Publication Date: Friday, February 03, 2012

It’s not often that I praise Sen. Barbara Mikulski (although anyone her height who tries to fight off a mugger can’t be all that bad),  but today I’ll give her some not-overly-enthusiastic praise for her efforts to speed up the drug approval process of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). While Mikulski deserves to be lauded for recognizing the problem, there are better ways to fix the FDA than her solution -- throwing more money at it.

Publication Date: Thursday, February 02, 2012

Inspiration for this morning’s blog post comes from the “Myth vs. Fact on the Gas Tax Increase” posting that we released earlier this week. If you haven’t seen it yet, please take a minute or two and go check it out. It includes some surprising statistics, my “favorite” being that “in the past three years, Maryland has diverted $1 billion from the Transportation Trust Fund to pay for other projects.” Doesn’t sound like a very trustworthy fund if you ask me!  

Publication Date: Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Want to have your kid born in your living room or kitchen? If you do, the state of Maryland makes it fairly difficult for you to employ the services of a midwife to help you. There’s an effort afoot to relax the state’s restrictions on midwives so it’s easier for Marylanders to give birth at home. I say, let’s free the Maryland midwives!

Publication Date: Tuesday, January 31, 2012

In a recent editorial that was generally critical of Gov. Martin O’Malley’s FY 2013 budget plan, the Washington Post lauded one proposal: requiring local school systems to pick up half the cost of their teachers’ pensions and other retirement benefits. Calling the proposal “courageous,” WaPo explained:

Publication Date: Monday, January 30, 2012

My buddy Vinny DeMarco is at it again. He recently held a rally claiming that the alcohol tax he pushed for last year was a huge success. The press, from every report I’ve seen, gave him ample coverage with nary a hard question or even quizzical look (OK, I’m making up the quizzical look thing, but it stands to reason). That’s unfortunate, because from what I can tell, the whole rally was pretty much based on one whopper after another.