(21.1 MB)
New and veteran lawmakers alike are now facing critical issues: unfunded pension liabilities, ballooning Medicaid enrollment, massive budget gaps, and failing education systems, to name a few.
The Cato State Legislative Guide is designed to help state policymakers address these and other important issues and free their constituents from the burden of overextended government. Broken down into five core policy areas — education, transportation, tax and budget, health care, criminal justice — each section provides:
- Specific policy ideas from Cato Institute experts on how legislators can put their states back on a fiscally sustainable path that maximizes freedom.
- A "best of" list of Cato publications in each subject area, offering in-depth analysis and data in support of our recommendations.
- Contact information for the Cato scholars in each area of research.
Our hope is that the ideas in this guide will help state policymakers tackle the key issues facing their states in a manner that expands individual liberty, promotes free markets, and reduces the size of government.
If you have any questions about the 2011 State Legislative Guide, please contact Heather Curry at hcurry@cato.org.
Contents (All files are in Adobe Acrobat PDF format.)
A. EDUCATION
- "The Public Education Tax Credit," by Adam B. Schaeffer (includes "The Public Education Tax Credit Act" model legislation)
- "Choosing to Save: The Fiscal Impact of Education Tax Credits on the State of Nevada," by Andrew J. Coulson (includes the "Fiscal Impact Calculator")
- "They Spend WHAT? The Real Cost of Public Schools," by Adam B. Schaeffer (includes "Financial Transparency in Education Act" model legislation)
- "Do Vouchers and Tax Credits Increase Private School Regulation?" by Andrew J. Coulson
- "Florida's Unheralded School Revolution," by Adam B. Schaeffer
- "Behind the Curtain: Assessing the Case for National Curriculum Standards," by Neal McCluskey
- "Virginia's Right to Resist National Standards," by Neal McCluskey
B. TRANSPORTATION
- "Fixing Transit: The Case for Privatization," by Randal O'Toole, Policy Analysis 670
- "High-Speed Rail Is Not 'Interstate 2.0'," by Randal O'Toole, Briefing Paper no. 113
- "Surface Transportation Policy," by Randal O'Toole, Chapter 24 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers
- "Getting What You Paid For — Paying For What You Get: Proposals for the Next Transportation Reauthorization," by Randal O'Toole
- "Roadmap to Gridlock: The Failure of Long-Range Metropolitan Transportation Planning," by Randal O'Toole
- Gridlock: Why We're Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It, by Randal O'Toole
C. TAX AND BUDGET
- "Federal Aid-to-State Programs Top 1,100," by Chris Edwards, Tax & Budget Bulletin no. 63
- "Employee Compensation in State and Local Governments," by Chris Edwards, Tax & Budget Bulletin no. 59
- "Public-Sector Unions," by Chris Edwards, Tax & Budget Bulletin no. 61
- "State and Local Fiscal Reforms," by Chris Edwards
D. HEALTH CARE
- "Medicaid & SCHIP," by Michael F. Cannon, Chapter 13 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers
- "Health Care Regulation," by Michael F. Cannon, Chapter 15 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers
- "Health Insurance Regulation," by Michael F. Cannon, Chapter 16 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers
- "Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Care Law," by Michael D. Tanner
- "The New Health Care Law's Effect on State Medicaid Spending: A Study of the Five Most Populous States," by Jagadeesh Gokhale
E. CRIMINAL JUSTICE
- "The Budgetary Impact of Ending Drug Prohibition," by Jeffrey A. Miron and Katherine Waldock
- "Reforming Indigent Defense: How Free Market Principles Can Help to Fix a Broken System," by Stephen J. Schulhofer and David Friedman
- "Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies," by Glenn Greenwald
- "The War on Drugs," by David Boaz and Timothy Lynch, Chapter 33 of the Cato Handbook for Policymakers
- "Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America," by Radley Balko
This work by Cato Institute is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.