The Heartland Institute

Private donors are stepping up to help California keep its state parks open, allowing state officials to forego plans to close 70 of California's 278 state parks. Low Attendance, Revenues The Parks and Recreation Department had targeted the 70 state parks for closure due to low attendance and low revenues. Parks and Recreation ...

San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu has introduced legislation that would require building owners who are required to have water drinking fountains to provide bottled water refill stations as well. Reducing Use of Plastic The legislation offered June 26 is designed to enable people to keep using, or recycling ...

Few taxes imposed by state and local governments are more controversial than the estate tax, popularly referred to as the “death tax.” Estate taxes are levies on property transferred from a deceased person’s estate to relatives or other parties. The estate tax rate is scheduled to automatically increase, and the amount excluded ...

According to a report by the Texas Transportation Institute, the cost of urban traffic congestion, converted to a dollar value, quintupled between 1982 and 2007. Although congestion costs have fallen recently due to the recession and decreased economic activity, the cost of urban congestion remains more than $100 billion a year ...

With the nation’s economy still in the doldrums, unemployment compensation funds in many states have become insolvent. One reason is that waste and fraud plague the system. In some states nearly 20 percent of all benefit payments result from error or fraud, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. A July 2012 ...

A judge recently ruled that a Parent Trigger petition from parents in Adelanto, California is valid and their request to convert their children’s school to a charter must go into effect. California is the first state to pass a Parent Trigger law, which a dozen other states also have considered. It allows a simple majority ...