Reports & Books
Apr 26, 2013
A new Center of the American Experiment report investigates an important question: Does state tax policy motivate people to leave or avoid Minnesota? Analysis of IRS income migration data reveal clear patterns of movement from Minnesota to lower tax states,which strongly suggest that taxes make a difference in where people and their incomes are moving. The implications for proposals to raise Minnesota tax rates is clear: Higher taxes will likely lead to even more wealth moving to other states.
Mar 14, 2013
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This report provides vital information to help understand and evaluate state spending. The report highlights the need need for spending restraint, evaluates state spending trends, compares state spending to other state, and estimates would state spending would have been if, in the past, it had been restrained to inflation plus population growth.
Jan 31, 2013
The Affordable Care Act asks states to set up insurance exchanges to “facilitate the purchase of qualified health plans.” The primary goal of an insurance exchange is to extend affordable health coverage to low-income households via Medicaid and federal premium tax credits. There are at least three key strategies to best connect low-income households with affordable coverage through a state-based exchange.
Oct 9, 2012
This new American Experiment symposium grows out of a book of mine published just about a year ago, From Family Collapse to America’s Decline: The Educational, Economic, and Social Costs of Family Fragmentation, which examined many of the problems and shortcomings resulting from very high rates of nonmarital births, very high rates of divorce, and routinely short-lived cohabiting relationships. One of the book’s central themes is how such family churning—more specifically, the extent to which it hurts great numbers of children—is leading, and can only lead, to stunted mobility and deeper class divisions in a nation that has never viewed itself in such splintered ways.
Sep 27, 2012
How and where and when is it appropriate to reintegrate folks into civil society? Are the strategies we’re currently using appropriate and effective? What is the best approach? Over the past 40 years in this country, we have tried “Three Strikes and You’re Out.” We’ve tried longer prison sentences. We’ve tried determinant sentencing. We’ve tried numerous prison rehabilitation and education programs, including prison ministries. We’ve tried restorative justice, drug testing, work release programs, mentoring programs, and more. All of these approaches have a wide range of supporters and detractors. The results have been, at best, a mixed bag.
Sep 10, 2012
This report assesses the costs that Minnesota should expect from photo ID and finds that short-term, upfront costs would be quite minimal. And, over the long term, depending on how the photo ID amendment is implemented, the amendment may result in an overall savings to the election system.
May 3, 2012
American Experiment presentation to the Met Council makes recommendations on the 2040 Regional Development Framework
Feb 23, 2012
Minnesotans have always taken pride in our public schools. But today, an education train wreck looms just around the corner.
Feb 23, 2012
Minnesotans have always taken pride in our public schools. But today, an education train wreck looms just around the corner.
Jan 26, 2012
The passage of a right-to-work law would end monopolistic practices in labor markets that have been an important factor in keeping the state from being nearer the top with respect to the standard of living of its citizenry. Moreover, the cost to the state government of doing so would be trivial as enacting a right-to-work law would require no expenditure of taxpayer dollars.