The Heartland Institute

This year North Carolina joined the growing number of states considering major changes to its tax system. The North Carolina Tax Fairness Act, introduced in May by Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger , lowers both personal and corporate income taxes, cuts the franchise business tax, abolishes the death tax, and lowers the ...

The Obama administration recently made the establishment of a National Infrastructure Bank part of its proposed budget. The project would allocate $10 billion to the National Infrastructure Bank with the goal of leveraging up to $20 billion in total infrastructure investment. Three major legislative proposals establishing a National ...

According to Governing magazine, there were 28 public bankruptcies in 2011 and 2012. Although that number fell short of many experts’ predictions, it still represents a significant increase in defaults. Of the dozens of cities considering bankruptcy, Stockton, California is the largest and has received the most attention. A recent ...

The Vermont Legislature is considering a vast new array of tax changes and increases that could have a major effect on Vermonters. The proposals under House bill 528 , which recently passed through the Vermont House of Representatives, would increase income tax rates for higher-income earners while adding new sales taxes that ...

The state employee pension system in Illinois is broke, both financially and structurally. Without an overhaul of the current, unsustainable system, Illinois taxpayers will continue to suffer substantially higher taxes to bail out the state for its imprudent policies. If state workers and union representatives cannot accept sensible ...

Kentucky’s government employee pension system is currently carrying a $33 billion unfunded liability and has less than half the money it needs to cover all its present and future obligations. Both houses of the Kentucky General Assembly are considering proposals that would reform the state’s failing pension system. One proposal ...

In his State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama proposed raising the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 per hour. At the state level, ten states had increases in their state’s minimum wage go into effect in early 2013. According to data collected by the National Conference of State Legislatures , currently 18 ...

The 9-1-1 and emergency response systems play a key role in public health and safety. These services are funded through fees added on to telephone bills, which are then placed into a fund that is supposed to be used only to maintain and improve these systems. In some states, however, these funds are being used for other ...

The 9-1-1 and emergency response systems play a key role in public health and safety. These services are funded through fees added on to telephone bills, which are then placed into a fund that is supposed to be used only to maintain and improve these systems. In some states, however, these funds are being used for other ...

It’s a tale of two numbers: $2.9 billion and $9.6 billion. The first number, $2.9 billion, represents the reduction in education funding in the state budget for fiscal 2012-2013. The second number, $9.6 billion, represents the projected value of the annual oil and gas production in the State of Ohio by 2014 as a result of ...

In Massachusetts, as in many other states and municipalities across the country, the high cost of traditional defined-benefit public pensions has become an important issue as unfunded liabilities have grown out of control. According to Jim Lamenzo, actuary for the state’s Public Employee Retirement Association Commission, Massachusetts ...

This essay is the first of a series of Heartland Policy Briefs by the author on entitlement reform. Soon after World War II, U.S. federal government spending as a percent of gross domestic product (GDP) stabilized at around 20 percent. It remained there until President Barack Obama took office. That period covered close to ...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 is working. Since its implementation in July 2011 to reduce state spending, the state budget has been balanced, property taxes have been reduced, and state revenue collections are surging, all for the first time in a decade or more. Dozens of school districts were able to balance their ...

As Congress considers whether to allow the capital gains tax rate to increase at the beginning of 2013, states across the nation are debating whether to change their own capital gains tax rates. Oregon’s capital gains taxes are among the nation’s highest. According to the Federation of Tax Administrators, Oregon is tied with ...

Several states either have begun transitioning away from franchise taxes or are considering repeal. A franchise tax is a state tax levied on businesses and partnerships chartered within a state. It acts as a privilege tax: A company paying the tax is allowed to do business in a state under its corporate name. Franchise taxes ...

Absent action from Congress and the president, the United States will face what many are calling a “fiscal cliff” at the beginning of 2013. That describes the increase of several key tax rates as the early-2000s tax cuts expire, the reduction of certain jobs provisions, activation of $1.2 trillion in across-the-board budget ...

The pension system in Illinois is broke, both literally and structurally. Funding Illinois’ pension system is becoming increasingly difficult. According to Bloomberg, the national median funding ratio for state pension systems is around 71.7 percent for the year through June 2011. Illinois has the nation’s weakest funding ratio ...

Like many other states across the nation, Texas faces tough decisions about the pension benefits it provides its state employees. Although Texas has one of the better-funded state pension systems, it still faces many of the same problems other states face. Texas’s pension system is a “defined-benefit” system. These are more ...

On November 6, voters in San Antonio, Texas will vote on whether the city should own and operate a network of early childhood education centers. The initiative is controversial, and rightly so. There are many reasons to question whether such a network, which would operate in competition with existing private and public day ...

The following is an excerpt from a speech Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast delivered at the "Yes, We Did Build It" rally in Waukesha, WI on September 22, 2012 : Back in July, President Obama said, If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life ...