Media Hit

“And if both the premium and the penalty are considered a tax, the mandate becomes the largest tax increase in U.S. history. And that doesn't include all of the other taxes imposed by the legislation," reported Merrill Matthews in Forbes.

In less than a year, the Trump administration has dramatically scaled back government overreach, Merrill Matthews, a resident scholar with the Institute for Policy Innovation, told WND.

The Institute for Policy Innovation in a statement said the transaction "had been considered non-controversial by antitrust observers of all political persuasions." It said opponents of the deal likely don't have a markets or competitive basis and opposition instead is based on President Donald Trump's antipathy for CNN, with Justice "using the heavy hand of government to persecute those it doesn't like." If that's what's driving DOJ, it said, that would be "an ominous turn in the Trump administration."

In the first big merger review under the Trump Administration, the Justice Department has filed suit to block AT&T's $85 billion bid for Time Warner and its valuable programming assets.

“Conservatives watch as almost every week accounts are punished for tweets that may be controversial but are not threatening, and we can tell this is happening because we have run afoul of a single employee’s discretion,” said Tom Giovanetti, president of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a free-market think tank, calling Thursday's incident significant.

Regarding healthcare, the Institute For Policy Innovation’s Merrill Matthews writes in The Wall Street Journal that President Trump’s recent executive order to “expand health-insurance options for individuals battered by exploding premiums and fleeing insurers” represents “progress” on health care, but says Congress still needs to act in order to give Americans relief from Obamacare.

If this proposal becomes law and more people go the standard-deduction route, it could simplify tax-return preparation for millions. A postcard-size tax return might have as few as 13 or 14 lines, according to the Institute for Policy Innovation, which supplied an illustration.

To be sure, the scope of Trump's executive order remains to be seen, and there are some who hold that concerns over insurance market bifurcation are overblown. "It's an overstated risk," said Merrill Matthews, resident scholar and health policy expert at the Institute for Policy Innovation. Most Americans get insurance through their employers, Medicare and Medicaid, and Obamacare enrollees who get generous subsidies may decide to stay there. "You're really only talking about the individual market," he said.

Students from Howard Payne University's Guy D. Newman Honors Academy recently attended a public policy lecture through the Institute for Policy Innovation. Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, spoke on the topic "Preserving a Free, Open and Innovative Internet."

Merrill Matthews, an analyst with the independent Institute for Policy Innovation, said while Harvey "was certainly a disruption event, the remarkable thing it wasn’t more disruptive," to energy markets.