President Barack Obama’s mortgage bailout plan is predicated on the idea that by forcing lenders to rework some mortgages, there will be less foreclosures and housing prices will not keep falling. Problem is, as soon as you start setting standards to determine which mortgagees qualify, many homeowners won’t qualify for the federal aid … especially in the areas hardest hit by the housing bubble. So the San Francisco Chronicle reports: More than 90 percent of Bay Area mortgage holders cannot qualify for the low-cost refinances included in President Obama’s housing …
Concern about our nation’s fiscal health has long been a priority for The Heritage Foundation. Since 2005, Heritage has partnered with a diverse coalition of public policy institutions to educate Americans about our nation’s true long-term financial condition and large and growing fiscal imbalance. Working with the Concord Coalition and the Brookings Institution, the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, has conducted a series of town hall forums and editorial board briefings around the country to encourage Americans to demand action. At President Barack Obama’s “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” today, Heritage vice president for …
In a month of Congressional efforts to prop-up the stalling US job market, Nevada’s elected officials are fighting to make conditions worse in their state. Steve Tetreault and Keith Rogers report in the Pahrump Valley Times that the Department of Energy has cut 500 of 600 workers from Yucca Mountain Project contractor USA Repository Services. Additionally, Sandia National Laboratories will soon reduce their staff working on the project. How is it possible that Senator Harry Reid can be taken seriously on the issue of job creation across the country when …
Ahead of President Barack Obama’s “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” being held today, The Heritage Foundation hosted a panel last week titled: “Real Change or Pocket Change? The High Stakes of Entitlement Reform for Young Americans.” After the event, we asked attendees what they had learned: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDpq65A15ns&eurl=http://www.insideronline.org/blogarchive.cfm?blogid=9492C5C4-F3E0-C228-A4293F608A9D5281&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Chinese trade minister Chen Deming’s op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today chides the rest of the world on turning toward protectionism. This is remarkable on two counts: (i) that the PRC should lecture any country on protectionism and (ii) that the US has opened itself to being lectured by China. China intervenes in markets to distort trade as much or more than any country. While global consumption is shrinking, the PRC is forcing proportionally more of its goods on everyone else. That’s why China’s trade surplus over the past …
The Heritage Foundation does not believe in Keynesian economics. We do not believe that massive government spending has a “multiplier effect” which turns the initial amount of money spent by the government into an even greater increase in national income. Economic studies of projects claiming to have a “multiplier effect” have shown that the claimed additional economic benefit from government spending simply never materializes. But the White House does believe in Keynesian economics. And President Barack Obama’s entire economic plan is grounded in the belief that massive new government spending …
The Obama administration’s initial efforts at transportation policy are off to a rocky start. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood this morning came out in favor tracking and taxing drivers on the miles they drive instead of the amount of gas they consume. Almost immediately a spokesperson at the Transportation Department said such a system will not be part of the Obama administration’s policy, suggesting Secretary LaHood is still early on in his learning curve. Scotching this idea was right, however, because it was a bad idea to begin with. The vehicle …
Globalization has touched every aspect of modern life. Today, not just imports, exports, and jobs, but terrorists attacks—both their planning and prevention—are international affairs. Some of the Saudi 9/11 hijackers plotted parts of their attacks in Hamburg, Germany as well as in Florida. Safe havens in Latin America facilitate recruiting, fundraising, and international travel for terrorists around the world. America’s security and anti-terrorism efforts must extend far beyond U.S. borders. Once the threat—whether human or technological—has arrived on our doorstep, it may very well be too late. Jena Baker McNeill …
President Obama will host a three-hour “Fiscal Responsibility Summit” at the White House Monday to “underscore how big the problems are.” Sixty members of the House and Senate, and representatives from various think-tanks and advocacy organizations from across the political spectrum will attend in an effort to sort out the nation’s fiscal woes. The basics of the long-term entitlement problem are generally agreed upon. In April of 2008 members of the politically diverse coalition know as the Heritage-Brookings Fiscal Seminar published the paper, “Taking Back Our Fiscal Future.” In it, …
The federal government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program been complicated and controversial from the beginning. First sold by then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as a plan to buy mortgage-related assets from U.S. financial institutions,TARP quickly morphed into an incoherent slush fund. New Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has had a very similar problem deciding how best the federal government can interfere with the market place. The government’s constant policy whiplashes can be hard for the American people to follow. So here, in just 10 pictures, is TARP definitively explained: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8zzBkrv1wk[/youtube]
