The Heartland Institute

On December 12, 2009, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a subdivision of the California Environmental Protection Agency, published its final rule to reduce diesel exhaust emissions in the state, the “Goods Movement Emission Reduction Plan” (GMERP). The controversial plan set up a draconian, regressive tax, one of the ...

Introduction The economic recession that began in 2007 exposed and aggravated a government fiscal crisis that had been brewing for many years at the national, state, and municipal levels of the U.S. Slow or negative economic growth, falling housing values, and rising government spending came together to make it impossible to ...

The Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank whose researchers have questioned government subsidies to sports stadiums since the mid 1980s, has released a new Policy Brief proposing fan ownership of teams as a solution to “sports stadium madness.” Author Joseph Bast , president of the institute, notes “sports stadium subsidies ...

Texas’s franchise tax—better known as the “margins tax”—does not work as advertised. The tax has not achieved any of the goals its creators set out for it. In the 2012 legislative session, the Texas legislature should consider replacing it with some other means of raising revenue ... or with nothing at all. This paper describes ...

The Heartland Institute is a research and educational organization devoted to discovering, developing, and promoting free-market solutions to social and economic problems. Through offices in Chicago, Washington, Texas, and Ohio, Heartland consistently has advocated an insurance environment that allows consumers to purchase the insurance ...

In February 2008, Pennsylvania resident Corey Middleton called the police and his insurance company to report a serious problem. Someone, he said, had stolen his car from a street parking space in Philadelphia. His insurer and the police did cursory initial investigations and, unable to establish the car’s location, the insurer ...

The Ohio legislature is considering H.B. 39, a bill to regulate the operation and accreditation of proprietary colleges and postsecondary institutions in the state of Ohio, introduced on January 20, 2011 by state Rep. Clayton R. Luckie (D-Dayton). Proprietary colleges and universities – henceforth referred to as for-profit colleges ...

INTRODUCTION Conceived in 2009 by liberal activists in Los Angeles as a way to work around school boards hostile to reform, California’s landmark parent empowerment law, also known as the Parent Trigger, was passed quickly by the state legislature in January 2010 as part of a package bills aimed at improving the state’s chances ...

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 ...

CLICK BELOW FOR FULL-TEXT PDF The Indiana School Scholarship Act (ISSA), signed into law by Gov. Mitch Daniels in May 2011, creates a school voucher program for low- and middle-income families in Indiana, doubles the preexisting cap on a scholarship tax-credit program, and creates a tax deduction for any family that pays out ...

Texas Representative Sid Miller introduced HB 33, the Taxpayers Savings Grant (TSG) program, at the start of the legislature s 2011 Special Session. The Texas Legislative Budget Board (LBB) released its fiscal note on the bill on June 6. The author was asked to review the fiscal note and correct any errors, of which several ...

In the aftermath of a hurricane landfall, there often isn’t enough data or experience relating to the losses to make known for certain whether a given loss resulted from wind or water. Each time an indeterminate loss situation (total home destruction) takes place, protracted legal battles and custom-made agreements are currently ...

State policymakers face a complex task as they decide whether to implement President Barack Obama’s health care law. For those in one of the 29 states currently mounting legal challenges to the law, the decision of how to proceed in the short-term is even more complex. They must decide whether to implement a series of burdensome ...

The Taxpayers’ Savings Grant Program (TSGP) is a very concise piece of legislation, apparently intended to address the state’s looming biannual budget deficit by reducing enrollment and associated costs in he state’s public K-12 schools at a time of budget shortfalls. By reimbursing parents and legal guardians for “the amount ...

Teacher unions often lead the opposition to legislation that would expand the ability of parents to choose the schools – whether public or private – their children attend. Many observers assume individual teachers also oppose school choice initiatives and that they do so because school choice is somehow against their self-interest ...

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 ...

This report reviews four major problems with Texas’s insurance environment and proposes four categories of action that elected leaders should take in order to remedy them. The right actions will make the state more fiscally stable, safer, and more resistant to nature’s worst.The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association’s management ...

During her campaign, Gov. Susana Martinez said that she would not cut education. Based on revised budget numbers that were released immediately after she was elected, that went out the window. Now, Martinez is proposing very modest cuts of 1.5 percent for K-12. It didn't take long for the unions and other supporters of more ...

This new Pioneer Institute policy brief on student writing in our schools will be helpful if it highlights the understanding that students will need to write often and at length in college and beyond. Personal and creative writing alone do not prepare students for college term papers or for the memoranda and reports they ...

As states and nations aggressively promote their business climates, the high cost of doing business in Massachusetts requires ongoing remediation for the Commonwealth to sustain its competitive advantage. While most employers are willing to absorb some higher costs in exchange for access to the Commonwealth’s skilled workforce ...