Opinion
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Maine Considers Exempting Health Care Model from Insurance Regulations
Opinion -health-care-news, News -The bill would reduce the risk that direct-pay providers would be regulated as insurers and thus put out of business. -
Oregon Lawmakers Consider Repair Shop Business-License Bill
Opinion -budget-tax-news -With the end of the Oregon state legislature’s 2017 session approaching, the fate of a bill that would require business owners operating current or opening new auto repair businesses to purchase licenses from the state government is at stake. -
Independent Baseball League Supports Illinois Employment Law Revision
Opinion -budget-tax-news -An independent baseball league is voicing support for an Illinois bill proposing to exempt players from the state’s minimum-wage laws. -
Trump Tax Reform Bill Faces Delays, Says Mnuchin
Opinion -budget-tax-news -Taxpayers may have to wait a little longer for Congress and President Donald Trump to begin work on federal tax reform, because other policy agenda items are consuming more time and effort than expected, according to media reports. -
FCC Prepares for Vote on Undoing Net-Neutrality Takeover
Opinion -budget-tax-news -Preparing for a May 18 vote on a proposed rule undoing former Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Tom Wheeler’s 2015 “net neutrality” rules, FCC issued a memorandum on May 11 announcing the conclusion of the proposal’s commenting period. -
Congress, Trump Consider Splitting Commercial and Investment Banking
Opinion -budget-tax-news -White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer says President Donald Trump supports “a 21st century Glass-Steagall,” referring to proposals to restore financial regulations prohibiting banks from engaging in commercial and investment banking. -
Local Michigan School Board Gets on the Privatization Bus
Opinion -school-reform-news, budget-tax-news -The Cedar Springs, Michigan School Board approved in May a contract with a private business to provide transportation services, reducing annual spending by $350,000 to $400,000 per year, in addition to $610,000 in one-time revenue. -
E-Cigarette Competitors Fund Critics’ Research
Opinion -budget-tax-news -Jeff Stier, a risk analyst for the National Center for Public Policy Analysis, once signed up for NYC Quits, a government tobacco-control program giving away free nicotine patches and gum every year, out of curiosity. -
Trump Signs $1.1 Trillion Spending Bill
Opinion -budget-tax-news -President Donald Trump signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill into law, funding the federal government until October 1. -
Wisconsin Senate Committee Recommends Prevailing-Wage Repeal
Opinion -budget-tax-news -The Wisconsin Senate Committee on Labor and Regulatory Reform approved a bill to remove restrictions on how state government agencies may partner with private businesses on capital infrastructure projects. -
Bill to Reform Dallas Pension System Advances
Opinion -budget-tax-news -The Texas House of Representatives passed a “framework” to shore up the city’s public pensions, which have been on the path toward default for years. -
Alabama Considers Raising Gas Tax
Opinion -budget-tax-news -Shortly after Alabama state Rep. Bill Poole (R-Tuscaloosa) pulled his bill to increase the state’s gas tax by 6 cents over the next five years, state Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) proposed another bill that would raise the state’s motor-fuel tax. -
Blame The Free Market, Comrade
Opinion -Editorial -Medical pricing in the United States is controlled by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a federal agency with a budget equal to the production of the 16th largest economy in the world. -
Internet Giants, Not Broadband Providers, Are the Top Threat to Consumers
Opinion -Editorial -The Federal Communications Commission has begun a high profile rulemaking process to undo the net neutrality rules that President Obama’s FCC passed in 2015. -
Universal Coverage Means Less Care
Opinion -Editorial -The reported success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCare) is based on enrollment numbers. Millions more have “coverage.” -
ICCC-12 Speakers Defend Use of Fossil Fuels
Opinion -environment-climate-news -Speakers on the “Fossil Fuels and the Environment” panel at The Heartland Institute’s 12th International Conference on Climate Change said fossil fuels make modern society possible, improving wealth, health, and the environment. -
Patients Slowly Gain Access to Bacteria-Fighting Phage Therapy
Opinion -health-care-news, News -Fewer FDA restrictions could help a new form of treatment take off in the United States -
Common Core or Freedom of Choice: Which Will Prevail?
Opinion -Editorial -In the land of the free, surely choice eventually will triumph over the dreary imposed sameness of a Common Core. -
Could Trump Become Education’s Great Liberator?
Opinion -Editorial -President Donald Trump may receive little or no credit anytime soon from within the public-education establishment for potentially easing the dead weight of federal mandates from the pursuit of learning in classrooms across the country. -
Trade Deficits Don’t Matter – Unless Caused by Government
Opinion -Editorial -Listening to the rhetoric coming from the Trump Administration, it would be easy to assume that America’s balance of trade deficit is causing market misery and economic harm to the people of the United States. Nothing could be further from the truth. -
Proposed Mandates Could Force Closing of Independent Schools in Vermont
Opinion -school-reform-news -The Vermont Board of Education is considering imposing mandates on independent schools that could force many to close. -
Texas ESAs Would Increase Teacher Pay, Study Finds
Opinion -school-reform-news -Teachers in Texas would receive substantial pay increases if the state were to enact legislation establishing education savings accounts (ESAs), a study found. -
A Highly Readable Discussion of Water Issues
Opinion -environment-climate-news -High and Dry is an outstanding compilation of hydrology and groundwater issues, along with precise explanations of technological advances. -
Texas Senate Amends Bill After Unusual Alliance Opposes School Choice Law
Opinion -school-reform-news -A group of Texas homeschoolers united with public school advocates in the state to oppose a school choice bill.