RESEARCH

February 5, 2024 9:24AM

Over the past few years, educational choice programs that allow students to use a portion of their education dollars to attend schools that best fit their needs have experienced sweeping changes. By 2023, dozens of states had educational choice programs and ten states enacted universal or near-universal universal choice legislation, affording educational options to every... READ MORE

July 18, 2023 11:10AM

For at least a decade before the pandemic, Tennessee leaders have practiced conservative budgeting, keeping increases in state spending below population growth plus inflation. This saved Tennessee taxpayers billions of dollars, allowing for further pro-growth tax cuts. As the state is finally spending the last of its federal relief funds, it is more important than... READ MORE

January 22, 2023 9:00AM

Over the past 10 months, the Beacon Center has traveled the state to listen to our fellow Tennesseans about the challenges they face. This blueprint for restoring Tennesseans’ freedoms is a direct result of that listening tour. The listening tour was comprised of multiple components, including numerous and diverse community visioning panels, focus groups, and... READ MORE

January 11, 2023 4:42PM

Healthcare can be expensive and complex. But Tennessee’s rules and restrictions are making it worse, often for those who can least afford care. Adopted in the 1970s, certificate-of-need (CON) laws require a government permission slip before providing most healthcare services, such as opening a new hospital or purchasing high-tech medical equipment. Imagine if every new... READ MORE

December 14, 2022 5:00AM

Today, the Beacon Center released its most famous annual publication, the Pork Report. As always the report shed light on hundreds of millions of dollars of wasteful spending in Tennessee. Examples in this year’s report range from the state’s no-bid contract for contact tracing given to a company with no previous experience to the unused homeless pods the city of... READ MORE

August 22, 2022 8:00PM

Today, after months of research and open records requests, the Beacon Center released a new report showing how local school districts in Tennessee are budgeting and spending federal COVID dollars through the ESSER program. Congress allocated over $4 billion in federal taxpayer money to Tennessee school districts to address the pandemic. The data suggests that Tennessee public schools have budgeted or spent millions... READ MORE

December 15, 2021 10:28AM

The Beacon Center is proud to release its “recipe book” themed Tennessee Pork Report, revealing hundreds of millions of dollars in government waste, fraud, and abuse. This year’s infamous Pork of the Year “winner” was Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS). MNPS entered into an $18 million no-bid contract with Meharry Medical College Ventures which produced... READ MORE

November 29, 2021 7:42PM

As we have witnessed with Nashville Mayor Cooper’s recent faux pas, a misunderstanding of the state’s Truth in Taxation law can at best create confusion among taxpayers, or at worst, be used to deceive them. Additionally, while the law does prevent Tennesseans from automatically paying higher property taxes, it has clearly provided little defense against... READ MORE

November 2, 2021 9:06AM

For several decades and under the control of both Republicans and Democrats, Tennessee has been known for its fiscally conservative budgeting. Years of limited spending and low taxes have kept hundreds of millions of dollars in the pockets of Tennessee taxpayers that might otherwise have gone to government bloat. In fact, according to the Tax... READ MORE

December 8, 2020 5:15AM

From Memphis to Johnson City, there is no shortage of government waste in Tennessee this year. READ MORE

July 1, 2020 8:22AM

Every year, thousands of people across the United States move to Tennessee. While their reasons may vary, many choose to live here due to state-level policies such as the lack of a state income tax, low taxes per capita, and low levels of debt. These policies are well known and their benefits well documented. While... READ MORE

March 31, 2020 12:40PM

Today, the Beacon Center released a brand new package of 20 policy solutions focused on what policies the state of Tennessee should and shouldn’t enact moving forward when it deals with COVID-19. The suggestions relate to both public health and the economy. In terms of health, suggestions include ways to increase the number of medical professionals in the state, expand access to... READ MORE

December 11, 2019 9:03AM

This marks the 14th year of the Beacon Center’s Pork Report, our annual report exposing government waste, fraud, and abuse. While the Pork Report is a fun and creative outlet for our team to expose the top 25 most ridiculous instances of government spending in the past year, it is also a call to action... READ MORE

February 27, 2019 9:18AM

The American criminal justice system rests on the familiar canon that everyone is innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In Tennessee, absent a first-degree murder charge, every defendant has a constitutional right to bail. This is set forth in Article I, Section 15 of the Tennessee Constitution, which provides “[t]hat all prisoners shall... READ MORE

January 10, 2019 9:31AM

Today, the Beacon Center of Tennessee released a new report on the state of Tennessee’s economic incentive programs and exposed major issues with many of the subsidies. Below are some of the findings discovered by the Beacon Center: Many companies that receive taxpayer money are not required to hire the number of workers promised. In fact, all 25 FastTrack agreements reviewed... READ MORE

December 19, 2017 8:00AM

Tennessee prides itself on being a state that values smaller government, less regulation, and respect for individual liberty. Yet, while we have made significant progress in a number of critical policy areas, the Volunteer State’s regulation of its workforce continues to be among the most burdensome nationwide. In particular, Tennessee requires a government license to... READ MORE

July 14, 2015 12:51PM

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Tennessee Pork Report, a publication of the Beacon Center of Tennessee. We have spent the last decade thoroughly researching and reporting government waste, fraud, and abuse. Fittingly, this milestone year has uncovered that state and local government officials squandered a record-breaking $763 million in taxpayer money. The report highlights this mismanagement of taxpayer... READ MORE

May 13, 2013 1:17PM

Each year, the Beacon Center ranks the 50 most populous cities in Tennessee based on their business climate. Beacon analyzes data from a range of sources to give each city a score in three categories: business tax burden, economic vitality, and community allure. Below are the most recent rankings. 2013 Business-Friendly City Ranking 2012 Business-Friendly... READ MORE

May 10, 2013 1:19PM

At the beginning of each Tennessee General Assembly every two years, Beacon published a comprehensive Legislators’ Guide to the Issues. The guide covers a range of policy issues, offering free market reforms in each area in a concise, one-page format. A complimentary copy of the guide is provided to every state legislator. In the second... READ MORE

March 22, 2013 1:18PM

The Tennessee Pork Report is the Beacon Center’s most famous annual report. In its 11 years of publication, the Pork Report has exposed more than $2 billion in government waste, fraud, and abuse by state and local governments. Below are links to each annual Pork Report. 2020 Pork Report 2019 Pork Report 2018 Pork Report 2017 Pork... READ MORE

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