The Heartland Institute

Economist Jonathan Williams joins us to discuss the new edition of the Rich States, Poor States book, which evaluates each of the 50 states on taxes and other policies that shape their economies and add to or subtract from the financial well-being of their citizens. ...

Talmedge Heflin of the Texas Public Policy Foundation explains why a coalition of public policy groups has come together to recommend ways Texas legislators can cut billions of dollars of spending while keeping the state economically strong. Many of the recommendations could be applied in other states as well. ...

On April 1 the United States earned the dubious distinction of having the highest statutory corporate tax rate of any industrialized nation. This happened because on April 1 Japan lowered its corporate tax rate, moving the United States to the top of the list with a federal government rate of 35 percent. Most states also ...

The Federal Reserve appears committed to more years of historically low interest rates despite indications of an improving economy and rising price inflation, leading one economist to refer to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke as “a madman.” “He thinks he can get away with this money printing without stoking price inflation. Not a ...

Small businesses could have an easier time raising money and going public, say supporters of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act that President Barack Obama has signed into law. The U.S. Senate passed the bill by a 73-26 margin. It then went to the U.S. House, which voted 380-41 for the bill. Obama strongly backed ...

Cook County, Illinois, is the second most-populous county in the nation. Property taxes there have climbed more than twice as fast as price inflation since 2000, with the biggest increases in the suburbs. Even bigger tax increases or municipal bankruptcies are likely unless major changes to local government occur, says John ...

The Federal Reserve has announced it believes 15 of the 19 biggest banks in the nation would be safe in the face of a major economic downturn, but do the “stress test” results mean much? Even though banks have boosted their capital stocks, that doesn’t necessarily mean they're not at risk, said David Eifrig Jr., a former ...

Remember the Obama stimulus? The hundreds of billions of dollars to save jobs and create new ones? Some of the money is being used to lobby state and local governments to attack soda pop and other sugary drinks. ...

Property taxes since 2000 have risen twice as fast as consumer prices in Cook County, Illinois, with the steepest increases in suburban Chicago, according to a Heartland Institute analysis released this week. With 5.2 million residents, Cook County includes the City of Chicago and is the second-most populous county in the nation ...

The Tax Foundation and accounting and business consulting firm KPMG LLP have issued a detailed study of the actual tax costs for new and established businesses in a broad range of industries in all 50 states. It may be the most ambitious study of its kind. Tax Foundation President Scott Hodge tells us what business leaders ...

U.S. businesses would have a lower tax rate but an overall higher tax bill under a proposal by President Barack Obama. Obama proposes to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent while at the same time ending dozens of tax deductions. Businesses would end up paying tax on a larger amount of taxable income ...

Wyoming, South Dakota, and Florida have the best business tax climates in the nation, and New Jersey, New York, and California have the worst, according to the Tax Foundation’s “2012 State Business Tax Climate Index.” The Index accounts for dozens of state tax provisions, creating a single easy-to-use score that measures each ...

The deal to force the nation’s largest mortgage lenders to write down some home loans and refinance mortgages for “underwater” borrowers is drawing fire from various quarters. "It is an abuse of the legal system to use it to extract settlements that benefit homeowners who bought houses they couldn't afford,” said Maureen Martin ...

The $80 million Raleigh Michigan Studios in Pontiac, Michigan missed a $630,000 bond payment that came due Feb. 1, forcing the Michigan Employees’ Retirement System to make the payment. The pension system for state government workers had to make the payment because the MERS had guaranteed $18 million in bonds issued for the ...

The Illinois state government could see its backlog of unpaid bills balloon from $9.2 billion to nearly $35 billion over the next five years unless major reforms are implemented soon, says an Illinois-based research institute. “The governor and General Assembly must act now,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation ...

Considering that four of the five wealthiest counties in these United States are in suburban Washington, D.C., it’s probably no surprise that the Congressional Budget Office has determined federal government workers receive substantially more in total compensation than their counterparts in the private sector. The CBO in January ...

Iran may be arranging to sell oil to India for gold instead of the U.S. dollar, according to intelligence reports out of the Middle East. China also is mulling using its huge stockpile of gold to buy oil from Iran, according to these reports. Oil is bought and sold in U.S. dollars all over the world. But the United States ...

Tax Foundation economist Mark Robyn discusses the 2012 State Business Tax Climate Index, which shows Wyoming with the nation's best tax system and New Jersey with the worst. ...

The collapse in housing prices in the United States has virtually matched that of the first few years of the Great Depression, according to the Zillow Home Value Index. The national average has plunged 26 percent. From 1928 to 1933, housing values fell 25.9 percent, Zillow reports. In January, Zillow reported housing values ...

The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, published Jan. 12 by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal , shows a decline in economic freedom in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and much of Europe. Heritage Foundation President Edwin J. Feulner attributes much of the decline to growing government regulatory burdens and ...