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Exercise caution as temperatures rise

Central Pennsylvanians survived the noteworthy snowstorm that passed across the region last month. And, while meteorologists warned of additional snow heading into last weekend, the severity of the storm and resulting accumulation were nowhere near what we had Jan. 24-25. Given the frigid temperatures that followed, we’d imagine many are jumping for joy at the daytime highs in the 50s and 40s expected this week. It’ll certainly help the snow melt, but that brings with it another problem. The overnight temperatures — all expected to be below freezing — mean the reprieve can ...

Olympics a reminder of value of hard work

An analysis by Truth in Accounting on which The Center Square reported in the Feb. 10 edition of the Sun-Gazette finds that Philadelphia will overspend in the 2025/26 budget year by about $17,000 per taxpayer. As we note that this sort of budgeting is unsustainable, we do not want to single out Pennsylvania’s largest city. The budget proposal by Gov. Josh Shapiro, as we’ve repeatedly criticized in editorials the past two weeks, uses assumptions about future laws and the state’s “rainy day fund” to ramp up government spending — despite our Legislature’s clear and ...

Higher education deserves real conversation

Sian Leah Beilock, president of Dartmouth College, a private Ivy League research university located in Hanover, N.H., presented a bold assessment of higher education in this country in an opinion article she wrote for the Jan. 26 edition of the Wall Street Journal. No doubt the bold assessment presented by Beilock was not received kindly by many educators across America. Therefore, Beilock’s views should be a starting point for in-depth discussion and debate even in places where most people seem satisfied with their higher education resources and the opportunities they offer. But ...

Punishment must always fit the crime

Public corruption should always trigger outrage, regardless of the offender. When people entrusted with public dollars abuse that trust, the damage goes far beyond the financial hit. It erodes confidence in institutions that rely on credibility to function. That is why the stark contrast between two recent public corruption cases in our region is impossible to ignore — and deeply concerning. In one case, a former Marshall County assessor, an elected official, was sentenced to two to 15 years in state prison for embezzlement. That sentence properly reflects the seriousness of the ...

Remembering Ed Crane

Within the last six months, two friends, both pioneers and giants in the world of ideas in Washington, D.C., passed from this world. One, Ed Feulner, was the co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, which became the nation’s defining policy institute for conservative ideas. Now, last week, Ed Crane, the co-founder of the Cato Institute, passed away. Ed Crane built Cato to become the major presence in the nation’s capital for libertarian ideas and policy. My personal involvement with Cato began in 1996 when I was invited to join the national advisory board for Cato’s project ...

Determining what’s equal, fair and farce

When NBC affiliates in Tennessee showed the movie “Necessary Roughness” in 1994, those affiliates were required to give a Democrat Senate candidate 4 minutes and 13 seconds of free airtime. The Democrat was running against Fred Thompson, the actor turned Republican Senate candidate. When Thompson ran for President in 2008, NBC stopped aired re-runs of “Law & Order” that featured Thompson, who had been the District Attorney on the show. The Equal Time Doctrine is not new. But the national press corps, always ready to pounce on President Donald Trump and Republicans, has ...