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.

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Position Paper No. 609: Excellence, Not Gender Parity, Should Be Priority for STEM Faculty

Women have made tremendous progress in academia, but they remain a minority of faculty, particularly in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) departments.

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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.

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Position Paper No. 606 Who Pays for My Time Off? The Costs and Consequences of Government-Mandated Leave

Balancing the demands of work and family life can be a challenge for any worker. Events such as severe illness or the birth of a child can make working outside the home impossible.

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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

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IWF Policy Brief #7: Chairman Charles Rangel's Plan to Penalize Marriage and Discourage Women from Working

Chairman Charles Rangel (D-NY) has just released a tax proposal that would increase taxes by an estimated $3.5 trillion, making it the largest increase of individual taxes in history.1

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IWF Policy Brief #5: Senator Clinton's Plan to Expand Family and Medical Leave

Carrie Lukas outlines the significant costs associated with FMLA.

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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.

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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.

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Empowering Teachers with Choice: How a Diversified Education System Benefits Teachers, Students, and America

Author, Vicki Murray, Ph.D. explains how a more diversified system would offer teachers the same wide range of employment options other profesionals currently enjoy.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Issue 2: Indecency

Rebuilding Civil Society: A Series of Special Reports From the Independent Women's Forum.

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Women and the Information Technology Revolution

New Report from the Independent Women's Forum Illustrates the Vital Role of Technology in Women's Lives.

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IWF's Agenda for Women 2006

President Bush delivers the State of the Union address Tuesday night. As is traditional, the Independent Women's Forum puts forward our Agenda for Women, a call for lower taxes, less government and more freedom for American women.

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The Death Tax: Unfair, Inefficient, Bad for Women

The death tax, or federal tax on one's assets at the time of death, is an unfair, inefficient tax that should be permanently repealed.

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Rebuilding Civil Society: Marriage

Marriage has traditionally been viewed as the bedrock of family and society. Over the past 40 years, however, there has been a shift in the way society views marriage.

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Cornerstones of American Democracy

The American justice system is imperiled by an extraordinary number of federal judicial vacancies and special interest groups trying to prevent the confirmation of qualified nominees.

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Agenda for Women 2005

In our yearly analysis, IWF calls for greater freedom for women in areas such as Social Security, tax reform and education.

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Sex (Ms.) Education

A report by Carrie Lukas looks at what young women need to know (but won't hear in women's studies) about sex, love and marriage.

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Free Trade: What Global Girls Need

Women should recognize that it isn't just coupons and sales that are creating holiday bargains -- free trade is helping to fulfill all of these needs.

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Women's Economic Independence Report Card

Women's fight for independence and liberty continues. To gain greater freedom and control over our lives, women must push government to return power to individuals.

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Taxing Independence: The Price of Feminists' Love Affair with High Taxes

Feminist rhetoric implies women should prefer government to spend money on their behalf rather than have individuals control their own resources.

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Recess from Reality: The Feminist Failure to Embrace School Choice

A special report that highlights how feminist opposition to school choice disserves women and their children.

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Golden Girl Power

Making the right changes to Social Security will help women to be more independent and financially secure.

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2004 Communications Survey of Women in Swing States Using Thematic Argumentations

The 2004 Communications Survey of Women in Swing1 States sought to capture the essence of the Right and Left's thematic arguments and quantify what works and why.

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Making the Healthcare System Work for Women

Healthcare is expensive, and we need to find better ways to control costs and make health coverage more affordable for American women.

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Dependency Divas: How the Feminist Big Government Agenda Betrays Women

Candidates looking for women's votes need to look beyond the advice of self-proclaimed feminist groups.

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Agenda for Women 2004

What do women really want? The IWF unveils the right policies for women in 2004. Move over, N.O.W.

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