Tag Archives: “fiscal guardrails”

‘Guardrails’ have big gaps and so don’t achieve much

By Chris Powell There’s a big gap in Connecticut’s “fiscal guardrails,” the rules enacted in 2017 to require state government to save a big part of any budget surplus and apply it to its unfunded pension obligations. The gap was noted the other day in an essay in the Hartford Courant by the executive director of the ConnecticutContinue reading “‘Guardrails’ have big gaps and so don’t achieve much”

Can state legislators resist clamor to bust ‘guardrails’?

By Chris Powell Last week’s projections of more than a billion dollars in unexpected state government tax revenue over the next two years have strengthened demands for more spending in the last days of the General Assembly’s current session. Legislators already had been grabbing furiously at the remnants of federal pandemic emergency aid, and theContinue reading “Can state legislators resist clamor to bust ‘guardrails’?”

Mutilation is mutilation, politically correct or not

By Chris Powell What’s the difference between “female genital mutilation” and “gender-affirming care”? “Female genital mutilation” is an ancient barbaric practice prevailing in primitive cultures in Africa and the Middle East. Some adherents mistakenly think Islam requires it. It is committed against minor females and is euphemized as “purification.”  “Gender-affirming care” is the euphemism forContinue reading “Mutilation is mutilation, politically correct or not”