The Heartland Institute

A wave of education reform advocacy organizations are working to pull parents into larger policy debates over school reform by mobilizing them to lobby policymakers, testify in front of school boards, and vote for certain policies. Reformers’ high hopes and good intentions often lead to naïve expectations of what parent power ...

Despite climate alarmist concerns that many high latitude ecosystems will be threatened by global warming-induced extinctions before the end of this century, the authors of this study find that “moderate climate change with an average temperature increase of 1.8°C over the next hundred years and a moderate frequency of extreme ...

A proposed solar power plant in the Mojave Desert will not have to meet the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) now that Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has signed legislation exempting the project from the law. Environmental groups argued against the exemption, saying the solar power plant would despoil the ...

Corporate Income Taxes Problem All 50 states currently have a higher combined federal and state corporate tax rate than France, whose rate is third-highest among OECD countries 1. Although corporate income taxes make up a fairly minor part of state tax revenue, they have a harmful impact on economic behavior. Nonetheless, many ...

To address Michigan’s chronically deficit-laden pension system, Michigan Senate Republicans are reviving an effort to switch new public school employees to 401(k)-style retirement plans. Senate Bill 1040 would close the current system to new employees and implement a defined-contribution plan to pay employees' retirement benefits ...

“A state is competitive if it has in place the policies and conditions that ensure and sustain a high level of per capita income and continued growth.” How does one state create more economic activity, and hence more income for its citizens, than other states? What special characteristics or attributes lead to generating this ...

Valero Energy Company has temporarily suspended operations at two ethanol production plants due to high corn prices and low ethanol demand. Valero suspended production at its Albion, Nebraska facility on June 19 and its Linden, Indiana facility on June 26. Valero is keeping eight other plants operational for now. High Corn ...

Now that the Supreme Court has declared the individual mandate constitutional, what’s next? Republicans say “repeal and replace” the president’s law. But what should we replace it with? When Barack Obama was a candidate for president, he endorsed universal health insurance, but opposed forcing individuals to buy their own insurance ...

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law, governors are divided on how to respond to the requirement that states set up health insurance exchanges. Several Republican governors are opposing this provision, but one exception is Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who is ...

A reanalysis of U.S. surface temperature station data shows temperatures are rising only half as much as claimed by the U.S. Historical Climatology Network and other government overseers of temperature data. The reanalysis is the first using the Siting Classification System devised by the MATEO-France French national meteorological ...

Townhall.com columnist Marita Noon explains why alternative energy is hamstringing the U.S. economy. ...

The rapid growth of online retailing has been accompanied by increasing calls by state and local officials to allow them to capture more sales tax revenue and by brick-and mortar retailers to “level the playing field.” The Marketplace Fairness Act (S. 1832) seeks to capture more tax revenue for states on Internet purchases ...

North Dakota is reporting extreme teacher shortages as the state booms economically thanks in great part to oil extraction, but it’s not the only place where such shortages are occurring. The federal government’s list of teacher shortages finds them in every state through 2013. Teachers who work in locales on the federal shortage ...

If you happened to watch the opening ceremonies of the Olympic games in London, you may have been surprised at the degree to which the bizarre performance turned into a defense of the National Health Service, taking some odd-looking forms. As Tim Blair writes at the Telegraph , “World War II didn’t rate a mention, apart ...

Al Armendariz, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 6 Administrator who resigned in disgrace after being caught on camera saying EPA had a policy of arbitrarily “crucifying” oil and natural gas companies, has accepted a job as a top staffer at the Sierra Club as a spokesman against coal-fired power plants. Armendariz ...

Consider this: Internet social networking is the only form of media in the U.S. where age restrictions regarding access are enforced by law. A cinema can admit a teen under 17 unaccompanied by parent or guardian to an R-rated movie without risk of legal penalty. Likewise, a game shop clerk can sell or rent a video game ...

Mattie Duppler of Americans for Tax Reform tells us about Cost of Government Day, an annual report that looks at the combined costs of taxes, fees and regulations. Nationally, Americans worked until July 15 to pay for government, though people in some states with higher- than-average taxes and regulations are still working ...

Berin Szoka and Ryan Radia discuss the brief filed in federal court challenging the constitutionality of the Federal Communication Commission's 2011 "Preserving the Open Internet" Order. ...

Union officials in the fifth-largest U.S. school district don’t know how a free-market think tank obtained teachers’ email addresses to send union opt-out information, but they’re filing a lawsuit over it. Nevada’s Clark County School District teachers can only leave their local union between July 1 and July 15 each year. The ...

Kansas, one of the 26 states that challenged the constitutionality of President Obama’s health care law before the U.S. Supreme Court, is embroiled in controversy over an information technology program that some see as a step toward implementing the insurance exchanges and Medicaid expansion mandated by Obama’s law. State activists ...