Policy Review articles from June 1995

Policy Review archives from June 1995

Nixon's ghost: racial quotas - may they rest in peace.
June 22, 1995... A generation has passed since the Nixon administration established racial quotas in hiring, promotion, college admissions, and government contracting. Affirmative-action policies, both public and private, have opened many economic and educational...

My guy: why my presidential candidate is Mr. Right.
June 22, 1995... As of June, nine political leaders had thrown their hats in the ring as candidates for the Republican nomination to challenge Bill Clinton in 1996. Policy Review asked a conservative supporter of each one to explain why he backed his chosen...

100 days that shook the world: the historical significance of the Contract With America.
June 22, 1995... Big Government was consolidated in America in the First Hundred Days of the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. By promising that the House would enact the Contract With America in the First Hundred Days of the 104th Congress, Speaker Newt...

Even money: a friendly critique of the flat tax. (includes related article on the mortgage interest deduction)
June 22, 1995... The flat tax is the vanguard of tax reform, and for good reason. It is sound economically and easy to explain. It corrects some long-standing problems with the current tax system: complexity, high costs of administration and compliance, a...

Caveat emptor: the case against the national sales tax.
June 22, 1995... One of the most refreshing feelings in the new Washington is the growing sense that our current tax system is not long for this world. Only days after the November election, Congressman Bill Archer, the chairman of the House tax-writing...

Minimum-wage millionaires: the capitalist way to save social security.
June 22, 1995... Suppose you are 20 years old and earning $10,000 a year. You and your employer are paying $1,240 a year in Social Security taxes. That's 12.4 percent of your hard-earned income, for benefits that you will never see. Suppose instead you could...

"What I need is a mom": the welfare state denies homes to thousands of foster children.
June 22, 1995... John, 10, is one of America's children who waits. He waits for a home, and he has been waiting nearly all of his life. When John was a toddler, his drug-addicted mom lost her parental rights, and claimed not to know who the father was. John has...

Split personality: why aren't conservatives talking about divorce?
June 22, 1995... Buried deep within one of the many articles that sought to account for the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain last year was a most surprising revelation. According to Village Voice writer Sarah Ferguson, the grunge-rock pioneer's favorite television...

Embryonic trend: how do we explain the drop in abortions?
June 22, 1995... After presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowed to make abortion "safe, legal, and rare," President Clinton and his administration devised a somewhat bizarre strategy to help accomplish that goal. Within days of assuming office, the president...

OSHA's trivial pursuit. (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
June 22, 1995... It was a horrible tragedy, as much for the mental images it generated as for the death toll. On September 3, 1991, at around 8 a.m., a fire broke out at a chicken plant in Hamlet, North Carolina. As the grease fire started on a chicken fryer and...

Safety Inc.: private cops are there when you need them. (includes related article on private security in public housing)
June 22, 1995... Every day, hundreds of travelers and visitors to New York City arrive at 42nd Street, across from Grand Central Station, after a disorienting bus trip from Kennedy or LaGuardia airports. Most of the passengers stepping out onto the sidewalk have...

Bail, humbug! Why criminals would rather be in Philadelphia.
June 22, 1995... Francis A. Biunno, a Philadelphia trial judge, had just sentenced a murderer to death. He then turned to the courtroom, called on those present to sit down, and asked the public to reflect on the breakdown of our democratic system that had led to...

Litigation tariff: the federalist case for national tort reform.
June 22, 1995... Friends of federalism are right to celebrate the recent Supreme Court decision striking down the federal law banning guns on school grounds. While we certainly must work to keep guns out of our schools, this is a state and local concern, one...

Happy meals: when lunch subsidies are chopped, kids eat better.
June 22, 1995... Every morning for seven years, Linda Desrosiers packed her lunch before heading to work as a high-school cook. "I wouldn't touch the food they had us make," she says. "People looked at it and smelled it, but no one ate it." School janitors in...

Cutting class: the PTA plays hookey from educational reform. (includes related article)
June 22, 1995... Since the publication of "A Nation at Risk" in 1983, Americans have become increasingly alarmed about the dismal results and soaring costs of their public schools. No group of citizens has a closer view of these problems or a more immediate stake...