The Heartland Institute

In this policy analysis, Razeen Sally, visiting associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and the director of the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, asserts that, "there are three key policy ...

This Free Trade Bulletin from the Herbert A. Steifel Center for Trade Policy Studies, addresses the actions of the 112th Congress. The Congress made a few votes policy wise, but very little initiative. The author concludes that subsidies were expanded, while barriers saw a reduction. The election solved little. On the agenda ...

In this extensive report from the New America Foundation, the authors contend that in the past decade, states and school districts have designed new ways to expand and inform teachers’ use of data in K-12 classrooms. The shift is, in part, a function of the growing availability of student data. As a result of federal requirements ...

In this Free Trade Bulletin for the Herbert A. Steifel Center for Trade Policy Studies, asserts that the farm bill passed by Congress is too restrictive. Moreover, the bill passed leaves the U.S. open for international lawsuits. Every 5 years or so, Congress passes a series of bills known as the farm bill taken collectively ...

In this Cato Institute Policy Analysis, the authors contend that in spite of the success of trade liberalization, domestic industries try to find ways to use the power of government to protect themselves from foreign competition. Using domestic environmental or consumer safety regulation disguises protectionist policy. This regulatory ...

Many arguments have been made against subsidies for energy production, and against subsidies in general. By their very nature, subsidies distort markets and are economically inefficient, driving out legitimate competitors and leading to higher prices in the long run. They reduce incentives to innovate and improve operating efficiency ...

The minimum complaint with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is that defects in environmental legislation denounced by economists for decades continue to produce bad results. Environmental statutes set impossibly ambitious pollution standards. The resulting policies are expensive to implement. Those policies lead to EPA and ...

Despite surviving a number of threats, President Obama’s health care law remains harmful, unstable, and unpopular. It also remains vulnerable to repeal, largely because Congress and the Supreme Court have granted each state the power to veto major provisions of the law before they take effect in 2014. The Patient Protection and ...

In this white paper, which has been turned into a book by the same title, Michael Cannon states that the health care act--The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)--popularly known as Obamacare, is harmful, unpopular, and unstable. The states may be able to stop the implementation of the law. To date 34 states ...

In this Policy Analysis for the Cato Institute, Simon Lester argues that recent developments in higher ed suggest that online education is going to be of increasing importance. It only makes sense since the music and book industries have moved to a more electronic, or technical, delivery service. These new business models ...

Alex Nowrasteh, the immigration policy analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, writes in this Policy Analysis that, "the three components of politically feasible immigration reform are legalization for some unauthorized immigrants, border and work-place enforcement to impede the entry and hiring ...

What is the relationship between personal information acquired over the internet and privacy? Some believe that rapidly evolving information technologies are eroding privacy. Downes contends that "We cannot solve the privacy 'crisis' by treating information as the personal property of those to whom it refers or by adapting the ...

What passes today as a “debate” over privacy lacks agreed-upon terms of reference, rational arguments, or concrete goals. Though the stars are aligning for a market in privacy products and services, those who believe that rapidly evolving information technologies are eroding privacy regularly pitch their arguments in the direction ...

Nothing can be made, transported, or used without energy, and fossil fuels provide 80 percent of mankind’s energy and 60 percent of its food and clothing. Thus, absent fossil fuels, global cropland would have to increase by 150 percent to meet current food demand, but conversion of habitat to cropland is already the greatest ...

In this Policy Analysis, Goklany notes the development of nature in providing for humanity. We receive food, fuel, clothing, medicine, transportation, mechanical power from some element of nature. Technologies and cheap fossil fuels have contributed mightily to the betterment of humanity on this Earth. The author concludes that ...

In this Policy Analysis, transit expert Randall O'Toole makes the case for the privatization of the Amtrak rail system. Amtrak has been a great disappointment as it has not been an attractive mode of travel. The subsidized cost to taxpayers is staggering. O'Toole asserts, "nationally, average Amtrak fares are more than twice ...

Barack Obama promised transparency and open government when he campaigned for president in 2008, and he took office aiming to deliver it. Today, the federal government is not transparent, and government transparency has not improved materially since the beginning of President Obama’s administration. This is not due to lack of ...

CATO Adjunct Scholar Scott Lincicome, writes in this Policy Analysis that trade reform is desperately needed. He concludes that "curtailing federal subsidies to favored industries and by reforming national countervailing procedures to ensure that they serve the rule of international trade law—rather than protectionist objectives ...

This report--an addendum to a 2009 document--notes climate change impacts by sector: water resources, energy supply, transportation, agriculture, ecosystems, human health, and society. It also notes regional climate change impacts: northeast, southeast, midwest, great plains, northwest, and Alaska. The reports shows that there have ...

In this Policy Analysis, Nowrasteh contends that Arizona's immigration laws have hurt the state's economy. The 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA) attempts to force unauthorized immigrants out of the workplace with employee regulations and employer sanctions. The 2010 Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB ...