Libertas Institute

08/26/2026

Utah will spend $78,585 this year to keep one person in a prison cell, and it just committed $125 million to build hundreds more of them.

Here's the part that should stop you. There are two programs in this state that take people with long criminal records, house them for years, and get most of them out clean, working, and staying out. They don't cost taxpayers a cent.

They fund themselves through the businesses their residents run, a moving company, a thrift store, a construction crew. One of them reports that 70 to 80 percent of its graduates stay drug-free, crime-free, and employed. That's a better result than what the prison delivers, at a fraction of the price. Actually, at none of the price.

So why isn't Utah using them? Because the law won't allow it. A judge can send someone to one of these programs instead of prison. But the moment a sentence begins, the door legally locks. A person can sit in a cell wanting a real shot at changing course, with a free program ready to take them, and there's simply no way to get there.

A report even concludes that shorter sentences don't work on their own. What works is treatment, supervision, and help finding a job. Utah already has that, running for free, and refuses to use it.

Libertas is drafting legislation for 2027 to open the door. It costs the state nothing to do it.

08/26/2026

Utah Fits All is serving real families and growing kids multiple grade levels in a year. But a waitlist that size is a policy problem, not a footnote.

🔗 https://libertas.institute/education-empowerment/5-years-of-changing-how-utah-educates-kids/

08/24/2026

You may not agree with this, but in 2005, minimum wage could buy 2 Big Macs 🍔, but by 2026, it's closer to 1! Median wages tell a different story, though, showing typical workers earning $64k a year. Let's rethink minimum wage's relevance! 💰

08/24/2026

Before a kid can set up a $5 lemonade stand in most American cities, local ordinances technically require business licenses, health permits, and up to $125 in fees.

When government regulations treat a childhood rite of passage as an illegal commercial enterprise, it signals a deeper structural problem: our regulatory framework defaults to permission over freedom.

This overreach isn't just about lemonade stands. It reflects a system where bureaucratic red tape routinely stifles low-stakes, organic economic activity before it can even begin. 🍋

Key issues raised by regulation on minor-run businesses:

• High permit fees price out young entrepreneurs before they start

• Bureaucracy shifts the culture from self-reliance to permission-seeking

• Enforcement wastes local police and public health resources

How much government oversight is too much when it comes to neighborhood commerce?

08/21/2026

Salt Lake City’s recent short-term rental ordinance continues to ban vacation rentals across residential zones, locking operators out of 75% of the city’s housing supply.

Municipalities don’t need blanket bans to protect neighborhood peace when targeted enforcement works far better:

• Nuisance rules—like 24/7 local contacts and three-strike parking or noise violations—directly punish bad actors.
• Blanket zoning bans and arbitrary 200-night annual caps penalize responsible homeowners without cause.
• Cities should regulate short-term rentals like accessory dwelling units: broad approval paired with strict penalties for repeat violations.

Treating every property owner like a nuisance preemptively limits consumer choice and violates basic property rights. Local governments can preserve neighborhood character simply by enforcing existing noise and parking laws against actual violators. 🏘️

Should local governments have the power to tell homeowners they can't rent out their property short-term?

Let us know below.

Salt Lake City’s recent short-term rental ordinance bans vacation rentals across residential zones, locking operators out of 75% of the city’s housing supply.

08/20/2026

Only 1.1% of American hourly workers earned the federal minimum wage in 2023. Every argument built on that $7.25 number is arguing about the wrong thing.

Start with the influencer math flooding social media. The claim is that one hour of work today buys just one Big Mac, down from two in 2005. But $7.25 in 2005 equals roughly $12.75 in today's dollars, so the comparison stacks two different currencies against each other and calls it decline.

Measured against actual median wages, which now sit north of $64,000 a year, or over $30 an hour, an hour of work buys closer to five burgers, not one.

The market has already moved far past the legal floor. Wendy's advertises up to $18 an hour. The average hourly wage in Texas runs about $35, nearly five times the federal minimum.

Wages are set by supply and demand, not by legislation, and right now demand is pricing labor well above anything Congress wrote into law.

08/18/2026

A staggering 83% of released state prisoners are rearrested within nine years, with nearly half returning to crime within their very first year out.
Confining someone behind bars controls where they are today, but it completely fails to reform who they become tomorrow:

• Traditional prisons restrict physical freedom without teaching long-term personal responsibility.
• Peer-led therapeutic communities like Utah's The Other Side Academy (TOSA) achieve a 72% success rate five years post-graduation.
• TOSA operates entirely free of government funding, funded instead by student-run vocational businesses like moving companies and thrift stores.

Replacing pure isolation with strict peer accountability, hard work, and mentorship breaks generational cycles of crime far better than a cell block ever could. 🤝

Should non-violent offenders be allowed to earn their freedom through intensive, work-based accountability programs instead of prison time? Let us know below.

08/18/2026

We believe that America's best-trained workforce shouldn't have to start over.

🔗 https://libertas.institute/occupational-licensure/americas-best-trained-workforce-shouldnt-have-to-start-over/

08/17/2026

Five years ago, Utah started rebuilding how kids get educated.

Two laws later: ~20,000 students funded and microschools legal in every zone in the state. Here's what it actually took.

The question every back-to-school season forces on parents: does this school actually fit my kid?

08/14/2026

Did Missouri voters really choose to save their income tax? 📉

Media headlines framed the recent defeat of Amendment 5 as Missourians voluntarily choosing to keep their income tax. But that misses the bigger picture.

The proposed amendment wouldn't have just cut taxes—it set up a swap, giving lawmakers the leeway to expand and increase sales taxes to offset the difference. Voters didn't reject tax relief; they rejected a revenue-neutral tax shift that could have raised everyday costs for families.

Genuine free-market reform requires spending restraint and actual tax reduction, not simply shuffling where the government gets its money.

Read the full analysis from Libertas Institute here:

The lesson from Missouri isn’t that states should stop cutting income taxes. It’s that voters want a clear roadmap for phasing them out, and clarity about the transition would look like.