Policy Papers Domestic
The American Promise
The American Promise: the dream of being a country that provides its citizens with limitless opportunity and where people enjoy a high quality of life in terms of health, safety, income, and well-being. America has made great strides in fulfilling this promise. As detailed in this report, Americans are better off today than any other time in history.
IWF Policy Brief #13: Congress Should Commit to Restraining Spending
As Congress considers how to boost the economy, they should begin by ceasing behavior that harms the economy: this means ending wasteful government spending and reforming entitlement programs to reduce the government's implicit debt.
IWF Policy Brief #8: SCHIP Debate Isn't About the Children: It's About Our Healthcare System's Future
Media coverage of the Congressional debate about reauthorizing the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) has focused on the program’s supposed beneficiaries: children from low-income families. Yet the debate about SCHIP has implications far beyond this one program. This debate is really about the future of America’s healthcare system
IWF Policy Brief #4: Eliminating the Wage Cap Won't Fix Social Security
In a recent op-ed, Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) suggested that policymakers should consider eliminating the wage cap on Social Security payroll taxes in order to solve the program's looming financial crisis.i However, eliminating the wage cap will not meaningfully change Social Security's financial problems, and it would be a significant tax increase on millions of working Americans and small businesses.
IWF Policy Brief #3: Bigger Waistlines or Bigger Government? Obesity Policy in America
Americans are regularly warned about the new “epidemic” threatening its citizens: obesity. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has purported that more than 66 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and that obesity-related deaths top more than 400,000 per year. These alarming statistics are used by politicians to justify new regulations taxes, and government programs that discourage Americans from unhealthy eating.
IWF Policy Brief #1: Baucus-Grassley Tax Increase Could Have a Negative Effect on the Economy...and not just for the rich.
The Independent Women's Forum warns that passage of the proposed Baucus-Grassley tax increase on publicly traded partnerships, which has been introduced before the U. S. Senate (S. 1624), could have a profoundly negative effect on the American economy, and not just for the rich.
Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls
IWF visiting fellow Krista Kafer reveals in her newly released paper, "Taking the Boy Crisis in Education Seriously: How School Choice Can Boost Achievement Among Boys and Girls," girls are actually outperforming boys in most academic measures.
Five Ways to Improve Healthcare for Women
The report, entitled Five Ways to Improve Healthcare for Women, was undertaken by the IWF, a non-partisan group that studies women's issues, because women make the majority of health care decisions in the U.S and because many women recognize that our flawed, one-size-fits-all system does not, in fact, fit them.