The Heartland Institute

While there is no disputing the divisiveness and political bitterness Act 10 has created, the law that redefined collective bargaining in Wisconsin has made a dramatic difference for the state’s financially struggling school districts, according to a report released in March. But school superintendents say they worry about the ...

As the debate on federal tax reform continues, the ACCF Center for Policy Research (CPR) presents this Special Report to further the debate and highlight the effect of increased federal tax rates on long-term individual capital gains tax rates when both the federal, state and, in some cases, local tax rates are combined. Long ...

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 ...

A key piece of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) legislative agenda this year involves shifting some government employee pension costs away from the state and requiring county governments to make up the difference. In Maryland, as in the rest of the nation, the growing cost of public pensions remains a primary fiscal and ...

Texas legislators may need to add $15 billion to $17 billion in general revenue to offset wild growth of Medicaid, according to Tom Suehs, executive commissioner of the state Department of Health and Human Services. Suehs announced this to the Texas Hospital Association administrators on Feb. 1. Legislators in the last session ...

Cut federal debt or the United States will cease to exist as a superpower—that was the message Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson had for a packed house at Duke University’s Page Auditorium. Bowles and Simpson, co-chairs of a congressional committee created through a 2010 executive order of President Barack Obama to address the ...

Georgia penitentiaries continue to feed, clothe, and pay medical expenses for hundreds of inmates who were approved for parole but cannot be released because they have nowhere to live. About two-thirds are convicted sex offenders. About one-third require mental illness treatment but are otherwise not considered a threat to public ...

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 ...

Public-sector unions are vastly different than other interest groups because of laws granting them unique access to political privilege and money, writes Daniel DiSalvo in a report for the Manhattan Institute. Today’s debates about the role of these unions should include not just considerations for their influences on government ...

The idea of education funding following the child has several names, such as weighted student funding, backpack funding, fair-student funding, student-based budgeting, and results-based budgeting. But the meaning is the same: Education dollars attach to individual students instead of staff positions or programs. The funding is portable ...

The advent of legalized government-sector unionization and collective bargaining in state and local government triggered an explosion of legal and illegal strikes. From 1958 through 1968, illegal work stoppages or strikes at all levels of government increased 1,593 percent, resulting in a 33,790 percent increase in the loss ...

To bring truth and greater transparency to state budget processes, the the Institute for Truth in Accounting has developed a budgeting system called “Full Accrual Calculations and Techniques,” or F.A.C.T., which would require governors and legislatures to recognize expenses when incurred regardless of when they’re paid. F.A.C.T ...

Sinkholes seem to appear without notice. The earth beneath may be eroding for years, but the surface usually stays intact until the land collapses suddenly. That describes the dire fiscal situations of most of the states in 2012. For years the financial conditions of 45 states have been eroding to the point that the Institute ...

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has publicly released the salaries of all state employees, including state university professors, and requested detailed financial and enrollment information from all 11 state universities in preparation for higher education policy changes. "I'd like to understand why our universities cost what they cost ...

In the past few decades the federal government has spent millions of taxpayer dollars subsidizing the development of new energy technologies, including large-scale sequestration of carbon emitted from coal-burning power plants. Efforts to make the use of coal for power generation more environmentally friendly led to the launch ...

The pension and healthcare funds for government employees in Kentucky — the state-administered pension systems — are in significant financial stress. The unfunded liabilities stand at $31 billion. Public employee pensions in Kentucky are badly draining the budgets of city and county governments, dipping into the budget of the ...

In a world where the sky is the limit for technological possibilities, it is not surprising that the next frontier is the clouds— computing clouds, that is. Industry experts believe that cloud computing—a term used to define the latest innovation in web-hosted services—could revolutionize the information technology (IT) industry ...

The United States Postal Service is one of the best-liked agencies of the federal government, enjoying near-universal approval of the public. But it is in deep trouble. Over the past four years the Postal Service has lost billions: $2.8 billion (2008), $5 billion (2009), $3.8 billion (2010), and $5.1 billion (FY 2011). The ...

The College Illinois! prepaid college tuition program needs a bailout in order to stay solvent, according to an analysis completed for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission. According to financial consultant Gabriel Roeder Smith & Company, the program has a deficit of nearly $560 million and needs $1.6 billion to stay solvent ...

A Colorado court order calling for massive education funding increases has roiled constitutional scholars and set the stage for state Supreme Court ruling after the governor, state education commissioner, and state Board of Education have announced their appeal. Denver District Court Judge Sheila Rappaport declared Colorado’s school ...