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Major Project Updates
- MPI Investigates: Michael has dug up some great stories on stimulus waste and spending abuses, as well as highlighted some important resources available for tracking how our tax dollars are being spent. We're looking forward to building on those successes in 2010 with stories that highlight the dangers of the "elect me and I'll give this and make him pay for it" attitudes we're seeing from our elected (and non-elected) public officials.
- Health Care Reform: Check out the latest bill status and free market approach information at our continuously updated health care reform resource page. Remember, this is about freedom, not health care. But we have to fight on the battleground they've given us so stay informed. By the time you read this the Senate may already have its bill. The two chambers have to reconcile their versions though, so there's still time to impact this debate.
- Global Warming Resources Page: Much like our health care resources page, we're tracking and linking to the best information out there to keep you informed about topics and developments that will shape the course of future energy policy and Montana's energy potential.
- Government Transparency: We're in the process of creating a transparency site for county spending similar to our www.schoolsopenmt.org site. More on that as it unfolds.
 Coming in 2010
- 2010 MPI Member Survey: It's easy and it's quick. What are your policy priorities for 2010-2011? Take two minutes for this one-question survey and help shape our research and educational agenda. The link is also available at our web site.
- Property Rights Forum: We're working with PERC on this event that will be held in Bozeman on February 18th. We have national experts to provide broad perspectives on property rights, including CATO's Randal O'Toole, PERC's Terry Anderson, and environmental expert Steven Hayward, but the main goal is to engage Montana leaders on this issue in a way that provides you actionable information. If you'd like to recommend a specific topic or panelist (including yourself), let us know. We're still working on the agenda and want to make it as valuable as possible for all attendees.
- Cap and Trade: How about this; we'll jack up your power bill, increase your taxes, and kill Montana's energy economy and the jobs that go with it to implement a policy purportedly designed to address a problem the cause of which has not been proven - and in fact has been shown to be fraudulently studied and reported - using methods and technologies that are expensive and years if not decades away and, as demonstrated by the need to subsidize them, unwanted. We'll be releasing a study of cap and trade's potential economic effects on Montana in January.
- Helena News Bureau: This just in! MPI will open a Helena News Bureau in mid-January to provide an alternative to Montana main stream media's "news by press release" approach to getting you information. Our new reporter will dig into those press releases and much more to do old fashioned, hard hitting real journalism. We'll provide the watchdog that this state's media environment so desperately needs as government continues to grow and where just spending billions of taxpayer dollars seems almost quaint. | 
