Economy

Though hard to believe, West Virginia has some interesting history when it comes to paradigm-shifting deregulatory acts. 40 years ago, on October 14, 1980, the Staggers Rail Act was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter – freeing up the freight market from onerous regulation. Representing West V… Read More

Education, as you likely know if you are reading this, is an important policy area for the Cardinal Institute. For this reason, like Alice, we can often find ourselves going down a rabbit hole while conducting research on the topic, and on the rare occasion, we find a shiny, beautiful… Read More

Some state vs state differences just make sense: Louisiana has more gator attacks than Texas, Florida gets more tourism than Alabama, and Maine catches more lobsters than Minnesota. One that makes no sense can be found at the edges of the great state of West Virginia. According to the bureau… Read More

Schools reopened across the Mountain State this Tuesday, but despite additional measures taken by many schools to remain safe, nine counties were prohibited from conducting in-person classes this week. The West Virginia School Re-entry Metrics and Protocol Program, a color-coded map used to track co… Read More

Teachers, parents, students, and everyone in between are gearing up for some kind of start to the 2020-21 school year. There’s no denying that uncertainty is the prevailing theme this school year.   Will the year start in person or virtually? Can the spread of the coronavirus be contained? What… Read More

One of the most contentious debates currently raging across the country is whether schools should reopen in the Fall. The hashtag #schoolsreopening is even trending on Twitter! Everyone has an opinion about it, and every state and school district is coming up with a different plan on how to… Read More

Discussions about masks are all practically impossible to avoid these days. Although, perhaps, “discussion” is too generous a term for the level of conversation that seems to take place most often. Instead, in my experience, it has a tendency to devolve into a snarky exchange of quips amounting to l… Read More

Many of our individual lives have changed in some way or another due to the coronavirus. Similarly, lawmakers have a wide range of public policy options worthy of consideration as they are tasked with facilitating smooth transitions into post-coronavirus life and recovery of the localities and econo… Read More

One never knows when poignant, humbling moments will hit you, or even why when they hit, they hit you square in the gut.   Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, the Cardinal Institute has been doing its best to cut through the information thicket and curate three good… Read More

Now that we find ourselves somewhere around March 83rd, after having spent the last several weeks in quarantine, I’ve started to ponder what the world is going to be like once we’re “released back into the wild” — as I’ve come to call it.   I think it’s safe to… Read More