The Heartland Institute

There is a rich variety of data from the USA that demonstrates that raising tax rates often reduces revenues and vice versa. This is especially so when raising taxes from the high rates that are currently in place. So-called fiscal stimulus policy does not work. A stimulus has to be financed and the income effects on those ...

Thirty-five Mississippi schools have performed so poorly for three years in a row that parents can now convert them into charter schools under the state’s 2010 Parent Trigger law. This is the first year any Mississippi schools are eligible. About 50 schools improved their performance and thus avoided the eligible list. “Mississippi ...

Now that President Barack Obama has won reelection, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has extended the deadlines for states to implement health insurance exchanges. Instead of having formal plans due to HHS by November 16, HHS is requiring states simply to say “yes” or “no” to state implementation by that date ...

Renewable power mandates in Missouri are likely to cost state residents nearly $6 billion between now and the year 2021, economists at the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University report. Electricity costs by 2021 will be 15 percent higher than would be the case without the mandates, the Beacon Hill study finds. “The mandate ...

Working Paper Series At issue is an EPA regulation, known as Regional Haze, which requires that states improve visibility at federal National Parks. In June 2011, New Mexico proposed a Regional Haze plan that required a $36-million retrofit at the San Juan Generating Station. Three months later, in August 2011, the EPA rejected ...

The Administration has now released a draft executive order (EO) on cybersecurity, and with President Obama’s recent re-election, the likelihood that the EO will be issued has only increased. Furthermore, Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D–NV) has promised to bring the similarly flawed Cybersecurity Act of 2012 up for another ...

James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at The Heartland Institute and managing editor of Environment & Climate News, talks with Jim Lakely about the future of energy and environment policy in a second term for Barack Obama. Taylor and Lakely cover the Interior Department’s decision to put 1.6 million acres ...

Friday's news roundup: 1. Political advocacy has no place in classrooms, writes Esther Cepeda. 2. Tennessee's Commercial Appeal comes out in support of school vouchers . 3. A federal court strikes down a voter-approved ban on affirmative action in Michigan university admissions. 4. Virginia parents complain their district paid $7 ...

At a bare minimum, renewable energy subsidies in Texas run on average about $1.3 billion a year, with the Production Tax Credit (PTC) taking up almost half of that cost. Because of the PTC’s per megawatt hour subsidy, it causes substantially more distortion to the market than other renewable subsidies. A credible case could ...

Unfunded government employee pensions are gobbling many states’ education budgets, leaving governments scrambling to find money to cover those in addition to school operating costs. “Money doesn’t grow on trees, and it’s hard to raise taxes,” said Andrew Biggs, a pensions scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “There’s less ...

In November 2012, 58 percent of Georgia voters approved a state constitutional amendment to allow independent charter schools. Nina Rubin, communications director for the Georgia Charter Schools Association and director of the Georgia Parent Advocacy Network, joins the podcast to explain what, exactly, voters approved and what ...

Today, a record number of school districts—seven–-have at least 30 percent of their public school students enrolled in public charter schools. Charter schools in New Orleans enroll an astounding 76 percent of public school students. A total of 25 school districts have 20 percent or more of their public school students enrolled ...

With fiscal stimulus off the table in a divided Congress, the uncertainty of tax hikes next year, and burdensome regulations discouraging investment, the economy faces substantial uncertainty. Many, including presidents of the regional Federal Reserve banks are worried that more liquidity will accelerate future inflation. It’s clear ...

Homeowners aren't the only ones feeling the pain from the troubled housing market. The Federal Housing Administration has seen a loss of 45 percent in its reserves over the course of a single year, exposed in a recent audit by Integrated Financial Engineering, Inc. of Rockville, Maryland. Down from $4.7 billion in 2010, FHA ...

Regardless of whether they are supporters or opponents of President Obama’s health care law. members of Congress will have to revisit the legislation soon to correct some serious flaws. Here is a revenue-neutral approach to begin the necessary corrections: Delay the scheduled cuts in Medicare spending by five years and pay for ...

Call it the televised debate Al Gore has been avoiding for years. Tonight, as Gore hosts another 24-hour televised snooze-fest, meteorologist Anthony Watts launches WUWT-TV (Watt’s Up With That TV). At the same time Gore drones on and on with character assassinations, straw man arguments and out-of-context weather anecdotes, more ...

A girl who became frightened and fell down during a tour through a southern Illinois haunted house on Halloween in 2011 is suing those who sponsored the site. The girl is suing the city of Alton and the local American Legion post for damages of at least $50,000. She claims the haunted house was dangerous. “American ...

The captain of an Italian cruise ship that hit a rock and sank in January, killing 32 passengers, was fired from his job. So now, of course, he’s suing for wrongful termination. An investigation disclosed the Costa Concordia, with 4,000 passengers aboard, was brought too close to shore and capsized. The captain bailed ...

Having squandered most of 2012 with posturing and delay, Congress and the President are now careening toward a budgetary precipice of their own making. The so-called fiscal cliff will be reached just after New Year’s Eve—bringing a nearly $500 billion tax hike in 2013 and a devastating 10 percent reduction in national defense ...

The Cato Institute's "Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors" is out. All the governors who received "A" grades this year are Republicans, and all those who received "F" grades are Democrats. Cato's Chris Edwards discusses the report card and what appears to be a growing divide between Republican and Democrat ...