Word: coste
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Senate is now trying to work into law a provision that would give people a $15,000 tax credit for buying a new home. This would substantially expand the cost of the bailout, if people are willing to take advantage of it. The average American who still bothers to read a newspaper is acutely aware that most signs point to a housing market which is still spiraling down, no matter what pending home sales numbers say. All of the "For Sale" signs in most neighborhoods and auctions of foreclosed properties are a sure indication that housing supply is still extremely...
...drug-testing program in exchange for higher wages. Now some Hawaii teachers are resisting. (So far, no drug tests have been administered.) The contentious issue of teacher testing has also become the subject of recent court cases in North Carolina and West Virginia, where educators argue that the cost and time taken by random tests would be better spent in the classroom. (See pictures of the college dorm's evolution...
...answer is cost. In the West Virginia drug-testing case, which is currently working its way through the federal court system, Judge Joseph Goodwin of the U.S. District Court noted that it costs about $44 a pop to do urine tests, which would cost the West Virginia school district in question about $37,000 a year. (Here's a PDF of Goodwin's preliminary injunction against drug-testing.) That same $37,000 could easily pay for a full-time teacher, meaning that drug-testing would have to be sufficiently valuable to displace an entire teaching position...
...difficult to make sure that we avoid squashing new life as we search it out - although doing so could add considerable cost to any space mission. Probes like Phoenix can be more fully sterilized before launch, and debris from any unmanned craft could eventually be recovered. The real challenge will occur if and when humans set foot on Mars or any other planet and begin establishing a more permanent presence, especially if we explore beneath the surface, out of the reach of the sterilizing solar UV radiation. When that day comes, we'll need to step carefully to make sure...
...good at coping with snow would be to exercise British understatement. Heavy snow is too rare to warrant serious investment in equipment, especially in London and the southeast, where this was, as excitable weather forecasters declared, the biggest "snow event" in 18 years. The heavy fall may cost some 3 billion pounds (about $4.3 billion), since a fifth of the workforce took a "duvet day" and businesses stayed shuttered. It also stopped Tube service, caused chaos at airports and closed schools. Thousands remained shut for 48 hours, suggesting that Londoners, even more than Washingtonians, lack the "flinty Chicago toughness" President...