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First Lady Michelle Obama touted the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 as a way to make school meals more nutritious and accessible to reduce childhood obesity rates. But after more than five years, the program has few positive results: a recent study shows childhood obesity levels haven’t declined (and in some demographics, have increased), food waste at schools is way up, and kids from families that don’t need subsidized meals still get them, courtesy of federal taxpayers.

How affordable is the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare? One just needs to look at the state of Minnesota. The state’s health insurance marketplace illustrates some of the many pitfalls of the Affordable Care Act, which has been especially hard on millennials.

After three decades of breakneck urban growth, there are indications of a significant slowdown in the largest cities of China. This is indicated by a review of 2014 population estimates in the annual statistical reports filed individually by municipalities with the National Bureau of Statistics.

In this edition of The Heartland Daily Podcast, managing editor Jesse Hathaway is joined by Tax Foundation policy analyst Jared Walczak. Walczak joins Hathaway to discuss the results of the 12th annual State Business Tax Climate Index report – A state-by-state, apples-to-apples comparison of states’ tax systems, the Climate Index helps Index helps lawmakers and taxpayers gauge how their states’ tax systems stack up against those in other states. Instead of just showing how much taxes each states collect from taxpayers, the Climate Index shows how well states’ tax collection systems are designed.

A couple of months ago, effective in November, National Grid, one of Massachusetts’ two dominant utilities, announced rate increases of a “whopping” 37 percent over last year. Other utilities in the region are expected to follow suit.

Rates of smoking and use of other tobacco products among teens are so low that they no longer provide a valid basis for the draconian anti-tobacco policy prescriptions favored by the FDA and CDC.

After largely sitting out the pitched political battle that has been waged over flood insurance reform virtually since the moment the last long-term authorization of the National Flood Insurance Program was signed…