The AP reports: The Swedish government agreed Thursday to scrap a three-decade ban on building new nuclear reactors, saying it needs to avoid producing more greenhouse gases. Sweden is a leader on renewable energy but is struggling to develop alternative source like hydropower and wind to meet its growing energy demands. If parliament approves scrapping the ban, Sweden would join a growing list of countries rethinking nuclear power as a source of energy amid concerns over global warming and the reliability of energy suppliers such as Russia. Britain, France and …
The left continues to push the lie that all economists support the Obama Trillion Dollar Debt Plan. So Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell said yesterday: Economists from all around the world agree that it is critically important to invest in programs that help our economy. Even the ultra-conservative Martin Feldstein, who served as Ronald Reagan’s Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and as a principal economic advisor to John McCain, has said: “Another round of one-time tax rebates won’t do the job … The only way to prevent a deepening …
The Pioneer Institute’s annual Better Government Competition is a great opportunity for citizens to get involved in shaping public policy. The Pioneer Institute, for those who don’t know, is Massachusetts’ free market think tank, and with all that has happened in the state in health care the past few years, Pioneer couldn’t have picked a better topic than health care for this year’s competition. The competition is open to anyone with ideas on how to improve health care. Specifically, Pioneer is looking for entries detailing reform ideas that control health …
We like to think of Britain, the U.S. and the rest of the Anglosphere as nations that reject the statist European economic model. But from 1997 to 2008, the government’s share of the British economy increased from 38.4 percent to 41.9 percent. This expenditure was funded by debt that the government, as the Financial Times put it, “concealed . . . with off-balance-sheet finance that would have made Wall Street blush.” These off-balance-sheet liabilities, taken together, raise Britain’s official public debt by almost one-third, to 62.8 percent of GDP. And …
The Senateneeds to take its time with Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan. There are jut too many permanent government expansions tucked away inside this bill, especially on the health care front, including these four: Surprise #1—Congress as a predatory lender. Surprise #2—Former C.E.O.s and out of work politicians could Qualify for Medicaid Surprise #3—New Eligibles will Have to Wait. Surprise #4—Gain Medicaid, lose your doctor. Follow us across the jump for detailed explanations of each surprise…
It took President Barack Obama all of 15 days to break one of his most fundamental campaign promises. Even in these fast-paced times, that has got to be a record. On Wednesday, February 4, President Obama proudly signed into law a huge increase in the federal tobacco excise tax. The tax is intended to fund part of the expansion of the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). In promoting and signing this bill, President Obama confirmed what he had long denied, that he is after all just another tax and …
Last Friday Heritage fellow JD Foster detailed how President Barack Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan is destined to backfire: This debt explosion is likely to raise interest rates significantly for government debt, thereby increasing interest costs for future generations. More troubling at the moment, this policy will increase interest rates for all private debt such as home mortgages, consumer loans, and business loans. The near-term consequences of this debt bubble will be a deeper recession, a longer recession, and a weaker eventual recovery. Today the Financial Times reports: The US …
Is it any coincidence that on the same day that the Obama Administration announces restrictions on executive pay for companies taking government bailout money, Goldman Sachs announced that it is pulling out of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program? The investment bank, says CFO David Viniar, is chafing under the restrictions that came attached to its $10 billion loan. The new pay rules, which could be applied to existing TARP participants in a later iteration, may have been the last straw. “We would like to get out from under that,” …
We are not fans of Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s Flawed 4 Percent Mortgage Refinance Plan, but he did nail Obama’s Trillion Dollar Debt Plan with this observation: “if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” National Review’s Jim Geraghty crunches the numbers to back McConnell’s claim up: Christ’s birth in year zero one, times 365, times 2009, gets you 733,285,000,000, or a bit over $733 billion. (Yes, I’m leaving out leap years.) You’re not …
A key part of President Barack Obama’s Hope and Change promise was that he would not sign any non-emergency bills without offering the public five days to review and comment on the legislation. Since being sworn in, Obama has now signed two bills. In both cases, first the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act last week, and now the S-CHIP bill yesterday, President Barack Obama broke his 5 day review promise to the American people. And don’t get us started on Timothy Geithner.
