Joseph Coletti

David Neumark, director of the Economic Self-Sufficiency Policy Research Institute at the University of California, Irvine, proposes taxpayers directly fund half of any minimum wage increase with a high-wage tax credit (HWTC).  He offers three advantages of his proposal in today’s Wall Street Journal: First, by offsetting part…

If we ask government to do less, it will naturally shrink. I keep returning to this basic idea of Richard Cornuelle, who dedicated the bulk of his life to spurring private, non-market-based competition with government. The John Locke Foundation’s mission is to “transform government through competition…[and establish] a better balance…

Deregulation offers a better, lower-cost way to expand access to out-of-home childcare than larger federal government subsidies, Ryan Bourne explains at Governing online. Easing regulations would address the underlying question: “Why is child care so expensive?” Staff-child ratio rules and worker-qualification requirements, in particular, increase prices and reduce availability,…

Amazon’s recent announcement of a distribution center in Garner is one of thirteen so far this year, with more likely to be announced in the coming weeks and months ahead, joining locations in Alabama, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington. Incentive offers have differed from place to place, which suggests the…

More than 1,200 volunteers across 57 North Carolina counties have been trained to help in case of disasters, search and rescue operations, terrorist attack, or fire. Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) programs get volunteers ready to supplement first responders. A Stateline story explains, “It [CERT] launched in response…

Until a week ago, I had never considered reading V.S. Naipaul, the 2001 Nobel laureate for literature. City Journal editor Brian Anderson gave a brief appreciation of Naipaul’s writing in explaining why The Masque of Africa was on his summer reading list. The discussion pointed to Naipaul’s…

“U.S. social policy is built on a foundation of values,” AEI’s Michael Strain writes at Bloomberg.com in getting to the heart of why reforming most government programs creates such heated debate.  Most discussion of work requirements, eligibility, and the costs and benefits of social programs begs the questions of personal…

From the headline to the details, everything about a recent North Carolina Health News story illustrates what is wrong with the way too many government programs try to help. The program in this case is the US Department of Agriculture’s Summer Food Service Program, which is intended to provide…