The Institute for Human Studies
AI-Powered Search Engine for Laws, Regulations, Legislation, and More
This AI-powered search engine allows users to search for laws, regulations, legislation, and more with ease. It offers advanced search, customizable alerts, and detailed bill summaries, tracking their progress in real time. Perfect for research, advocacy, or policy work, it saves time and effort, delivering updates straight to your inbox or for download—eliminating the need for costly tools or manual tracking.
Mercatus Center at George Mason University
State RegData Definitive Edition
State RegData extends the logic of the RegData US project to the American states. Like RegData US, State RegData datasets employ the QuantGov platform to download and analyze both state regulations and statutes, turning thousands of pages of dense regulatory and statutory text into datasets. Each state dataset contains general metadata, restriction counts, word counts, and industry relevance data for all 49 states and the District of Columbia (excluding Arkansas regulations due to lack of regulatory code). The project includes cleaned agency and cluster data for state regulations and statutes, enabling better comparison of topic-specific regulations between states. Interactive tools include the State RegData Definitive Dashboard for comparing restriction counts, RegCensus Explorer for state-level data visualization and comparisons, and RegHub for keyword searches across all documents in the QuantGov corpus.
Census of Regulatory Restrictions
The Mercatus Center's RegData database makes it possible not only to measure regulations within a jurisdiction but also to compare regulations between jurisdictions, both national and subnational. In "Census of Regulatory Restrictions," Kofi Ampaabeng, Patrick McLaughlin, and Thurston Powers use RegData to compare the regulatory landscapes of the United States, Canada, and Australia, as well as their states and provinces. They address the volume of regulations, the complexity of regulations, the industries affected by regulations, and (in the case of the United States) the agencies that issue them.
Manhattan Institute
Post-Employment Benefits in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut: The Case for Reform
This report explores the complexities of OPEB, particularly in New York State, New York City, Connecticut, and New Jersey. It also considers measures that governments can take to limit their OPEB risks—ranging from providing inflation-indexed, health-care premium subsidies to switching to a subsidy-free OPEB plan. These kinds of reforms are like switching from a defined-benefit pension plan to a cash-balance plan. They mitigate risk to the employer while protecting the employer's ability to offer employee benefits without, in the case of the public sector, threatening core public services.
American Legislative Exchange Council
Unaffordable and Unaccountable 2018
Unaffordable and Unaccountable 2018 surveys the more than 280 state-administered public pension plans, detailing their assets and liabilities. The unfunded liabilities (the amount by which the present value of liabilities exceeds current assets) are reported using the investment return assumptions used by states, along with alternative measures more consistent with prudent risk management and more reasonable long-term market performance expectations. This report clearly illuminates the pervasive pension underfunding across the nation and details the assumptions and trends contributing to this crisis.
State Bonded Obligations, 2018
States issue a diverse array of bonded obligations, with a range of obligation strength, revenue sources, debt service schedules, and other factors. This study collects and analyzes the bonded obligations reported by each state in their respective Comprehensive Annual Financial Report. States and their component units issued $863 and $260 billion of bonds as of 2015, $1.1 trillion in total. The differences between states offer important insights into the ways that states manage these obligations.
State of the States: An Analysis of the 2018 Governors' Addresses
The latest entry of the State of the States publication breaks down each governor's "state of the state" address and identifies strong and weak policy prescriptions within. The publications also explore each states economic outlook and how certain policies outlined in these addresses could have either beneficial or detrimental effects on the outlooks of each state.
Other Post-Employment Benefit Liabilities, 2017
Other Post-Employment Benefit Liabilities, 2017 surveys the more than 100 state-administered post-employment benefit plans, such as health insurance, Medicare advantage, life insurance, and other non-pension benefits. Controlling for differences in discount rates, five states have accrued more than $10,000 dollars per capita of unfunded OPEB liabilities. On the other hand, two states have eliminated their unfunded liabilities entirely through OPEB reform in recent years. The report highlights some of the questionable actuarial assumptions and how some states have minimized their risk.
State Tax Cut Roundup 2017
The 2017 legislative session ended with nine states enacting changes to their tax codes sufficient to qualify for State Tax Cut Roundup. Each state provided substantial tax relief for their citizens. Pro-growth tax reform was a key theme, as states took steps to both improve budget gaps and improve their economic competitiveness. Rich States, Poor States: ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness Index illustrates how certain tax and fiscal policies lead states to prosper and others to fall behind. Fortunately, state legislators are heeding this message. The number of states enacting new tax relief legislation during the 2017 session totaled nine, which is equal to the number of states that qualified during the 2016 session.
Unaffordable and Unaccountable 2017
Unaffordable and Unaccountable 2017 surveys the more than 280 state-administered public pension plans, detailing their assets and liabilities. The unfunded liabilities (the amount by which the present value of liabilities exceeds current assets) are reported using the investment return assumptions used by states, along with alternative measures more consistent with prudent risk management and more reasonable long-term market performance expectations. This report clearly illuminates the pervasive pension underfunding across the nation and details the assumptions and trends contributing to this crisis.
Yankee Institute for Public Policy
Where Has All the Money Gone? The 25th Anniversary of Connecticut's Income Tax
In 1991, state lawmakers asked the residents of Connecticut to support a compromise: in return for an income tax, lawmakers promised to abide by a constitutional spending cap which would, they said, ensure fiscal responsibility. But legislators failed to live up to their end of the bargain. Not only has spending risen far faster than predicted, leading to deficits followed by additional tax increases, but the spending cap was neither fully implemented – nor respected.
Taxes at Home: A Comparison of Municipal Spending
The following paper provides a comparison of per person spending for every city and town in the state. It also analyzes the budgets of four of the top five spenders. The results are both revealing and unsurprising – as with the state, years of generous promises to government employees have pushed spending higher. Municipal budgets have been deeply affected by localities' failure to pay for their promises up-front, and local taxpayers have been burdened with the obligation to make large catch-up payments to draw down those liabilities.