The Heartland Institute

Less than one month after Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr issued a report declaring the city’s finances to be in worse shape than nearly anyone suspected when he assumed the job in March, Detroit has defaulted on a scheduled debt payment of $39.7 million. The default happened June 14, the same day Orr issued a debt ...

Historian and author Eric John Abrahamson of John Hopkins University discusses government's long involvement in promoting homeownership and the relationship between government and the housing sector. ...

Some international tax experts note a big irony in a U.S. Senate subcommittee recently taking Apple Inc. to task for allegedly using “offshore tax havens” to avoid paying U.S. taxes on foreign income. They note more irony in continued U.S. government pressure to compel overseas banks to give up information on Americans with ...

Seventeen major retailers have filed a federal lawsuit over a $7.2 billion settlement regarding “swipe fees” to process credit card transactions – and card companies Visa and MasterCard have in turn sued the retailers and industry trade groups that want to back out of the settlement. Target, Macy's, and Kohl’s are among the ...

President Barack Obama has proposed studying the possibility of privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation's largest government-owned utility. Privatization expert Leonard Gilroy of Reason Foundation tells us why the president has a good idea, and why area politicians in both major political parties oppose it. ...

The scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service that exploded into the headlines in mid-May is still being investigated, but the implications already appear wide, perhaps even to the point of delaying implementation of Obamacare. With allegations swirling that the IRS was used as a political weapon against groups that are ...

The emergency financial manager for Detroit has issued a report that says the city's finances are in worse shape than nearly anyone suspected before Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) appointed him to the job in March. Snyder appointed corporate turnaround expert Kevyn Orr to be Detroit's emergency financial manager. He is a lawyer ...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) says the state should use additional revenue it might receive from Internet sales taxes to cut the state’s income tax. “I want to make clear, should federal Marketplace legislation become law, my intention would be for any resulting additional revenue be used to provide individual income tax ...

Revelations that the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative, libertarian, and constitutionalist groups for harassment could cause so much backlash that many aspects of Obamacare, which relies heavily on the IRS, could be delayed or rolled back. So says Dr. Keith Kantor, CEO of natural foods company Service Foods, who ...

Attorney Jim Duggan of the Duggan Bertsch, LLC law firm in Chicago specializes in international wealth planning. He warns there is no way to avoid the United States government learning about overseas bank holdings. And he says the aggressiveness of the United States government toward overseas banks is raising sovereignty ...

ITTN PODCAST: Steve Stanek, managing editor of Budget & Tax News and John Nothdurft, Director of Government Relations at the Heartland Institute, discuss the recent passage in the U.S. Senate of the Marketplace Fairness Act. Host: Jim Lakely ...

American taxpayers handed General Motors $50 billion to save the company from going out of business. Now General Motors is pouring billions of dollars of investment into China -- more investment in China than in the United States. China expert Ying Ma of SDB Partners joins us to discuss General Motors investment in China ...

Now that the U.S. Senate has voted 69-27 to allow states to compel online retailers to collect sales tax even when they have no physical presence in a state where a shopper is located, will we see a stronger pushback? Politicos expect a tougher fight in the House of Representatives. Lobbyists including former lawmakers and ...

Time and time again, businesses and industries looking for government handouts have produced studies that predict big paybacks. Roy Cordato of the John Locke Foundation says there's a great reason to take these studies with a shaker or two of salt: They look only at benefits and ignore the high costs of such handouts. ...

The California Supreme Court has given a victory to taxpayers in its unanimous ruling that the City of Long Beach must recognize class claims to refund illegally collected telephone taxes. McWilliams v. City of Long Beach revolved around the city’s refusal to refund the tax except to individual taxpayers who demanded their ...

Why such secrecy in Philadelphia? No one who knows will say because, well, it’s a secret. This much we do know: Mayor Michael Nutter and other city officials in April held a two-day conference financed by municipal bond underwriters. Approximately 100 municipal bond underwriters attended. The conference was closed to the public ...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) has announced he plans to seek legislation to end the state’s unique requirement that all auto insurance policies provide unlimited lifetime medical benefits. Snyder endorses a plan that would limit mandatory benefits under the state’s no-fault personal injury protection system to $1 million. Even ...

Economics professor and author Randall Holcombe explains how big government begets big increases in the amount of cronyism that rewards and protects politically connected businesses, individuals and interest groups at the expense of everyone else. ...

Federal bankruptcy trustee Louis Freeh has filed a lawsuit against Jon Corzine who was in charge of MF Global when the commodity trading firm collapsed in 2011. The lawsuit accuses Corzine and two other MF Global officials of recklessly exposing the company to risks that led to its bankruptcy and the improper use of client ...

Local officials in thousands of communities around the country love to do "economic development" that doles out tax breaks, taxpayer-backed loans and other "incentives" to attract specific businesses. Pete Sepp of the National Taxpayers Union says it's really corporate welfare that sends the message, "Don't come here unless ...