The Heartland Institute

Republicans appear to be warming to the notion of raising revenues to avoid the fiscal cliff, which is precisely the wrong thing to do. Instead they should be insisting on spending cuts. Real ones. Starting now. So says Richard Manning of Americans for Limited Government. ...

Sam Brownback is the latest Kansas governor to establish a schools efficiency task force. He may be the only one to have prompted a dueling task force from offended school board members. The Kansas Association of School Boards formed its own efficiency committee, criticizing the governor’s for relying on people with business ...

While many studies have analyzed the current debt level of the federal government and to alesser extent that of state governments, there has been little research on county and municipal debt. This report seeks to begin to fill that void, starting with Cook County, Illinois. ...

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and other Republican leaders in Congress have offered to overhaul the federal tax code to take another $800 billion in taxes over the next 10 years, but some Republican legislators are already saying no to the deal. Boehner’s leadership team, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA ...

Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe has embarked on an effort to reform the way his state pays for health care through a new initiative intended to rein in runaway costs by rewarding doctors with financial incentives to provide more efficient care. But in order to get there, his approach may incentivize rationing of health care. In ...

In the latest setback for the renewable-energy sector, the Weld County District Attorney’s Office in Colorado is investigating Abound Solar for possible criminal violations. Although the District Attorney has yet to file charges, investigators are looking into whether the company engaged in securities fraud, consumer fraud, and ...

The Heartland Institute delivered to the U.S. Congress a petition signed by more than 16,000 citizens demanding Congress rein in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) accepted the petitions in a Nov. 27 gathering at the U.S. Capitol. At the Capitol event, Inhofe warned the EPA is poised to accelerate ...

Uberbillionaire Warren Buffett recently declared tax rates don’t matter to investors, but the actions of publicly owned companies and investors as the nation nears the “fiscal cliff” say otherwise. Numerous companies have announced special dividends ahead of the end of the year, when tax rate cuts that were approved during the ...

In a rare display of unified action among global science groups, six French science academies slammed a study by an anti-biotechnology activist claiming a link between genetically modified corn and tumors. The European Food Safety Authority and science groups in Germany, Australia, and New Zealand presented similar criticism of ...

This blog entry at the free market climate blog, Master Resource, opines that there will be virtually no impact on climate change by instituting a carbon tax. Indeed, data shows that the amount the U.S. contributes to global warming is minimal. Therefore, a carbon tax will place on consumers a great financial burden with ...

All 50 states have social studies standards, but only 21 test students on the topic and nine require students to pass them to graduate, according to a new Tufts University analysis of state K-12 civics requirements. “States say civic education is important, but very few test on it,” said Cheryl Miller, manager of the American ...

Environmentalists are joining forces to oppose a planned wind farm in southern Wyoming that is planned include up to 1,000 large wind turbines. U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) officials estimate the wind turbines will kill between 46 and 64 golden eagles each year, plus a larger number of bats and other birds. The American ...

The structure of teacher pension systems in the United States is, by and large, untenable. Not only are these systems costly to states, school districts and taxpayers, but the carefully guarded retirement benefits are being squeezed and distributed unfairly in ways that are also costly to teachers. Since 2008, the National Council ...

Since the inception of President Barack Obama’s health care law, I and others in the libertarian community have argued this law represents a massive corporatist project – that under the guise of achieving subsidized universal coverage, major corporations would use the approach to undercut their competitors by raising the costs ...

A U.S. Department of Energy-commissioned study finds natural gas exports would benefit the nation’s economy. The study throws cold water on efforts by trade protectionists to pass legislation banning energy companies from transporting natural gas for sale in other countries. ...

Benjamin Domenech talks with Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner about Liberty University's case against Obamacare. ...

A Canton, Ohio driver whose car struck a police officer while the officer was directing traffic was sentenced to a year’s probation and ordered to cook Thanksgiving dinner for three police officers on disability leave. The police officer she struck signaled her to stop her car and not make a left turn as he directed traffic ...

Fifty-nine percent of Missouri fourth graders were not proficient in math and 66 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 more abysmal: Only 14 percent of African-American fourth graders ...

This blog entry at the free market climate blog, Master Resource, opines that there will be virtually no impact on climate change by instituting a carbon tax. Indeed, data shows that the amount the U.S. contributes to global warming is minimal. Therefore, a carbon tax will place on consumers a great financial burden with ...

Forty-one percent of New York school superintendents believe they will not be able to finance their budgets within four years and 77 percent say they will not have the money to comply with state and federal mandates, according to the New York State Council of School Superintendents. Superintendents said their top mandate-related ...