Must reads: IMMIGRATION

Immigration bill not ready for prime time
Charles Krauthammer
This is amnesty — and I would be all in favor of it if I believed in the border enforcement mechanisms in this bill. If these are indeed the last illegal immigrants to come in, let us generously and humanely take them out of the shadows. But if we don’t close the border, that generous and humane gesture will be an announcement to the world that the smart way to come to America is illegally.

The amensty fraud
Thomas Sowell
All attention is focused on what to do to accommodate those who committed this crime. It is a question that would be recognized as an insult to our intelligence on any other issue.

‘Ordinary Coloradans’ can’t afford this kind of help

The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist looks beyond. – Henry Hazlitt.

When Democrats at the State Capitol trumpeted their successes on behalf of "ordinary Coloradans" recently, I couldn’t help but reflect on this key point from Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson.

The way top Democrats tell it, we ordinary Coloradans stand to benefit from a flotilla of renewable energy bills, measures to "help small-business combat soaring health insurance costs," legislation to punish "slipshod construction," and more.

These and so many other bills that passed the legislature this year illustrate what happens when politicians get so close to a perceived problem that they don’t see how their "solutions" will obviously harm the rest of us. (more…)

Must Reads for May

Was Osama Right?
Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal
Islamists always believed the U.S. was weak. Recent political trends won’t change their view.

Lack of money does not cause schools’ problems
Robert Hardaway, Rocky Mountain News
Expenditures on public schools in the U.S. exceed those of any other country on earth. Since 1970, teacher salaries have exploded 18 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, while teacher-faculty ratios have declined by one-fourth.

The Do-One-Thing Congress
Investors Business Daily
Other than deserting our troops and complaining about President Bush, what have Democrats accomplished?  Well, they’ve passed 26 laws — 12 of them renaming federal buildings.

So, you really want to pull out of Iraq?
Max Boot, Wall Street Journal
There is a serious and widening disconnect between the timetables that commanders are using to guide their actions in Iraq and those being demanded by politicians in Washington.

Dems doubletalk on Iraq
Victor Davis Hanson
When both congressional Democrats and Republicans cast their votes to go along with President Bush, they even crafted 23 formal causes for war. So far only the writ concerning the fear of stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction has in hindsight proven false.

World Bank an outdated relic
George F. Will
It is difficult to demonstrate that World Bank loans have produced growth, let alone as much growth as private capital would have produced. Furthermore, when the bank provides debt relief, it creates what economists call moral hazard, an incentive for perverse behavior.

Light bulb lunacy
Steven Milloy, Junk Science

How much money does it take to screw in a compact fluorescent lightbulb?  About $4.28 for the bulb and labor — unless you break the bulb.   Then you could be looking at a cost of about $2,004.28.

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