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Heartland Institute Experts React to President Trump’s Tax Plan
The White House revealed President Donald Trump’s pro-growth tax plan this week. Its several key provisions include reducing the number of individual income tax brackets from seven to three; doubling the standard deduction for married couples; eliminating the alternative minimum tax and estate tax; and reducing the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. “The promise and appeal of Trump’s tax reform plan is that it would be enormously pro-growth, like the tax cuts of both Reagan and Kennedy,” said Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara. READ MORE
When It Comes to a Carbon Tax, There’s No Such Thing as a Free Lunch
Tom Walton, RealClear Energy
Would American families really be made better off by a carbon tax and rebate scheme, such as that found in Great Britain? Of course not. As the late American economist Milton Friedman titled one of his most popular books, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Somebody has to foot the bill for costly taxes and regulations proposed by carbon-tax supporters, and that “somebody” would be the nation’s consumers, families, and all the workers who would lose their jobs as a result of this great “bargain.” READ MORE
BREAKTHROUGH: CBS Evening News Features Heartland’s Joe Bast as Leader of ‘Climate Realists’
On Saturday, April 22, millions of viewers of CBS Evening News got a rare opportunity to learn what many scientists have been saying for years: Global warming is not a crisis, and the war on affordable and reliable energy should be ended. The mainstream media have been hiding the existence of scientists, economists, and policy experts who dissent from the global warming scare ever since Al Gore and Barack Obama made alarmism a major plank of the Progressive’s agenda. The appearance of Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast on the CBS Evening News was a rare and welcome bit of truth-telling. You can watch the three minutes CBS used HERE, and the entire hour-long interview HERE.
Featured Podcast: E. Calvin Beisner: Winning the War on Poverty by Winning the Climate War
E. Calvin Beisner, founder of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, says the policies pushed by climate alarmists to fight purported global warming would erect an insurmountable barrier to fossil fuel use, which is key to delivering the world’s poor out of poverty and ending premature deaths, painful disease, and needless starvation. In this podcast with Heartland’s H. Sterling Burnett, Beisner notes realiasts are losing the climate war because journalists have abandoned the standard of objective reporting of facts. LISTEN TO MORE
Heartland Is Hiring!
Do you consider yourself a proponent of freedom and defender of the Constitution? Do you wish to help advance the cause of liberty and combat the never-ending threats to individual rights? Are you a college student looking to immerse yourself in a globally recognized think tank? Good news! The Heartland Institute has full-time open positions in publications, marketing, and government relations as well as summer internships in all departments. If you or someone you know is interested in applying, please check out the job and and internship descriptions online at our website.
Students Encouraged to Analyze Feelings of Suicide Bombers
Teresa Mull, Daily Caller
At taxpayer expense, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is providing teachers with class material that prompts them to compel students to better relate to the thoughts and emotions of would-be suicide bombers. If President Donald Trump needed more evidence for why cutting funding to PBS would be a great service to school children and taxpayers, this is it, and I hope he’s reading. The “Dying to be a Martyr” lesson plan must go. READ MORE
Is the National ‘Teacher Shortage’ Fake News?
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
Reports of teacher shortages across the country are rampant. Ross Izard, a senior education policy analyst at the Denver-based Independence Institute, told The Heartland Institute recently, “The notion of a teacher shortage is not a new one. We should be careful about accepting the wholesale argument we’re experiencing a massive teacher shortage. The conversation is far more nuanced than that.” The Hamilton Project produced a report echoing Izard’s statements and offered several solutions, but only one is needed: removing regulation and allowing the market to work its magic. READ MORE
Unlawful ACA Payments Prove a Costly Catch-22
Michael Hamilton, Consumer Power Report
Violating the U.S. Constitution could save federal taxpayers more money than stopping illegal Obamacare payments to health insurers, according to a new report illustrating the cronyism of the Affordable Care Act. The Kaiser Family Foundation report reveals a lose-lose Obamacare proposition for Americans: Continue to make unconstitutional payments to insurers, or halt the unlawful payments and make up for them by paying higher premium subsidies. READ MORE
Assembling a Climate “Red Team” or “Team B”
H. Sterling Burnett, Climate Change Weekly
Two prominent physicists, William Happer, Ph.D., the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics (emeritus) at Princeton University, and Steven Koonin, Ph.D., director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at New York University, recently made similar proposals concerning how the government and the public could come to an accurate understanding of the state of climate science and a clearer picture of policy options. These “Red Team/Blue Team” suggestions could prove to be more “rigorous than traditional peer review, which is usually confidential and always adjudicated, rather than public and moderated,” said Koonin. READ MORE
Bonus Podcast: Tim Benson – Are Blaine Amendments on Their Way Out?
Blaine amendments are found in the constitutions of 37 states, but what exactly are they? Heartland Institute Policy Analyst Tim Benson explains how the Blaine amendments were born out of nineteenth anti-Catholic bigotry. They remain in place today to complicate the establishment of such programs as education savings accounts, vouchers, and tax-credit scholarships, because school choice opponents say the amendments make it unconstitutional to spend taxpayer money on religious schools. LISTEN TO MORE
Cuomo’s ‘Free College’ Gambit Exacts a Heavy Price
Robert Holland, Townhall
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) may figure that becoming the first governor to champion and sign “free four-year college” legislation will give him a campaign slogan sure to appeal to fans of the socialist heartthrob of the 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders, if Cuomo decides to run in 2020. Unfortunately for Cuomo, the design for making tuition at New York’s public colleges free for applicants whose parents make no more than $100,000 a year is riddled with inequities and structural flaws that should be apparent well before the next Democratic presidential primaries. READ MORE
Interior Department Takes Steps to Make America Great Again
H. Sterling Burnett, American Thinker
The mainstream media is in full panic mode over President Donald Trump’s efforts to carry out his campaign promises to de-emphasize the speculative dangers of climate change. That has allowed room for some of his appointees, such as Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, to implement Trump’s vision without too much opposition. Zinke has already reduced federal interference with state wildlife management and is moving to open up more federal lands to energy exploration and extraction. READ MORE
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
