The Heartland Institute

More than 5.2 million Pennsylvanians — 41 percent of the state’s 12.6 million residents — live in a city, township or borough facing some form of financial distress. And civic leaders warned on Monday that things are probably going to get worse before they get better. Ed Pawlowski, mayor of Allentown, said municipal pension ...

The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil, gas, and coal in the state, approved a permit giving a Mexican company the right to start coal mining operations near Eagle Pass, a Texas border town. Powering Mexican Electricity Coal from the Eagle Pass mine will be transported to Mexico to fire coal power plants 20 ...

Taxpayer-subsidized SolarWorld laid off 40 workers at its Hillsboro, Oregon plant earlier this year, marking nearly 300 workers laid off company-wide after state officials invited the company to apply for up to $100 million in subsidies and the company accepted at least $27 million in subsidies. Company’s Downhill Spiral SolarWorld ...

This week, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post had a lengthy back and forth with me about the future of health care policy and Republican plans for replacing Obamacare. I encourage you to read the full post here , but I’ll excerpt just a portion of it for you. Ezra’s accusation, in part, is that Republicans think we have ...

As a possible preview of what awaits us in the United States under President Obama’s health care law, Great Britain’s government-run health care system, the National Health Service, is slashing nearly $4.5 billion from its budget by eliminating appointments with a doctor and instead treating patients via computer. In addition ...

Employees of the City of Irvine, Calif., received total compensation averaging $143,691 in 2012, according to a study published by the California Public Policy Center. Median total compensation, which means half of the Irvine city employees received less than this amount, and half received more, was $133,782 during 2012. These ...

About a decade ago, James Tooley wandered out into a foreign slum and encountered a network of inexpensive private schools on every few street corners. The professor of education policy at Newcastle University and his team went back to study this system of education, and found that private schools serve the world's poor far ...

Thursday's ed news The Indiana Senate again confirms another measure to take a time out on Common Core . The U.S. Department of Education is poised to directly control school districts after sideswiping states. The Indiana Senate approves an expansion of the state's voucher program . President Obama wants a new preschool entitlement ...

Marc Lynas, a longtime vocal leader of the anti-biotechnology movement, acknowledged at a farming conference he has unjustly demonized biotechnology and was wrong to oppose genetic crop improvements. Lynas helped create the anti-biotechnology movement in the 1990s and spent more than a decade sowing public fear about genetically ...

April 15 is the deadline to file income taxes, but most Americans with tax liabilities will be working beyond that date to pay taxes. “Tax Freedom Day” -- the day the Tax Foundation calculates Americans will stop working to pay federal, state and local taxes and begin working for themselves -- is April 18. That’s five ...

Indiana leaders will "take a long, hard look" at Common Core, said Gov. Mike Pence in response to a School Reform News question at a public event Friday. Indiana is one of approximately a dozen states considering legislation to withdraw from Common Core, a national set of requirements for what children should know in K ...

In yet another embarrassment for proponents of government picking winners and losers among energy technologies, the Obama administration pulled back from its prediction that automakers, with the assistance of billions of dollars in federal subsidies, will sell 1 million electric vehicles to U.S. consumers by 2015. Flagship Green ...

The mainstream media are reporting in breathless fashion about a paper claiming current temperatures are the warmest in 4,000 years. Already, however, objective scientists are reporting serious flaws in the paper. The media may wish to paint a picture of runaway global warming, but the science tells a completely different story ...

Much college aid goes to people with little regard to their income. Pell Grants might be pretty targeted—though they’re getting less so —but “unsubsidized” federal loans backed by taxpayers are available irrespective of need . Tax-based aid skews high-income. The American Opportunity Tax Credit, for instance, can be claimed by ...

Writing in the Wall Street Journal on March 11, Bjorn Lomborg, author of The Skeptical Environmentalist , documented that electric automobiles are not the least bit environmentally friendly. Lomborg may allow environmental activists to pull the wool over his eyes regarding assertions of a global warming crisis, but his understanding ...

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions declined 4 percent in 2012 from 2011 levels, the U.S. Energy Information Administration reported today . U.S. carbon dioxide emissions are lower now than at any point since 1994, and are 10 percent lower than emissions at the end of the Clinton-Gore administration in 2000. Despite the sharp decline ...

As shifting employment opportunities and reform movements alter the U.S. education landscape, one organization has received steadily increasing support from lawmakers. Teach for America (TFA) began as Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis in 1989. A Princeton University undergraduate, Kopp wanted to improve poverty-stricken urban schools by ...

At the Washington Post, Ezra Klein wrote a lengthy piece responding to a list I assembled last year of the outline of a Republican replacement for Obamacare. Here's his essential argument: This isn’t a plan to “replace Obamacare.” It’s a plan to do the opposite of replacing Obamacare. It’s as if I said I had a plan to ...

Dozens of union-backed protesters descended on the Wisconsin Capitol building protesting Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s budget address, decrying Walker’s rejection of Medicaid expansion, charging Walker would take away their taxpayer-subsidized health care. But several of the protesters would personally benefit from Walker’s plan. Some ...

A remarkably frigid spring is putting the freeze on global warming from Russia to the UK and from Alaska to Florida. People Freezing in Russian Streets Sky News reported frigid temperatures this spring will go down in the Russian record books. “Large stretches of the Moscow River remain frozen, the streets are still packed with ...