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The Nanny State Comes For Menthol Cigarettes
History shows that banning a product such as menthol cigarettes disproportionately harms racial minorities as law enforcement targets the people buying and selling them.
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Congressional Hearing on E-Cigarettes Descends Into a Moral Panic
The hearing was littered with scientific inaccuracies and scaremongering.
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Proposed New Mexico PERA Board Restructuring Would Improve Expertise, Balance Representation Long-Term
The proposed legislation offers the promise of improving the experience and oversight capabilities of the Public Employees Retirement Association's governing board.
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As Congress Considers Vaping Ban, It Should Also Consider Public Health Benefits of E-Cigarettes
Hopefully, members of Congress and the industry officials will spend some time during the hearing examining the potential public health benefits e-cigarettes offer as a tool to help reduce the number of smokers in America.
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When Governments Go Insolvent, Should Others Absorb their Retirement Plans’ Costs and Risks?
San Francisco voters are being asked to assume liabilities that are not currently on the city’s books.
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For Real School Choice in Arkansas, the State’s Open Enrollment Policy Needs Reforming
An arbitrary cap on how many inter-district transfers a school district can allow in a year is holding back Arkansas' open enrollment policy.
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Florida’s Open Enrollment Policy Can Serve As a School Choice Model
Florida allows students to transfer from their assigned school to any public school with available capacity.
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Infographic: The Funded Ratios for Teachers’ Pension Plans in Each State
The changes in the funded ratios of the primary public pension plan for teachers in each state from 2001 to 2017.
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Open Enrollment Provides Substantial Benefits to Students and Families
Examining the research on the benefits and challenges of inter-district school choice, a policy that doesn't receive enough attention, so that policymakers can begin working to improve their states' laws and practices.
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Open Enrollment Policies Should be Expanded Nationwide
Open enrollment is the simple notion that families should be able to send their children to the public school of their choice and not simply the school tied to their ZIP code or assigned by school district administrators.
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Redesigning Cost of Living Adjustments Would Improve PERA Sustainability
The Public Employees Retirement Association Pension Solvency Task Force projects PERA currently has only a 38 percent chance of reaching full funding by 2043.
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Why PERA Being Only 71 Percent Funded Is Not Enough
The New Mexico Public Employees Retirement Association has at least $6.1 billion in pension debt and potentially more if its current actuarial assumptions are too aggressive, which is likely.
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Gov. Newsom’s Much-Needed Call to Simplify California’s Marijuana Taxes and Regulations
Reducing the regulatory burden would be a big step in the right direction. Next up: lowering cannabis taxes.
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Tackling the Federal Government’s Spending and Financial Mismanagement
The national debt is over $23 trillion and the 2019 deficit alone was $1 trillion. We need significant and substantive reforms to deal with this growing crisis.
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Why New Mexico Needs to Reform the Public Employees Retirement Association Now
The proposed reforms would be a meaningful step toward strengthening PERA while putting as little stress on members and taxpayers as possible.
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Study Finds Minnesota’s Taxes on E-Cigarettes Led to an Increase in Smoking of Traditional Cigarettes
The report's authors then postulate that if the same tax was levied across the entire United States, 1.8 million fewer people would quit smoking over a 10-year period.
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What Would Actually Convince the Surgeon General Vaping Is Better Than Smoking?
Whenever the evidence suggests e-cigarettes may benefit public health, it is treated with extreme skepticism and never quite good enough to merit a word of recommendation from the Surgeon General.
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Even California Democrats Prefer the Private Health Care System Over Medicare for All
Fifty-seven percent of the state’s likely Democratic primary voters favor incrementally changing the existing private health care system while 37 percent want to replace the private system with a single-payer Medicare for All system.
