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Free-market
How Tax Credits Built the “Good Ol’ Boys’ System”
Ask any American about the core problems with government, and you’re sure to hear stories of the “good ol’ boys’ club”. That group that tosses good bills, sneaks in bad pork, and generally twists the arm of government into making themselves even richer. It’s no secret… Read More
Income Taxes, Kansas, and the Mountain State
State legislators are considering the elimination of the personal income tax in the upcoming Spring session. These discussions have sparked a conversation about taxation and why it is essential to a government’s functioning. Opponents to abolishing the income tax claim that West Virgini… Read More
More Contracts, More Problems
Some things in life simply require a second serving. Ice cream, Netflix episodes, and French fries all aren’t the same without just a little bit more. Unfortunately, our gluttonous state government has gone in for seconds- on an expensive and complex technology contract. As reported by Metro News, G… Read More
Staggers Rail Act 40th Anniversary
Though hard to believe, West Virginia has some interesting history when it comes to paradigm-shifting deregulatory acts. 40 years ago, on October 14, 1980, the Staggers Rail Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter – freeing up the freight market from onerous regulation. Representing West V… Read More
The 95 Theses of Education
Education, as you likely know if you are reading this, is an important policy area for the Cardinal Institute. For this reason, like Alice, we can often find ourselves going down a rabbit hole while conducting research on the topic, and on the rare occasion, we find a shiny, beautiful… Read More
Border County Blues: Why Mountaineers are worse off than those across the state line
Some state vs state differences just make sense: Louisiana has more gator attacks than Texas, Florida gets more tourism than Alabama, and Maine catches more lobsters than Minnesota. One that makes no sense can be found at the edges of the great state of West Virginia. According to the bureau… Read More
The Dignity of Earned Success
You may have noticed that there has been a lot of discussion recently about unemployment benefits across the United States, as well as right here in West Virginia. How much should unemployment benefits be? How long should unemployment benefits last? Who should qualify and why? Though these questions… Read More
Policy Ideas for a Post-Pandemic World
Many of our individual lives have changed in some way or another due to the coronavirus. Similarly, lawmakers have a wide range of public policy options worthy of consideration as they are tasked with facilitating smooth transitions into post-coronavirus life and recovery of the localities and econo… Read More
An Email from a Stranger
One never knows when poignant, humbling moments will hit you, or even why when they hit, they hit you square in the gut. Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, the Cardinal Institute has been doing its best to cut through the information thicket and curate three good… Read More
What the Future May Hold
Now that we find ourselves somewhere around March 83rd, after having spent the last several weeks in quarantine, I’ve started to ponder what the world is going to be like once we’re “released back into the wild” — as I’ve come to call it. I think it’s safe to… Read More