The Heartland Institute

Growing numbers of bank customers are finding they no longer have no-fee accounts. Many of the nation’s largest banks are raising fees or imposing new ones to attempt to recover some of the revenue lost through the “Durbin Amendment” to the Dodd-Frank Act, which limits interchange fees—also called “swipe fees”—banks may charge ...

From the archives: A guide to severability and the individual mandate. Several state legislators have reached out to me recently with questions about the nature of severability and Obamacare . Since some folks seem to have questions as well , I thought I’d explain a bit about what this means. Most laws of large size and scope ...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is poised to release global warming restrictions that will effectively ban the construction of coal-fired power plants, the Washington Post reports this morning. According to the Post , the new restrictions could be announced as early as today. Assuming the Washington Post article is true ...

From the archives: A guide to severability and the individual mandate. Several state legislators have reached out to me recently with questions about the nature of severability and Obamacare . Since some folks seem to have questions as well , I thought I’d explain a bit about what this means. Most laws of large size and scope ...

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 ...

In a late-February filing, Verizon requested Federal Communications Commission approval of a $4 billion purchase of cable company wireless-spectrum licenses. In a separate FCC filing, Verizon requested permission to enter into cross-licensing agreements with the cable companies to sell each other’s services. Public Knowledge, a Washington ...

Kentucky’s $6 billion Medicaid system provides health care to more than 700,000 low-income residents. As with many states, the size and cost of the program has increased dramatically in recent years. This expansion and an attempt to shift to managed care have caused problems in several key areas, according to an evaluation ...

Justice Anthony Kennedy, considered the likely key player in the Supreme Court case over President Obama's health care law, asked a series of questions in today's hearings that has everyone in Washington buzzing. Here is every question Justice Kennedy asked today. PP 4-5: "Can you create commerce in order to regulate it?" PP ...

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill to prevent public schools from automatically deducting union dues from employee paychecks. The new law, formerly House Bill 4929, removes the state from its position as middleman between unions and their members, he said. "This legislation furthers the goal of good government by promoting ...

At the 4% Growth Project, we’ve been closely monitoring the progress, or lack of same, on permitting and building the Keystone XL pipeline (read about it here and here ). Last January, President Obama refused to approve the project pending further review of its environmental impacts. In fact, the safety and environmental issues ...

As the 2012 elections approach, it is an appropriate time to review the president’s record on education policy. Several prominent observers have done so recently. The president’s education policies seem to please no one extremely well. Even his teacher union allies have publicly criticized his support for policies such as charter ...

No one knows when the United States will run out of wireless spectrum, but many in the industry agree a crunch is coming. According to Federal Communications Commission estimates, the nation currently has a slight spectrum surplus, but it will turn into a deficit as early as next year. When spectrum runs short, service will ...

To avoid high U.S. corporate tax rates, U.S.-based companies operating internationally have kept their foreign earnings in subsidiaries overseas rather than bringing them back to the United States. They do this because U.S. marginal tax rates are, by some measures, the highest in the developed world. Some financial experts say ...

High-profile writers and publications have recently written the Parent Trigger needs to change drastically, or that parents can't be trusted with its power. RiShawn Biddle, editor of Dropout Nation and a contributor to the American Spectator, explains why these ideas are foolish, demeaning, and antithetical to school choice. See ...

President Barack Obama has been hitting back at critics of his administration’s energy policy. Last week, against backdrops of drilling rigs, pump jacks, and stacked pipeline sections in New Mexico and Oklahoma, he noted the big jumps in oil and natural gas production over the past three years as an indication of his commitment ...

The most heavily debated element of President Barack Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is the constitutionality of the individual health insurance mandate, which requires every citizen, with few exceptions, to purchase health insurance. The matter was debated by several district and appellate courts, and ...

Today is the day. Advance reading for President Obama's health care law’s week at the Supreme Court from: Richard Epstein, Ilya Somin, Jonathan Adler, George Will, Ezekiel Emanuel, and Avik Roy on the week ahead. Below is a liveblog I'm participating in covering the day's events. I encourage you to join in the conversation ...

A Federal Communications Commission study concluding Missouri is below the national average in broadband Internet access has been refuted by a subsequent study conducted by the Missouri Public Service Commission. The FCC reported 86.5 percent of Missouri has access to broadband, with 11 percent to 13.5 percent of the population ...

Today I’m participating in a liveblog reacting to the Supreme Court’s first day of consideration of the case against President Barack Obama’s health care law. You can join in here. When it comes to what was discussed today, I’ll leave it to Tevi Troy to explain: The third issue would result in one of the biggest anticlimaxes ...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires states to expand Medicaid eligibility to all individuals whose income is less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level. States that fail to meet this requirement will no longer receive federal Medicaid grants. Because the federal government cannot legally force ...