The Heartland Institute

Problem HB 1390, the Arkansas Distributed Generation Act, requires utilities to buy electricity from renewable energy sources at fixed above-market rates set by the Arkansas Public Service Commission or another regulatory authority and then socializes the higher costs among all ratepayers. According to the most recent data from 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 ...

Myth 1: A tax on Internet sales just enables states to collect taxes they are already legally entitled to collect. Fact: A state is not legally entitled to collect taxes from Internet sellers with no physical presence in that state. In Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that a mail-order or ...

Problem States across the country continue to struggle with balancing their budgets as a result of increasing spending and a lagging economy. Many states also have accumulated massive amounts of debt that taxpayers will have to pay due to years of overspending combined with state employee pensions and benefits. Thirty-one states ...

Problem: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), sometimes referred to as "Obamacare," requires states to establish and operate health insurance exchanges by 2014. States that create their own exchange must comply with federal requirements, and the exchange must be approved by the secretary of the Department of ...

Problem Some states are looking to balance their budgets by increasing taxes on specific products, such as alcohol. These taxes should be avoided: They distort the market, are highly regressive, and unsustainably prop-up spending. High alcohol taxes have caused consumers in some states to buy cheaper products across state lines ...