Congressman Paul Ryan–ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee–released a budget proposal that solves the long-term U.S. deficit.  So honest it’s crazy…  Or crazy like a fox?
Given that federal health care programs are the biggest driver of long-term projected deficits, something has to be done:

Also see the Congressional Budget Office’s 2009 - 2019 [...]

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What’s the difference between technique and gimmick?  Answer: whether or not it makes money.  Applied to socially responsible investing (SRI), that’s a difficult distinction to make.  On the one hand you have profitable companies like Dutch firm Philips Electronics, maker of energy-efficient light bulbs and medical equipment that satisfies demographic and climate change themes [...]

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Yesterday’s announcement by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that Medicare money would fund state projects utilizing medical home models to manage patient care after diagnosis has renewed my faith in big health policy ideas.

The medical home model offers financial incentives for health care practitioners-from doctors and nurses to nutritionists and social workers-to [...]

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Is water the new oil?  T. Boone Pickens-the largest single owner of water in the U.S.-seems to think so, and would be happy to sell it to you.

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Icarus flying too close to the sun

I have nothing against business school grads, but with the spring 2009 semester almost over, and a fresh batch of MPP’s set to compete for jobs with an overwhelming number of MBA’s, I can’t help but feel a twinge of schadenfreude for the MBA predicament.  By dint of [...]

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Growing up without the internet, random questions of mine were answered-or at least forgotten by way of pleasant diversion-by my tattered set of Encyclopedia Britannica circa 1967.  It makes me smile to think back to the anthropology section and the antiquated manner by which the human race was parceled into three easy to remember [...]

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Making cents of this financial fiasco can make your head spin. So who better to put it all in perspective than Joe Pesci in a scene from the movie, Casino.
Now to the bailout plan.

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Does the television news media affect voter turnout? If they don’t, it’s not for lack of trying.
According to Vanity Fair, Presidential aspirant extraordinaire Barack “don’tsaymymiddlename” Obama had a low-profile sit-down with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes of Fox News Channel, and apparently, “Obama lit into Ailes.” Obama, who at the time of the meeting [...]

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In the not too distant future, local agency bean counters may have less to laugh about.
For the past few years the budget proposals gathering dust on analysts’ desks could only have passed as a joke, but beginning in 2010, when the first of the Bush Tax Cuts expire, those same city and county budgets [...]

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