Heartland Weekly: Why a Carbon Tax Does Not Work

Published February 12, 2018

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.

DeVos Touts Shrinking DoE
Teresa Mull, School Choice Weekly
Speaking to the Washington Post, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said “Some of the most important work we’ve done in this first year has been around the area of overreach and rolling back the extended footprint of this department to a significant extent.” Keep up the good work, Betsy!

Why a Carbon Tax Does Not Work
H. Sterling Burnett, Washington Times
The tax cut Congress and President Trump delivered to Americans in late December is already paying dividends. With millions of Americans already benefiting tremendously, it might be a surprise to some to hear a cabal of Democratic Party governors and legislators are already angling to raise taxes once again.

Setting the Travesties Straight
Peter Ferrara, Washington Times
Everything in Washington is the opposite of what it is supposed to be. But there is a way to set these travesties straight, and now make sure that justice is at long last done. That would involve replacing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with former U.S. Attorney and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Two Minutes with Tim – Net Neutrality
Take two minutes of your day to listen to Heartland Institute President Tim Huelskamp discuss the controversy of net neutrality and why the internet is better out of the hands of the government

Podcast: Standing Up to Greenpeace
Host: H Sterling Burnett
Guest: Seth Kursman
Resolute Forest Products is suing environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, due to a public smear campaign concerning their logging practices in Canada. If Greenpeace is found guilty for false claims to garner fundraising under RICO, it could be liable for as much as $300 million in damages

Podcast: Fighting Mandatory Unions
Host: Jesse Hathaway
Guest: Mark Mix
The National Right to Work Foundation President Mark Mix talks about Janus v. AFSCME, a federal court case that could free hundreds of thousands of government employees from mandatory union membership and help reduce skyrocketing burdens on taxpayers.

Podcast: In The Tank: Episode 125
Hosts: Donald Kendal and John Nothdurft
Episode #125 of the In The Tank Podcast features a discussion about President Trump’s first State of the Union Address, as well as the latest work from the MacIver Institute and the Maine Heritage Policy Center. Donny also exposes the fraud that is Punxsutawney Phil!

Will Climate Realist Rock the EU?
H. Sterling Burnett, Freedom Pub
Neno Dimov, the new president of the European Union’s Environment Council, is a climate realist. Dimov argued in his 2012 book From Environmentalism to Freedom that European Union regs harm people and the economy for little or no environmental gain. That will surely heat things up at the EU.

Federal Loans Cause Tuition Hikes
Jane Shaw, School Reform News
Federal student grants and loans increase the cost of tuition at colleges and universities, a newly published survey of scientific studies concludes. “The research suggests that it is likely that federal financial aid does enable or contribute to increases in tuition, probably to a large degree.”

ECN – Offshore Drilling to Open
The February 2018 Environment & Climate News, edited by H. Sterling Burnett, is available online in PDF format. In this edition, we report on President Donald Trump’s proposal to open up nearly all of the nation’s offshore waters to oil and gas exploration, the cancelling of Cape Wind, and an update on the Climategate scandal from Arizona.

Flashes of Freedom
Check out Heartland’s sharp new video series that tackles our issues in about three minutes. This edition features a discussion by economist and 2nd Amendment advocate John Lott on how firearms prevent tragedy from occurring.

Investment in Renewables Stalls
Steve Goreham, Daily Caller
The Trump Administration announced a decision to apply a 30 percent tariff on imported solar cells and panels. The solar tariff discussion hides a larger renewable energy issue. Global investment in renewables has stalled in the US, in Europe, and in many markets across the world.

This Is Where Our Taxes Go
Dan Sutter, Freedom Pub
Libertarians like to say that taxation is theft, and there is a resemblance. Theft involves armed people forcibly taking money or property. Ultimately taxes rely on tax evaders facing arrest or seizure of their property. The consent of citizens distinguishes taxation from theft.

Video: Greenpeace Dropout
Patrick Moore was one of the co-founders of Greenpeace. After 15 years, he determined the organization had become “anti-human” and had to leave. In this “Flashes of Freedom” video, Moore briefly explains the startling transformation of a once-admirable environmental group that has gone very far off the deep end.

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