The Heartland Institute

A prison guard fired after an episode in the prison sued his employer and lost. Here’s what happened, as one legal blogger put it: [A] Franklin County jail guard, while delivering bologna sandwiches to inmates, asked an inmate to place his penis on a sandwich, took [a] cell phone photo of said penis sandwich, and fed ...

Illinois has more than doubled its cigarette tax, with most of the money pledged to Medicaid. But Jonathan Ingram of the Illinois Policy Institute says experience shows state officials are likely to be disappointed in the results. ...

Before Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans’ education system was defined by corruption, dropouts, and illiteracy. Then Katrina leveled the city. In the storm’s aftermath, a flow of federal, state, and private dollars coupled with political backing to upend the city and state’s education system has strengthened student achievement and ...

State and local governments in Illinois collectively owe more than $200 billion in retirement benefits for government workers, according to a report by the Illinois Policy Institute. Illinois has long drawn attention for its huge unfunded pension liability, currently pegged by state officials at $83 billion. But that figure is ...

Bret Swanson, president of the technology and innovation research firm Entropy Economics LLC, discusses the Federal Communications Commission’s mishandling of spectrum acquisition, which threatens to thwart the United State’s most robust economic and technological engine. ...

The North Carolina legislature is taking center stage in the global warming debate, voting on legislation this month that would curb the use of speculative, overly alarmist computer models to drive government policy regarding sea level rise. North Carolina resident and independent scientist John Droz has been instrumental in pointing ...

( Originally published in American Thinker ) The high-level exchanges about the Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) have come down on two sides. Six secretaries of state argue that the United States must ratify and participate in order to protect its national interests, mainly military navigational freedoms. Two former cabinet officers ...

Two reports released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services show Medicare is fiscally unsustainable as currently structured. One report, released in April by Medicare’s Trustees, used the assumptions built into current law. Another, released by CMS actuary Richard Foster in May, used alternative fiscal assumptions based ...

How much is an earlobe worth? Try $30 million. That’s what the parents of a six-year-old child whose earlobe was bitten off by a dog at a Long Island elementary school playground claim. The dog’s owner brought the dog to the playground even though dogs are banned. It attacked the young boy, and his earlobe couldn’t ...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday announced plans to expand “Operation Twist,” prompting some economists and financial experts to wonder why anyone would expect this move to succeed when similar ones have failed to achieve sustained economic improvement. “Bernanke once again is going to the same well that he ...

The U.S. Senate yesterday voted to keep costly EPA mercury restrictions on power plants. The Senate voted largely along party lines, with just a few Senators from each party bucking their party leadership. The EPA restrictions are so severe as to effectively ban the future construction of coal-fired power plants. Coal powers ...

Institute for Energy Research senior vice president Dan Kish explains how EPA regulations are stifling the economy ...

The federal government has imposed a minimum wage since 1938, and nearly all the states impose their own minimum wages. These laws prevent employers from paying wages below a mandated level. While the aim is to help workers, decades of economic research show that minimum wages usually end up harming workers and the broader ...

While large cities tend to receive attention for big-league deals giving tax money to build stadiums for pro sports teams, small towns have also been stepping up to the plate to lure minor-league or second-tier professional sports teams. Many of those small towns are losing big. One is Bridgeview, Illinois, which is in dire ...

“Liberal mayors would never have dared to challenge union power even a few years ago, but now they see charter schools, parent trigger and even vouchers as a chance to side with parents against an increasingly unpopular special interest,” writes the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Iowa did not receive a federal No Child ...

John C. Goodman of the NCPA outlines what comes after Obamacare. ...

Proprietary trading is a common financial activity that is currently being targeted for additional regulation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and several high-profile losses by major banks from their proprietary trading desks. In proprietary trading, a financial firm trades financial instruments such as stocks, commodities ...

Minimum wage has been with us since 1938, and presently many states impose their own minimum wages. These laws prevent employers from paying wages below a mandated level. Decades of economic research show that minimum wages usually end up harming workers and the broader economy more than helping. Minimum wages particularly stifle ...

The Commonwealth of Virginia may be moving closer to implementing a health insurance exchange as mandated by President Obama, raising questions about Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell’s stated intention to delay it. Virginia is also inching toward Medicaid expansion, funded by federal tax dollars, though officials still say they will ...

Mining is the process of extracting raw minerals from the earth to be converted into valuable materials used by society. We rely heavily on mining to support our standard of living, because every modern product uses basic minerals obtained through mining. For example, a car consists of 15 separate minerals, and a telephone ...