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Opposition widespread to school mental health checks
Advocacy organizations and many Connecticut residents are united in opposing a bill mandating the psychiatric screening of children and teenagers in Connecticut. S.B. 374, An Act Requiring Behavioral Health Assessments for Children, would require schools to administer...
Q&A: Economist suggests free-market solutions to America’s prison problem
Connecticut’s early release program is hotly debated by critics questioning the plan’s impact on public safety. For most, prison is the default solution to crime, but some experts question this approach. Imprisonment does not have to be the only answer. Learning about...
Bipartisan Gun Effort Comes Under Fire
The three month deadline for the CT General Assembly to pass gun legislation in the wake of Sandy Hook has come and gone. Legislators are now facing pressure to hastily produce any type of strong legislation regarding guns. In the aftermath of Sandy Hook tragedy many...
Connecticut’s model health insurance plan no longer for sale
The health insurance plan selected by Connecticut’s Affordable Care Act insurance exchange as its “benchmark” is no longer affordable to the extent it is no longer even for sale, first reported by Trudy Lieberman writing for the Columbia Journalism...
Lawmakers Putting the Wrong Fuel in Connecticut’s Economic Engine
Although it has been exactly a week since a staffer filled President Obama’s limousine with the wrong type of fuel, thereby rendering it useless after being flown all the way to Israel, the story presents such a hilariously applicable metaphor that I would be remiss...
Auditors: State vaccine inventory ‘grossly inadequate’
The Department of Public Health’s vaccine inventory is “grossly inaccurate,” according to a recent audit. DPH did not record vaccine supplies, prompting the Auditors of Public Accounts to request a report. Subsequent review of the DPH submission found failure to...
State contractors aren’t allowed to talk about donations to government
State contractors and the people who work for them can make donations to Connecticut’s government and quasi-public agencies, but they can’t talk about them. In 2006, the Citizen’s Ethics Advisory Board held that lobbyists, state contractors and businesses regulated by...
Final Fortune: Women’s Edition
If financial success can predict the outcome of college basketball games, the University of Michigan will win both NCAA basketball tournaments, despite getting seeded fourth (men) and eighth (women). I completed a NCAA tournament bracket – provided by ESPN – based on...
Residents ask state lawmakers to stop treating them like piggy banks
Residents gathered at the statehouse on Friday to ask lawmakers to stop thinking about them as revenue sources and to instead think about how the state’s laws are affecting their daily lives. Connecticut College student Michael Coscarelli said he was at the Capitol on...
The Final Fortune: Who would win the NCAA tournament if sports were all about money?
If financial success can predict the outcome of college basketball games, 4-seed Michigan will win it all this year. I completed a NCAA tournament bracket – provided by ESPN – based on an analysis of federal filings from each of the 64 teams in the tournament this...