The Heartland Institute: Budget & Tax News
The Heartland Institute offers extensive resources on budget and tax policy issues. Those resources include Budget & Tax News, a monthly print and email publication; and PolicyBot, with thousands of policy documents, available in PDF and HTML free of charge, on such topics as economic development, privatization, and regulation.

• Texas Repeals Telecom Tax
  Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) in June signed House Bill 735, eliminating the Telecommunications Infrastructure Fund (TIF) tax in September 2008.
• Michigan House Proposes New Telecom Tax
  The Michigan House of Representatives is considering a bill that would levy a "public safety" surcharge of $1.35 on all phone bills to fund a variety of law enforcement-related programs.
• Welfare Reform 10 Years Later
  Welfare programs have been a substantial part of our nation's poverty reduction efforts since the mid 1960s. But has welfare been an effective means of lifting people out of poverty?
• Marriage and Earned Income Tax Credit Versus Section 8 Lottery
  The August 15 article ('Housing Voucher Scam Probed') on the Boston Housing Authority and Section 8 voucher scams provides a succinct overview of the fallacy of using subsidized rental payments to create housing options for the poor. These programs create unrealistic waiting lists of thousands of potential renters. They shift poverty from one neighborhood to another.
• Reform Spending, Relieve Taxpayers: Real Property-Tax Relief for Connecticut
  Connecticut's property-tax burden has risen steadily -- at a rate faster than inflation and population growth -- for years. And given the state's aging population, declining household income, and stratospheric cost of living, the ability of homeowners and businesses to devote more and more of their income to municipal governments is increasingly strained.
• A Tale of Two Cities: Reinventing Tax Increment Financing
  Tax increment financing (TIF) is a mechanism that allows municipalities to earmark tax revenues from property value growth within a designated area suffering from blight - a TIF district - in order to finance development in that same area. TIF has become the economic development tool of choice in hundreds of municipalities throughout Illinois; it is especially popular in Cook County.
• CAFE Battle Rages on Capitol Hill
  Fuel economy standards are being vigorously debated in Congress. Competing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards threaten to reduce consumer choice among family vehicles and impose significant new financial and safety costs on U.S. consumers.
• Property Tax Rollback Is Good for Taxpayers
  If Indianapolis has $52 million less revenue because of Gov. Mitch Daniels' order to roll back property tax collections to 2006 levels ['$52M tax hit in Indy now, an aftertaste to follow?' Aug. 1], taxpayers have $52 million more of their own money to spend and invest. That's a good thing, regardless of what local officials say.
• CAFE Battle Rages on Capitol Hill
  Fuel economy standards are being vigorously debated in Congress. Competing corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standards threaten to reduce consumer choice among family vehicles and impose significant new financial and safety costs on U.S. consumers.
• Governor Fails to Learn from Experience
  The <I>Chicago Tribune</I> was correct to point out the problems and failures of plans to expand government-subsidized health insurance programs in California, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and other states ('A healthy dose of reality,' July 19).
• Populist Pandering Wins Votes and Loses Jobs
  Eliminating between 200,000 and 600,000 low-skill entry-level jobs would be an economic catastrophe for the poor. Raising the minimum wage could also end up costing employers $7 billion a year in additional payroll costs. Yet about 64 percent of those receiving the minimum wage aren't adult child-rearing heads of households.
• Driving the Lemon Myth Off the Lot
  
• Big Government Led to Illinois Budget Showdown
  Illinois lawmakers may not be able to agree on a budget, but legislative leaders and Gov. Rod Blagojevich apparently do agree on the need to spend more, more, more--even though the state is already spending record amounts on health care, education, and other programs. The disagreement is over how much more should be spent.
• No Tobacco Tax Increase
  Letter written on behalf of millions of taxpayers, small businesses, families, senior citizens and shareholders to Senator Baucus and Senator Grassley.
• August 2007 Budget & Tax News (PDF)
  The August 2007 issue of <I>Budget & Tax News</I> reports on Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty's use of the veto pen to reject 20 tax hikes and spending increases.
• Extent of Government Unionism Varies Greatly
  The public sector is the "growth industry" for labor unions, with membership in government employment about five times greater than it is on private payrolls.
• Politicians Hand More to Public-Sector Unions
  The expansion of public-sector collective bargaining is happening again, this time in New York and Missouri.
• Kansas Statehouse Remodeling Bill Keeps Soaring
  Wasteful spending at the Kansas statehouse is nothing new, but wasteful spending <I>on</I> the statehouse is causing controversy.
• State Legislators Press for U.S. Immigration Reform
  State legislators disappointed with the inability of Congress to agree on immigration reform have formed a new group to fight illegal immigration in the United States.
• Low Taxes, Less Government Make 'Celtic Tiger' Roar
  Ireland has boomed in recent years, and it now boasts the fourth-highest gross domestic product per capita in the world. In the mid-1980s, Ireland was a backwater with an average income level 30 percent below that of the European Union. Today, Irish incomes are 40 percent above the EU average.
• Illinois Minimum Wage Hike Is Costing Jobs
  In fall 2006, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) signed his second increase in the statewide mandatory minimum wage in five years. The legislation raised the state's minimum wage to $7.50 per hour with an additional hike to $8.50 in 2010.
• Washington State Legislators Abuse 'Emergency Clause' Budget Loophole
  Horse race telecasts and a new name for a recreation committee were among 73 items declared legislative emergencies in Washington State as lawmakers continued their widespread use of the "emergency clause" to stop citizens from voting on legislation.
• Washington Court to Decide if State's Voters Understood 2001 Tax-Cut Vote
  The Washington State Supreme Court heard oral arguments in May in the legal battle over voter-approved Initiative 747, which set a 1 percent limit on annual increases in regular property tax collections.
• North Carolina Supreme Court Will Decide if Lottery Is Really a Tax
  The North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments on May 22 in an appeal of a ruling in a lawsuit that argues the state's education lottery is really a tax that lawmakers enacted illegally.
• North Carolina Supreme Court Will Decide if Lottery Is Really a Tax
  The North Carolina Supreme Court heard oral arguments on May 22 in an appeal of a ruling in a lawsuit that argues the state's education lottery is really a tax that lawmakers enacted illegally.
• Theme Park Subsidies Take Taxpayers for a Ride
  Axiom Entertainment of Rochester, Michigan is eyeing 1,800 acres of state-owned land near Grayling, in north-central Michigan, for a $160 million theme park.
• Government Handouts Represent a Growing