The Heartland Institute

Vermont is on a path to become the first state in the nation to have a government-run health care monopoly, as a result of a health care bill signed Democrat by Gov. Peter Shumlin in May. ‘A Plan to Plan’ The new law creates a five-member board at an estimated cost of $1.3 million with unprecedented powers over health ...

Only four states have sufficient assets to pay their debt and obligations for pensions and retirees' healthcare, according to a report from the Institute for Truth in Accounting. The study determined six states have per-taxpayer burdens of more than $20,000: Connecticut ($41,200), Illinois ($26,800), Hawaii ($25,000), Kentucky ($23 ...

If worries about a European debt contagion aren t enough to keep Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke awake at night, he s starting to worry about a California and Illinois debt contagion. During a Senate Banking Committee hearing July 14, Bernanke said those states unfunded obligations and unpaid bills concern the Federal Reserve ...

Tax-cut crusaders achieved a monumental goal this summer when Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) signed into law the new $55 billion biennial state budget, which includes a total repeal of the estate tax. The estate tax repeal goes into effect Jan. 1, 2013. Ohio is one of 22 states and the District of Columbia that have an estate ...

Wisconsin parents will have more ways to evaluate schools and their children s progress under a new accountability initiative proposed by Gov. Scott Walker and state Superintendent Tony Evers. The proposed system will measure students academic improvement year-over-year instead of just annual test scores. High-achieving schools will ...

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder announced in June an independent state-monitored school district designed to rescue the state's poorly performing schools with localized control. The district, headed by Detroit Public Schools (DPS) Emergency Manager Roy Roberts, will encompass 34 schools in Detroit beginning next year. The aim is to ...

As part of their piecemeal approach toward reauthorizing No Child Left Behind, congressional Republicans are getting support from Democrats for modifying part of the dominant federal education law to encourage states to develop and expand high-quality charter schools. The House Education and the Workforce Committee voted 34-5 to ...

If Congress does not reauthorize No Child Left Behind by this fall, Education Secretary Arne Duncan says he will waive some of the federal education law s penalties for states that adopt measures the administration supports, such as overhauling the worst schools and linking teacher evaluations to student test scores. NCLB does ...

Debate raged over a tax hike plan proposed by Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) as the Minnesota state government shut down July 1. As with most government shutdowns, much of the Minnesota state government continued to operate, but a state zoo, horse track, state parks, highway rest stops, and some other nonessential services were shuttered ...

Fifteen months after Tennessee won $501 million in a federal Race to the Top (RTT) grant, the state feels the pressure of raised expectations. With a new model for teacher evaluations the state Board of Education approved last week, it s trying to fulfill its proposal name: First to the Top. We spent a good part of the ...

A sales tax on online retailers, less money for higher education, and more than $5 billion of additional revenue from high-income residents are in the budget California s Democrat lawmakers and governor agreed to June 28. The agreement came two weeks after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed a budget with a projected deficit of $9 ...

One may be the loneliest number, but two is the most contentious, at least it was in the North Carolina capitol this summer. That was the percentage difference between Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue s general fund budget for the next two fiscal years and Republican lawmakers final version, which became law in June after the GOP ...

The Common Core State Standards Initiative, supported and created by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, sets grade-by-grade content requirements for K–12 in English language arts and math. The consortium is also developing science and history/social studies standards. The Obama administration ...

Gambling revenues to states rose modestly in fiscal 2010, with a 2.0 percent gain from the preceding year. The increase put gambling revenues back in the black after a 2.5 percent decline in the previous year, but collections in 2010 were still slightly below the 2008 level. Interstate competition continues to produce both ...

Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy (D) has signed into law a $40.1 billion budget that includes the largest tax hike in the state’s history. The challenge was to craft a balanced biennial budget plugging a deficit of approximately $3.3 billion. The budget plan Malloy signed into law went a step further and anticipates a $1 billion ...

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts could cut more than a billion dollars from its annual education spending without measurably affecting the performance of public schools, according to a study by the Beacon Hill Institute. This finding in “Why Massachusetts Should Spend Less on Education” is the result of an econometric analysis ...

Illinois lawmakers have placed a huge bet on gambling to boost the state’s economy. It’s a bet the chairman of the Illinois Gaming Board calls “garbage.” Lawmakers at the end of May passed legislation that covers more than 400 pages and more than triples the amount of casino gambling now allowed in the state. Among other ...

Workers around the nation envy Connecticut state employees, according to their lead negotiator. Daniel Livingston, chief negotiator for the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), said other unions want to learn how to imitate their success in negotiating with Gov. Dannel Malloy (D). Livingston told a meeting of state ...

The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a resounding humiliation to a state judge by overturning her ruling invalidating restrictions on collective bargaining powers for unionized government workers, said Maureen Martin, senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute. Meanwhile, unions have sued in federal court over the ...

The State of Texas has considered school choice as a tool for enhancing educational opportunity on a number of occasions over the past two decades. Those efforts have inevitably met with determined political opposition. In this report, we address two questions: (1) Who are the main actors funding opposition to school choice ...