Issue Brief posted March 25, 2013 by Emily Goff
Virginia and Maryland’s Transportation Plans Fuel Tax Hikes, Not Mobility
The federal government’s ultimate goal for transportation should be to devolve the resources and decision making to the states, who know their transportation needs better than Washington does.[1] Embracing devolution, however, does not equate to an endorsement of ill-conceived, misguided policy prescriptions. Two such examples are the plan recently passed by the Virginia…
Backgrounder posted October 15, 2012 by Jack Spencer, Katie Tubb
Time to Allow Uranium Mining in Virginia
The federal government banned uranium mining on more than 1 million acres of federal land in Arizona.[1] Virginia lawmakers are considering doing the same in their own state. Buried 1,600 feet beneath a cattle farm in southern Virginia on a tract of private land called Coles Hill are 119 million pounds of uranium ore—the nation’s largest known deposit of uranium, and the…
Backgrounder posted July 28, 2008 by Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D.
How States Can Improve Their Transportation Systems and Relieve Traffic Congestion
Over the past several decades, federal and state transportation policies have struggled to keep pace with a rising population and increasing numbers of motorists and trucks using the roads. As a result, congestion has worsened in most major metropolitan areas, imposing extra costs on all motorists and truckers and threatening to undermine the economic vitality of many…
Backgrounder posted July 7, 2008 by James Sherk, Patrick Tyrrell
Davis-Bacon Flaws Hurt Virginia's Workers
The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 requires contractors on all federal construction projects to pay their workers the prevailing wage in their locality. The law is intended to ensure that the government does not drive down construction workers' wages, but flaws in the U.S. Department of Labor's wage determination process have caused the law to have the opposite effect in…
First Principles Series Report posted May 1, 2006 by Keith E. Whittington
How to Read the Constitution: Self-Government and the Jurisprudence of Originalism
The argument that original meaning should guide constitutional interpretation is nearly as old as the Constitution itself. Before there were strict constructionists, before there were judicial activists, there were originalists. In those early days, few seriously objected to the notion that the Constitution should be read in accord with its original meaning, though there…
Lecture posted May 5, 2004 by The Honorable Frank J. Williams
Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties in Wartime
This
month, several individuals detained as "enemy combatants" will make
their appeals for freedom to the highest court in the land. Perhaps
now, more than any other time in recent memory, the eyes of the
world are intensely focused on the United States Supreme Court. In
making their decisions, they must walk a fine line between
protecting the civil liberties we all…