It’s Friday!
– The Foundation’s 20th Anniversary Celebration and Freedom Award dinner begins at 6 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 24, at the Renaissance Waverly Atlanta. Joining the event to honor the Freedom Award recipient, Rogers Wade, are Georgia Governor Nathan Deal and U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia. Tickets to the reception and dinner are $150 per person; tables and sponsorships are also available. Show your support for the Foundation and share our milestone celebration. Go to http://tinyurl.com/3kwyxf6.
Quotations
– “You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” – William Boetcker
– “The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery.” – Winston Churchill
Events
– Americans For Prosperity Foundation holds its fifth Annual Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 4 and Nov. 5. Speakers at this national gathering of grassroots activists include Herman Cain, Mark Levin, Andrew Breitbart, Ken Cucinelli, Grover Norquist, John Fund, Jonah Goldberg, Phil Kerpen and Tim Phillips, with dozens of strategic training sessions. Discounts are available for groups, couples and students. Find out more and register at www.DefendingTheDream.org.
– Economics in One Lesson: The deadline is today to register for “Economics in One Lesson,” a free seminar by the Mises Institute for high school students in Atlanta on Friday, Oct. 21, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. This seminar, sponsored by Dr. Don W. Printz, takes place at the Crowne Plaza Atlanta Perimeter at Ravinia, 4355 Ashford Dunwoody Road. Registration is open to all public, private and homeschooled high-school students and their chaperones. Register at http://mises.org/events/163/.
Education
– Georgia children who attend charter public schools are typically boxed into smaller facilities that have inadequate library, science, art, music, cafeteria and physical education resources compared to traditional public schools. That is the conclusion of a six-month study announced by the Georgia Charter Schools Association during its ninth annual conference. In the Forum, the Foundation’s blog, Foundation editor Mike Klein reports on the study and on a proposal to create a national legal defense fund for charter schools nationwide. Read more athttp://forum.georgiapolicy.org/.
– Digital learning is changing the face of education: Hard-to-find speech therapists are easier to come by in some school districts, where students receive face-to-face instruction via live, interactive computer sessions. Read the Education Week report at http://tinyurl.com/3u6uc5y.
Economy
– A real jobs act: Congratulations to Congress and President Obama, who this week approved free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. The administration says the three deals will boost U.S. exports by $13 billion a year and that the agreement with South Korea alone will support 70,000 American jobs.
Health care
– We’re from the government and we’re here to help: The federal government has missed its Oct. 1 deadline to draft rules, mandated as part of last year’s federal health-care law, that would force drug and medical-device companies to disclose their gifts, fees and payments to doctors. The deadline for drafting the disclosure rules came and went quietly and without any explanation from the Obama administration. Source: ProPublica
– Unintended consequences: The federal health care law requirement that employers offer health benefits to full-time employees will price many unskilled workers out of full-time jobs, warns James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation. Businesses employing less-skilled workers will probably respond by dumping their employees onto the federally subsidized health care exchanges and replacing full-time positions with part-time jobs. In Georgia, the minimum cost to hire a 2,000-hour per year worker would become $27,029 for an employee with a family health plan and $19,500 for an employee with a single health plan. Those numbers include all employer-related taxes. Read more at http://tinyurl.com/3vulnxb
Taxes and Spending
– A “Super Committee” of 12 congressional members must submit recommendations by Nov. 23 for between $1.2 trillion and $1.5 trillion in federal deficit reduction. Proposals to cut about $1 trillion have come from two unlikely allies: the National Taxpayers Union and U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The 54 cuts they propose would provide savings of $214.9 billion from wasteful subsidies to agribusiness and other corporations; $428.8 billion from low-priority or unnecessary military programs; $232.3 billion from improvements to program execution and government operations; and $132.1 billion from reforms to major entitlement programs. The full Congress will vote on the committee recommendations by December 23..
Telecommunications
– Limiting telecom subsidies: Affordable access to basic telephone service in rural Georgia is important, but Georgia consumers shouldn’t be footing the bill for below-market rates. Despite a law passed in 2010 designed to reduce subsidies, rural telephone company requests for subsidies increased significantly this year, according to a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article. Some of the companies seeking subsidies are charging customers lower rates than what the customers would pay in a suburban or urban area. Consumers, who ultimately pay for the subsidies, should hope the Public Service Commission gives these requests a thorough review.
– Down to the wireless: There are now 327.6 million cellphone subscriptions in the United States even though the population is 315.5 million, according to the Wireless Association. That’s 9 percent growth over last year. Of those 327.6 million subscriptions, 95.8 million are for smartphones. Text messaging use has increased 16 percent for the year, with 1.138 trillion messages being sent in the past 12 months. Data traffic surged, too, growing 111 percent year over year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this year that 26.5 percent of Georgia adults now live in wireless-only households.
Visit www.georgiapolicy.org to read the Foundation’s latest commentary, “Time to Replace the Medical Liability Tort System,” by Richard L. Jackson.
Have a great weekend.
Kelly McCutchen
FRIDAY FACTS is made possible by the generosity of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s donors. If you enjoy the FRIDAY FACTS, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to help advance our important mission by clicking here. Visit our Web site at www.georgiapolicy.org/. Join The Forum at http://forum.georgiapolicy.org/. Become a fan of the Foundation on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/gppf.
