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Budget and Tax
Research & Commentary: Wyoming Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform
Wyoming’s civil asset forfeiture laws give law enforcement agencies significant financial incentives to seize people’s property. Civil asset forfeiture, also known as civil judicial forfeiture, is a controversial legal process by which law enforcement agencies take personal assets from individuals or groups suspected of a crime or illegal activity. The standards of proof allowing seizure differ from state to state.
Two proposals, both of which would improve on the current system, are being debated. Both address the low burden of proof and give rights back to the property owners. In this Research & Commentary, Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans advises Wyoming lawmakers to strongly consider these reforms. They should work to ensure assets are seized only for legal reasons and to remove the incentive for law enforcement to seize any more property than necessary. Read more
Education
School Choice Weekly #108: Reducing Racial Tensions, Rebuilding Families
Joy Pullmann, a research fellow on education policy for The Heartland Institute, highlights the racial inequalities in New York schools. The first incident she recounts was prompted by an ad comparing white and minority children and the schools they will have the fortune, or misfortune, of attending. The second comes from Brooklyn, where progressive white parents are protesting redistricting that would zone minority children into their schools. Read more
Energy and Environment
Return of Federal Lands Emerges as a ‘States Rights’ Issue
Returning lands owned by the national government to the states is emerging as a public policy issue. The battle line for this issue has been drawn in the West. Nearly 50 percent of all lands in the Western United States are owned by the federal government, totaling 640 million acres. Project Manager for Constitutional Reform Kyle Maichle explains how taxpayers are stuck paying the bills to maintain these lands. Read more
Health Care
Research & Commentary: How Missouri Should Handle Transitional Care Facilities
Senior citizens have longer recovery rates after surgery, and the market has responded with transitional care facilities (TCF), which offer an alternative many seniors use for post-acute and rehabilitation health care needs.
Missouri’s certificate of need (CON) system currently designates TCFs as skilled nursing facilities, which not only ignores the distinct differences between the two but also imposes bed and technology limits that are strangling the rest of the health care industry. In this Research & Commentary, Senior Policy Analyst Matthew Glans argues Missouri lawmakers should not add TCFs and other facilities to the state’s CON program and should instead look to reduce burdensome regulations that increase the cost of health care while limiting access. Read more
Telecom
Will Government Spectrum Permissions Throttle 4G Evolution to 5G Wireless?
In this Heartlander article, Scott Cleland, president of Precursor® LLC, examines how the Obama administration and Federal Communications Commission stretched the definition of broadband to reach their political goal of ensuring wireless broadband service not be considered an official competitor to wireline broadband service. “The federal government’s decision to effectively shut-down the spectrum pipeline for more licensed and unlicensed spectrum use threatens the longstanding and hugely successful federal policy of ‘permissionless innovation’ which is not requiring the government to pre-approve innovations before they can be market-tested or go to market.”Read more
From Our Free-Market Friends
The John Locke Foundation Hosts Luncheon with Arthur C. Brooks
The John Locke Foundation, Civitas Institute, and Palmetto Promise Institute host a luncheon and book signing with Arthur C. Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute . Brooks will speak about his book, The Conservative Heart: How To Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America. The event takes place on Wednesday, October 28 at 12:00 noon at Nan & Byron’s Restaurant in Charlotte, NC. Register for the event here.
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