors, was riding high. It was spending $7.1 billion to buy Massey Energy, a renegade coal firm based in Richmond that had compiled an extraordinary record for safety and environmental violations and fines. Its management practices culminated in a…
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The Ironies of Virginia's Growing Diversity
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…
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The Ironies of Virginia’s Growing Diversity
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by
in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly immigration is popping up as a major issue in Virginia and the nation. Virginia Beach has been dubbed a “sanctuary city” for undocumented aliens by Fox News and conservative Websites. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is scarfing up poll number hikes by calling Mexicans trying to enter the U.S. illegally “rapists”…