If you don’t visit Freedom Pub and the Heartlander digital magazine every day, you’re missing out on some of the best news and commentary on liberty and free markets you can find. But worry not, freedom lovers! Heartland Weekly is here for you every Monday with a highlight show. Subscribe to the email today, and read this week’s edition below.
Republicans Need a Better Sales Pitch for Tax Reform
Peter Ferrara, The Observer
Congressional Republicans will soon finalize their tax reform bill. However, they still need to win the battle for public opinion. They are confident that a long overdue, booming recovery will settle all arguments over their tax reform bill. Truly, the sharp contrast between Obama’s stagnation and what is about to happen will have enormous political consequences for a generation or more. But to make the victory more assured and permanent, congressional Republicans, the president, and his administration need to make a much better case for their tax reform plan to the public. READ MORE
Trump Needs His Own People Running Federal Bureaucracies
H. Sterling Burnett, Townhall
President Trump has not yet appointed many people to key slots in the federal government, indicating he believes many of the positions are unnecessary or redundant, and thus don’t need filling. But that means he is letting Obama holdovers – who are vehemently opposed to his agenda – retain and abuse their power. If Trump really wants to “Make America Great Again”, create jobs, and reduce the power of government, he needs to get his people in place and make it not Obama’s government anymore. READ MORE
Heartland Institute Experts React to FCC Repeal of Net Neutrality
On Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed its 2015 “net neutrality” rule, which regulated broadband as a utility, forcing internet service providers (ISPs) to treat all bandwidth traffic exactly the same, regardless of its importance to public safety and consumers. President Tim Huelskamp said, “The FCC’s vote … is a vote for freedom from big government control of the internet. Kudos to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and his colleagues. They voted to preserve an open and dynamic internet.” READ MORE
Featured Podcast: Tim Bishop: Recent Endangered Species Act Ruling Threatens Property Rights Nationwide
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Ajit Pai joins managing editor and research fellow Jesse Hathaway to talk about the Restoring Internet Freedom Order, the move that reversed the Obama FCC’s 2015 power grab taking control of the internet. For most of the internet’s history, Pai explains, the government’s light-touch approach to internet regulation facilitated innovation and growth. The FCC was wrong to get into the business of dominating the online world, and the new FCC rule gets the agency out of that business. LISTEN TO MORE
Support Heartland Over the Holidays!
Put The Heartland Institute on your gift list this year! A great way to support us all year long is to set up a monthly giving plan – the easiest and most efficient way to support us. You are in total control. You can easily start, change or stop your gift at any time online or by phone. You’ll receive less mail because we don’t need to send you reminders – which means more of your gift goes directly to support our programs. You’ll receive uninterrupted membership benefits, ensuring you never miss an issue of our popular QPR-Quarterly Performance Report. Learn more about monthly giving to The Heartland Institute. CLICK HERE
Kids Need Talented, Tough Teachers
Robert Holland, American Spectator
What makes the average grade-school child happy? Not necessarily notching a high score on a math test, if the results of a little study recently featured in Education Week are to be believed. The study’s headline-grabbing conclusion was that, in general, teachers who do well in raising kids’ test scores do worse in making them happy in class. Among progressive educators, who are a strong influence in teacher-training institutions, that is a heavy indictment. READ MORE
Florida ESA Program Runs Out of Funding Because of Huge Demand
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
Florida’s education savings account (ESA) program for special-needs students doesn’t have enough funding for all the families who want to participate. According to RedefinED, “Demand for the nation’s largest education savings account program has outstripped supply.” No child, least of all a special needs student, should be denied the type of education he or she wants. Universally accessible ESAs would ensure all families have access to the type of education they need, and no child would have to do without. The question is: What are we waiting for? READ MORE
Gov. Pinocchio’s Nose Grows Over California Wildfire Claims
H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly
Few governors have done more than California’s Jerry Brown (D) to reduce their state’s economic performance, energy security, and economic mobility for the poor in the vain quest to counteract climate change. The climate and environmental efforts undertaken by Brown and the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature have raised energy prices (making electricity and fuel prices in California among the highest in the nation), made housing even more unaffordable than it already was, and limited job creation. READ MORE
Bonus Podcast: Lisa Linowes: Reaching Affordable Energy Through Tax Reform
How can Republicans use tax reform to make American energy more reliable and affordable? Lisa Linowes of the Industrial Wind Action Group and The Heartland Institute research fellow Isaac Orr discuss how proposed changes to the tax code could remove taxpayer subsidies to wind and solar that have caused electricity prices to increase and made the grid more vulnerable to supply interruptions. Most of the funding for industrial wind projects comes from large financial institutions and large companies that use the tax credits for wind and solar to offset their tax liabilities. LISTEN TO MORE
Trump EPA Puts Clean Power Plan on Trial in Coal Country
Isaac Orr, RealClearEnergy
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) held a public hearing at the end of November in Charleston, West Virginia, the second-largest coal producing state in the country, on the proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). The location of the meetings sends the important message that the Trump administration is serious about removing the economically crippling and environmentally insignificant regulations imposed by the Obama administration. The Clean Power Plan hasn’t done anything to make America’s power industry cleaner, despite being billed as the most important climate change measure taken by the previous administration. READ MORE
Strengthening America’s Educational Safety Net
Carl L. Brodt and Alan Bonsteel, Heartland Policy Brief
Across the United States, some 1.5 million high school students—10 percent of students that age—will enter a “safety net” program to help them navigate their high school education in ways a traditional classroom setting cannot. The educational safety net includes programs in prisons, jails, and juvenile detention centers; stand-alone continuation and alternative schools; and programs operating within traditional schools. Students in these alternative education settings are more likely to be minority and low-income than students in traditional classroom settings. READ MORE
Talk With Heartland Experts!
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Help Us Stop Wikipedia’s Lies!
Have you visited Heartland’s Wikipedia page recently? The good news is that it is more complete than it was just a couple months ago, after leftists took it over and trashed it. Most of the new information is accurate and unbiased. But the lies and libel about our positions on smoking and climate change remain. Other conservative and free-market sites suffer, too. Wikipedia refuses to make many of the changes we request and deletes and reverses the changes made by others. We need your help! READ MORE