The Heartland Institute

For insurers, the most salient fact about tobacco use can be summarized simply: overwhelming scientificevidence indicates that all widely used forms of tobacco harm human health. A significant body of evidence also indicates tobacco use correlates strongly with other risky behaviors. According to the Centers for Disease Control ...

Tobacco use poses well-known health risks. Smokers, on average, die earlier than nonsmokers. Estimates of lost life expectancy range from two or three years to 14 years; most researchers agree on six to eight years. A 2004 Surgeon General’s report concluded that smoking contributes to at least 16 potentially fatal conditions ...

Arkansas’s children deserve good teachers. Good teachers drive student achievement. But teachers in Arkansas are currently licensed under a set of bureaucratic requirements that have never been shown to improve educational quality or benefit students. These bureaucratic requirements can keep potentially good teachers away. House ...

(June 5, 2009) The most frequent question we hear is: 'When will the recession end?' 1 Last May 2 we announced the U.S. economy entered recession in January 2008. Our forecast missed by one month. The National Bureau of Economic Research declared Dec. 1, 2008, that economic activity peaked in December ...

Freshman Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe in 2007 proposed a 50 percent reduction in the state sales tax on groceries. The tax cut, enacted by the General Assembly reduced the grocery tax from six to three cents. Gov. Beebe has proposed reducing the grocery tax from three to two cents when the legislature ...

Once upon a time many economists did not accept the idea that tax rates are a factor of economic development. The literature suggests that is no longer the case. Tax rates are a factor of economic development along with private property, the right of contract and the rule of law; infrastructure; a ...

(October 12, 2009) State revenues from a 2008 severance tax hike are short of the official estimate due to deflation in the natural gas market. But a 30 percent cut in the state capital gains tax in 1999 1 led to revenues greater than the estimate due to increased economic activity. Both episodes ...

Performance-based budgeting would require state government to develop quantifiable measures for all functions and then allocate tax dollars based on the effectiveness of meeting performance goals. Activities-based costing allocates tax dollars in a consistent and uniform manner. The Murphy Commission, a Policy ...

Government accountability has taken on new meaning. Units of government are accountable when they explain to citizens the services they receive from tax dollars, how spending effects citizens' lives or those of loved ones, and whether programs are efficient or wasteful. Performance reviews should be part ...

Charter schools are public schools free from some oversight and regulation. They are approved by the state Board of Education, and operated by teachers, parents or other qualified individuals. Charter restrictions were liberalized in 1999, 2005 and 2007. Some Little Rock public school officials ...

(December 2009) Arkansas will see a reduction in job growth, with 17,100 to 23,300 fewer jobs in 2030 under a 'Cap-and-Trade' proposal, according to a new study by the Arkansas Policy Foundation and the American Council for Capital Formation. Margo Thorning, Ph.D, and Pinar Cebi Wilber, Ph.D authored the study ...