The Heartland Institute

This year North Carolina joined the growing number of states considering major changes to its tax system. Republican legislators proposed in early January a tax reform plan that would eliminate personal and corporate income taxes and offset the cuts with increases in state sales taxes while expanding the latter to cover all ...

The world’s largest philanthropy has targeted education policymaking, sparking debate among education wonks and watchdogs over whether some of its activities cloak government actions and amount to lobbying. “A lot of private foundations are making decisions that would normally be left up to a public institution that would be accountable ...

Benjamin Domenech discusses the latest CBO report on the implementation of Obamacare. ...

February 8, 2013 Policy Tip Sheet — North Carolina Renewable Energy Mandate Problem In August 2007, Senate Bill 3 established a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) for the state of North Carolina, requiring utilities to generate 12.5 percent of retail electricity sales from renewable energy by 2021. Municipal utilities and cooperatives ...

The U.S. Geological Survey has published the results of a study regarding water quality in Arkansas near natural gas fracking sites. The USGS analyzed water samples from 127 wells near fracking sites and found no evidence of fracking pollution. While anti-energy activists launch unfounded, irresponsible allegations that natural ...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is launching an inquiry into the impact of financial products marketed to students through colleges and universities. It will then determine whether these arrangements are in the best interest of students. "We have seen many colleges establish relationships with financial institutions to ...

As states implement provisions of the federal health care law, many are debating whether to expand their Medicaid programs in order to receive a larger federal subsidy. Gov. John Kasich recently announced expansion “makes sense for the state of Ohio,” but state taxpayers may disagree. If Ohio expands its Medicaid program to ...

On February 14, 2012 – one year ago – Fakegate began. Like Climategate , it was a scandal revealing the dishonesty and desperation of those who claim man-made global warming (alias “climate change”) is a crisis . Fakegate involved criminal activity, repeated lying, and outright theft by a high-ranking scientist in the global ...

When Congress and President Obama in January came up with their beyond-the-last-minute deal to put off addressing the coming fiscal crisis, The Wall Street Journal turned the spotlight on a little-noticed, yet too typical aspect of Washington's machinations: "The bill's seedier underside is the $40 billion or so in tax payoffs ...

The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office highlights a number of reasons why the CBO is concerned about the implementation of Obamacare. It boils down to this: Obamacare is going to be more expensive than the Obama administration thought, disrupt the marketplace more than it thought, and be tougher to implement ...

TEA Party Caucus Advisory Committee (TPCAC) compiles research from several local grassroots organizations and think tanks, as well as The Heartland Institute, to come up with a list of legislative priorities for the TEA Party Caucus of the Texas Legislature. ...

The Texas legislature has been consumed with education during this year’s session, debating lifting the state’s charter school cap, reconsidering 15 tests students must take to graduate, and a court ruling state education funding is unconstitutionally small. Even with Republicans firmly in control of the governor’s office and both ...

A majority of the senior scientists responsible for producing the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s draft report are affiliated with environmental activist groups, investigative journalist Donna Laframboise reports. Of the 13 senior scientists who put together USGCRP’s January 2013 draft report, seven have ties to activist groups ...

After teaching Spanish for many years, I was asked by my school district to teach English as a Second Language. Teaching Spanish, I was told, meant teaching a second language, so the process should be similar. It wasn’t. I didn’t realize the demographics of the learners would present such a profound teaching challenge. My ...

Pennsylvania residents can no longer dispose of electronic equipment through regular garbage pickups. Under a law that took effect January 24, landfills are no longer allowed to accept televisions, computers, printers, and similar electronic devises. Manufacturers Must Act In addition to blocking landfills from accepting electronics ...

Small changes in solar output have a significant effect on the earth’s climate, National Research Council scientists report in a new study published by the National Academies Press. The new study indicates an increase in solar output during the past century has played a greater role in recent global warming than claimed by ...

U.S. regulatory cost estimates of around $1.8 trillion per year encompass compliance costs paid by the public plus economic drag. But those estimates do not include the costs of administering the regulatory state—on-budget amounts spent by federal agencies to produce rules and to police regulatory compliance are not accounted ...

Grassroots environmentalists are increasingly calling out large, prominent activist groups for selling out to corporate donors from the renewable energy industry. Nowhere is the split between corporate-type “Big Green” groups and grassroots “Little Green” groups more apparent than in southeastern California, where Big Green activist ...

Secret negotiations over employment contracts between union representatives and government officials are the norm in nearly every state in the union. This keeps taxpayers in the dark about how compensation packages are awarded and stops journalists from knowing what goes on behind closed doors. In a report released by the Goldwater ...

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed with the Los Angeles County Flood Control District that it did not have to implement special pollution abatement plans for water flowing from concrete-encased storm water channels into more natural portions of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers. The Supreme Court ruled the U.S. Circuit Court ...