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Telecom
Top Ten Adjectives to Describe FCC Title II Net Neutrality Regulation
Scott Cleland writes at The Heartland Institute’s Somewhat Reasonable blog about the top ten most descriptive adjectives for the president’s claim Title II utility regulation authority is needed to implement net neutrality. Some highlights: untrue, unwarranted, and unconstitutional. “UNCONSTITUTIONAL – After encouraging competitive private ISPs to invest hundreds of billions of dollars to upgrade America’s Internet infrastructure based on repeated reliance that the FCC would not impose investment-hostile Title II common carrier regulation, would be an unconstitutional, arbitrary and capricious, taking of private property.” Read More
Budget & Tax
Heartland Daily Podcast: Paula Bolyard on ‘Jock Taxes’ for the Chicago Bears
Heartland Institute writer Paula Bolyard joins Jesse Hathaway, managing editor of Budget & Tax News, in this episode of the Heartland Daily Podcast to discuss a lawsuit filed by former Chicago Bears linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer against the city of Cleveland, Ohio.
Hillenmeyer is challenging the constitutionality of the city’s “jock tax,” a tax targeted at high-earning specialized professionals such as celebrities and professional athletes. Despite the economic evidence against such tax schemes, many cities and states levy jock taxes in order to obtain revenue from visiting high-level professionals. Read More
Health Care
Research & Commentary: States Should Innovate, Not Expand Medicaid
According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency responsible for administering Medicaid, federal and state government spending for the program will total around $6.56 trillion between 2013 and 2022, with the federal government paying approximately 60 percent of the costs.
Since implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), spending on Medicaid has exploded. Peter Ferrara, a senior fellow at The Heartland Institute, warns total future costs to state governments are estimated to exceed the funds provided by the federal government, with the shortfall reaching as much as 66 percent of state expenditures. States will find the situation unsustainable.
In this Research & Commentary, Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans argues the federal government should give states the flexibility to experiment with their Medicaid programs to find new and better ways to provide care for the needy. Glans advises state legislators to modernize Medicaid by petitioning for a block grant funding model. Read More
Energy & Environment
Research & Commentary: New Study on EPA CO2 Regulations
This summer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new regulations on carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, requiring those facilities to reduce their CO2 emissions by 30 percent of the 2005 base year by the year 2030. A new study by NERA Economic Consulting projects these regulations could cost consumers and businesses $41 billion annually and cause electricity prices in 43 states to increase by double digits. The study also found the rules would have no impact on global climate change. Read More
Education
How the Free Market Can Save American Education
In an op-ed for the Daily Caller, Heartland Institute Editor Justin Haskins reviews the new book by Hebert Walberg and Joseph Bast, Rewards: How to use rewards to help children learn – and why teachers don’t use them well. Haskins writes “the importance of using free-market principles in the classrooms themselves is often overlooked by liberty-supporting education reformers.” He notes research presented in the book statistically proves better education outcomes result from proper reward-use strategies. Read More
From Our Free-Market Friends
Americans for Prosperity Launches Wind PTC Ads
Americans for Prosperity is beginning a new media endeavor aimed to persuade Indiana legislators to oppose spending more money on the Wind Production Tax Credit. AFP-Indiana State Director Chase Downham was quoted as saying, “Extending the Wind PTC another year will cost $13 billion over the next decade. While the taxpayer-supported wind industry will be a winner, taxpayers and energy consumers will not be better off.”Read More
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