The Heartland Institute

The issues facing the 2013 legislature are many and complex. Selecting just eight and condensing them into one page each was a challenge. We hope this booklet will present a quick and useful overview for voters and legislators alike. The driving issue of 2013 will be the continued implementation of Acts 48 and171, bringing ...

The third time was not the charm for supporters of a higher cigarette tax in Missouri, as voters rejected for the third time in 11 years a ballot measure to raise the state’s cigarette tax. "While 21 percent of Missouri adults smoke, 51 percent of voters rejected another attempt to raise the state's cigarette tax at the ...

Report to the Ranking Member, Committee on the Budget, U.S. Senate. ...

This lengthy report for the World Economic Forum contends that green technology and energy is the only responsible way to meet the energy needs of consumers. Green growth is growing and investments in renewable energy are promising, but more progress is needed. The amount of present green growth is inadequate. The paper ...

Michel Nasibu, an advisor in the International Development Advisory Section of KPMG East Africa, wrote a compelling column for Forbes.com expressing concern about global warming devastating his continent. It is easy to sympathize with people who are sincerely and deeply troubled about our mutual future. Fortunately, however, Nasibu ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Texas students are clamoring for education options as the state legislature faces what seem like unending school funding struggles. Heartland President Joe Bast visited the Texas Senate in late August to discuss school choice legislation that would address both of these concerns: Taxpayer savings ...

President Obama a few months ago blamed the nation’s economic weakness on spending cuts by state and local officials “who are not getting the kind of help that they have in the past from the federal government and who don't have the same kind of flexibility of the federal government in dealing with fewer revenues coming ...

Sixty-four percent of South Carolina fourth graders were not proficient in math and 72 percent were not proficient in reading in 2011, according to the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress, the most respected nationwide test. For minorities, the stats are abysmal: only 13 percent of African-American fourth graders ...

States don’t have $390 billion they’ve promised teachers in future pensions, according to a new report by the National Council on Teacher Quality. This means taxpayers will have to backfill the difference while receiving no new services in return. For the report, No One Benefits , NCTQ researchers analyzed teacher pension systems ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Townhall.com columnist Marita Noon explains why alternative energy is hamstringing the U.S. economy. ...

Across the country today, Medicaid requires states to provide dental coverage for children. Yet Medicaid’s reimbursement rates have been, and continue to be, too low to adequately compensate traditional dental practices. This leads to significant health problems, where simple cavities become severe infections which can even prove ...

One of Utah’s most ambitious municipal broadband programs is facing serious subscribership and funding problems. The Utah Telecommunications Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA), a municipal broadband program organized in 2002 by a group of communities in the Wasatch Front area of the state, is facing massive debt, low enrollment ...

The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has told the states there will be no flexibility in implementing Medicaid expansion: either expand fully or don’t expand at all. The announcement came as states were hoping to receive extra federal assistance by expanding their programs only partially: for example ...

Two years ago, the town of Harvey Cedars in New Jersey had a two-story sand dune constructed in front of 190 ocean-front homes to protect them from storms. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did the construction. In the case of Hurricane Sandy, the project worked, and none of the homes was damaged. But the 22-feet-high dunes ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Momentum appears to be building in Congress for the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would allow states to collect sales tax from online sales even when a retailer has no physical presence in the state. Heartland Institute Government Relations Director John Nothdurft tells us what's happening ...

Central banks—the US Federal Reserve is one—come with the mystique of Oz. While the Fed fiercely denies that it is powerful enough to cure recessions with a click of the heels, there are those who believe it's true. If, however, you look behind the velvet curtains and columned lobbies, you will find good men but bad wizards ...

As states decide whether to implement a health insurance exchange under President Obama’s health care law, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has encouraged states to do so by touting the flexibility of implementation. One area where exchanges will likely provide little or no flexibility, however, is in the distribution ...

There was a time when the Harrisburg, Pa., incinerator was a successful waste-to-energy plant. Then, with the stock market rising and every American looking like a sharp investor, politicians hooked up with Wall Street in a series of exotic financial deals designed to finance plant upgrades. After a decade, they’ve incinerated ...

In this "Best of" Heartland podcast, Energy economist Donn Dears discusses the economic benefits of natural gas fracking and its outstanding environmental record. ...

A surgery center in Oklahoma has returned to a direct fee-for-service business model in an attempt to resist tight government controls and avoid heavy reliance on health insurance and the third-party payer system. The Surgery Center of Oklahoma, founded by Dr. Keith Smith and Dr. Steven Lantier, has cut out the insurance middleman ...