Please join us for our 2010 Water Management Summit at the world-class Monsanto Water Utilization Learning Center, located in Gothenburg, Nebraska. This Summit will include lecture series and panel discussions from Nebraska's leading water resource experts.

REGISTER FOR THE 2010 WATER SUMMIT HERE

SEE THE COMPLETE SUMMIT AGENDA HERE

The summit is Thursday, Sept. 23, at features several national and state water experts, including former U.S. Representative Tom Osborne, Director of the Department of Natural Resources Brian Dunnigan and several others.

The Platte Institute recognizes that effective water management is a multifaceted issue, and the Water Management Summit focuses on long term ideas and solutions that protect this vital resource while leveraging it for economic growth.

To download a PDF of the 68-page report, please CLICK HERE.

The study Where Did the Money Go? is authored by Adam Summers, Leonard Gilroy and Lisa Snell of the Reason Foundation. It examines spending and revenue in Nebraska compared to surrounding states from 2002-2008.

As of late, the status of economic knowledge among Americans has become a topic of concern for many educators, policy makers, and citizens. Indeed, several stories and studies concern themselves with the general lack of basic economic understanding in the population at large, even going so far as to declare it a "crisis."[1] Reports such as these draw life from an attentive audience primed by concerns over the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting sluggish economy; an audience more sensitive than ever to the implications of an ill-informed populace making economic policy through the democratic process.

The school choice movement promotes the idea that competition amongst schools driven by parent discretion will bring vitality to the educational system in America, and is now one of the greatest vessels for educational reform in the United States. Supporters advocate solutions as diverse as tax credits, charter schools, and school voucher programs, but each aims at enabling families with the autonomy required to select the school of their choice. They argue that this independence will force schools to perform well or risk losing their discontent constituency.

Everyone knows that the second most electrifying subject after economics is professional sports! So when LeBron James' recent selection of Miami narrowly fell into the purview of the Platte Institute's economic mandate the temptation to amalgamate these two exhilarating topics was too much. As most are well aware, immediately prior to James' decision, speculation about what factors would ultimately play into the star basketball player's choice began to dominate the news cycle. One of these factors in particular ought to be of interest to any policy buff/sports fan in Nebraska. That is, the varying tax burdens found in each state with teams courting James' favor, and how these taxes, or lack thereof, likely influenced James' final decision.

That’s because when the entire country is hurting and the private sector continues to lose jobs, bureaucrats are being hired.

Here are some basic facts on Nebraska’s tax system and how it compares to other states:

In 2008, the Omaha City Council passed an ordinance which included breed-specific legislation directed towards Pit Bulls in order to reduce Pit Bull bites in the city. This ordinance went into effect in 2009, and a report on its success is due to the City Council before October 1st of this year. A potential response to the evaluation of this ordinance could be the consideration of a Pit Bull ban by the City Council. A Pit Bull ban will most likely have no effect on dog bites in the city and cost hundreds of thousands of tax payer dollars. Dog bites are a serious problem in the United States, with approximately 350,000 injurious bites reported per year.

It's rather common knowledge among politicos and perceptive observers that when it comes to politics, details lead to division. That is why the successful candidate frequently seems to be the one who divulged the least about any particular issue during the campaign. For this reason, campaigns do their best to give as generic a message as possible, thus maximizing their appeal. This is not necessarily because more detailed political messages are too complicated for the casual observer, but rather that even in a room of the most like-minded people the small print tends to be divisive.