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Kansas Supreme Court Usurps Legislature’s Authority
In most states, elected officials, usually state legislators, are responsible for assessing what education funding in the state should be and will be. Recently, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled…
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John Stephenson Testimony on Electronic Data Privacy Protection
On March 20, 2014 ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force Director John Stephenson was asked to testify in front of the South Carolina House Judiciary’s Constitutional Laws Subcommittee hearing on…
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Seattle Restricts Uber and Transportation Innovation
In a major setback for innovation in the urban transportation market, the Seattle City Council voted Monday to cap the number of cars that ride-on-demand services like Uber…
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Tax Reform and Pension Reform
This appeared on PublicSectorInc.Org on March 11, 2014. Congressman Dave Camp’s recently released tax reform draft has stimulated a much-needed national conversation about the U.S. tax code, attracting …
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Raising the Minimum Wage: The Effects on Employment, Businesses, and Consumers
Despite good intentions, recent efforts at the federal, state and local levels to increase the minimum wage pose a serious threat to America’s businesses and to less-experienced and less-educated Americans…
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NYC Mayor Rescinds Space-sharing Agreement for Three Charter Schools
Newly-elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that space-sharing agreements for three New York City charter schools have been rescinded. This decision marks an abrupt change…
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Pension Expert: Local Pennsylvania Downgrades Lurk
With new accounting rules looming, states and municipalities are beginning to realize that their unfunded pension liabilities are much more severe than they had previously estimated. Defined-benefit pension plans, the…
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Tennessee Considers Eliminating Hall Tax
Tennessee policymakers are considering the repeal or “localization” of the Hall Tax, a tax on investment income (interest, dividends, and capital gains). The legislature is correct to consider this a…
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Attacking Consumer Choices through the Tax Code
Last week, a bill was introduced but never heard in the Washington State Senate that considered a proposal to tax electronic cigarettes at 95 percent of their cost; the…
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Big government does too much, badly
Around the country there have been calls to raise the minimum wage, to impose strict regulations on our businesses and to forcibly adopt a health care system that nationalizes one-sixth…
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Want to Avoid the Employer Mandate? There’s a Rule Against That
The Obama administration has a new solution to force compliance with the Affordable Care Act (ACA): simply ban businesses from reducing staff in response to the law’s burdensome employer mandate.
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Wireless Tax Burden Harms US Economy
Since the Federal Communications Commission approved mobile devices for public consumption in 1983, the use of wireless phones has increased by 25 to 35 percent per year. Today, mobile…
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New Report Reveals Level of Federal Aid to the States and Importance of Fiscal Federalism
By: William Freeland, Kati Siconolfi, and Steven Johnson In the face of a stagnating economy and national debt topping $17 trillion, many policymakers in Washington, D.C. are seeking ways…
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Pension Interview with Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association
Jonathan Williams, Director of ALEC’s Center for State Fiscal Reform, was a recent guest on the Pennsylvania Manufacturers’ Association show, PMA Perspectives, broadcast statewide on PCN. During the show, he…
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Reforming the Federal Corporate Tax and Individual Income Tax: A Step in the Right Direction
Earlier today U.S. Representative Dave Camp, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, released a bill designed to fundamentally reform both the federal corporate and individual income tax (press…
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State of U.S. Broadband
The recent release of the 2014 Akamai study, The State of the Internet, has again brought the question of US broadband to the public forefront. In terms of…
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An Examination of State Tax Instruments
All states need to collect revenue if they are to fund the necessary government services that they must provide. While it can be argued what does and does not belong…
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Pension Myths Keep Us From Making Badly Needed Reforms
As 2014 brings in new struggles for cities and states to pay for employee legacy costs while still funding the essential functions of government, policymakers on both sides of the…
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Federalism Prohibits Preemption of States on Broadband Safeguards
By: Seth L. Cooper Federal regulation of the Internet is a bad idea. So is federal regulation of states that would rather keep their local governments out of the Internet…
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President Obama Doesn’t Know How to Create Jobs, and a Minimum Wage Increase Won’t Help
This appeared on RedState on February 6, 2014. President Obama’s big government philosophy has created an economic environment hostile to job growth and economic prosperity. He says…