Where’s the beef?

October 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm

It’s been two weeks since my last column. I had to spend some time recovering from my head exploding due to all the news stories about the

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Redistricting double-take

September 21, 2010 at 10:04 am

We’ve all had the experience. We are thumbing threw a magazine, reading a Web page we just opened or listening to the TV and all of a sudden you just sort of stop and utter, “they said what?”

That was the reaction I had when I saw an interview on

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Simple rules are business friendly

September 14, 2010 at 11:13 am

Last weekend I was in Philadelphia’s Chinatown for the grand opening of a new restaurant, and I ran into several of the Asian community’s business leaders. While partaking in some wonderful Chinese food, I also got several servings of what makes business difficult for this predominantly immigrant community—they are the same things that make doing business difficult for all businesses, whether immigrant, new or established.

By making rules, regulations, paperwork, taxes—the chi of any bureaucracy—simpler,…

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It’s the spending, not the revenue

September 7, 2010 at 9:46 am

In

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The PLCB and the next guv

August 31, 2010 at 11:13 am

Many Philadelphians have been developing a hate-hate relationship with a variety of government agencies over a long period of time. Some of these, for example, are the Delaware River Port Authority, Philadelphia Housing Authority and the School Reform Commission—or as some friends of mine over at Philadelphia Speaks coined it, The Axis of Arrogant Incompetence. All these agencies have been in the news a lot recently, and not for their redeeming qualities.

But there’s another…

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Lentz, Meehan and jobs

August 24, 2010 at 11:30 am

Let’s talk jobs.

I was listening to the debate that aired Sunday night between Democrat Bryan Lentz and Republican Pat Meehan, rivals in the 7th Congressional District. To no surprise they both agreed that jobs were, far and away, the most important concern to voters. At this point though, Meehan and Lentz had divergent views and supplied different answers on how to address the problem. From the exchange that took place in the debate, I…

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People, party and policy

August 20, 2010 at 9:47 am

Two pieces on pa2010.com warrant comment. The first is my colleague Tony Heyl’s post on

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Onorato’s illusion of school choice

August 17, 2010 at 8:45 am

A lot of school choice advocates are skeptical of Onorato’s stance and rightly so. As we have seen with Anthony Williams’ campaign, there is a lot of money and support behind the school choice movement. On the other hand, Onorato can’t jeopardize alienating the teachers’ unions, which are solidly against school choice. Some of his supporters may say it is an issue of compromise, but it is more likely an issue of trying to have one’s cake and eat it too, while trying to chase down Williams’ multi-million dollar school-choice donors.

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An anti-incumbent year? Only if we enact reform

August 10, 2010 at 4:08 pm

By its very nature, being an incumbent legislator offers significant advantages over challengers. Name recognition is high, they know what talking points worked originally and they are in a position to cut favors for people. Just U.S. House races, incumbent reelection rates never dipped below 70 percent—and that was during the Jacksonian Era of America.

Up until 1900 though, we still managed to turn over about a third of the House of Representatives every election…

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Welcome to The New Commonwealth

August 9, 2010 at 11:05 pm

Welcome to The New Commonwealth, the latest addition to the pa2010.com blogopshere.

From independence, Pennsylvania has referred to itself as a Commonwealth. This was to signify that the mandate for our government was from the people and not from a charter granted by aristocrats, royalty or “divine right.” Those in power don’t derive their rights because they are in power. We, the people, choose them and give them our consent and can decide to pass…

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