The USA Today hypes the left’s dreams for high-speed rail today with a story headed “$8 Billion Could Help Revive Travel by Train.” From the article: The Department of Transportation is to distribute the money to embryonic high-speed rail projects around the country and to Amtrak, the national passenger rail service, to develop high-speed technology. The government isn’t wasting time. By next month, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is required to issue a strategic plan detailing how DOT will use the $8 billion. By June, his department is required to tell …
The Washington Post reports today: Li Gao, China’s top climate negotiator, said any fair international agreement to curb the gases blamed for global warming would not require China to reduce emissions caused by goods manufactured to meet demand elsewhere. The idea that China would ever make cuts in carbon emissions a priority has always been a fable. Heritage fellow Derek Scissors explains why: Behind Chinese policies on competitiveness –indeed behind almost everything involving the PRC–is the Communist Party’s top priority for 20 years and counting: jobs. The well-documented demographic surge …
Speaking to House Democrats at their Kingsmill Resort & Spa retreat last month, President Barack Obama defended his economic stimulus plan, claiming: “[We] are not going to get relief by turning back to the same policies that for the last eight years doubled the national debt and threw our economy into a tailspin. … If you’re headed for a cliff, you’ve got to change direction.” Our public policy definitely needs a change in direction. But the Obama Administration’s budget is not a change in direction. Instead, it is a foot …
Bonuses for AIG employees? News this weekend that troubled insurer AIG, after receiving over $170 billion in taxpayer funds to prop itself up, is planning to pay some $1.2 billion in bonuses and retention payments met with general outrage from the average man in the street to the man in the White House. Now comes word that President Obama has called on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner to pursue “every legal avenue” to block the payments. That may be easier said than done. Like most other issues in the massive Gordian …
A month ago, Obama explored the notion of nationalizing the banks under the Swedish model. Instead of the Swedish banking model, Obama should look at the school voucher program in Sweden for inspiration. The Pacific Research Institute recently had a video Op-Ed on the New York times Web site explaining how well the voucher program works in Sweden. The voucher program in Sweden has broad bipartisan support and has defeated the “status quo” in education and the children, as well as parents, are reaping the benefits. In the video, Stockholm …
This Saturday the Washington Post reported: Exerting its new influence as the U.S. government’s largest creditor, China yesterday demanded that the Obama administration “guarantee the safety” of its $1 trillion in American bonds as Washington goes further into debt to combat the economic crisis. … China surpassed Japan last year as the largest foreign holder of Treasury bonds. Any indication that it intends to cease those purchases — or, worse, stage a sell-off — could drive up the cost of borrowing for the U.S. government, as well as send mortgage …
In his February 24, Address to Joint Session of Congress, President Barack Obama promised to “reform our defense budget so that we’re not paying for Cold War-era weapons systems we don’t use.” In the DC Examiner, Heritage senior fellow James Carafano wonders that means: All the “Cold War” weapons still in the Pentagon’s inventory—tanks, planes, ships—are already bought and paid for. And they are still in use—from aircraft carriers to cruise missiles. Scrap them, and you’ll have to replace them. Every system that we are buying now or plan to …
Health-care policy doyenne Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute, lived under the Canadian health care system — before moving to the United States in 1991 and becoming a citizen in 2006 — and she’s not excited about America’s health system heading in the same direction. “Understanding health care is like unraveling an onion: There are many tearful moments,” Pipes said at a recent Heritage Lecture about the U.S. health-care reform debate. “When I look at [President Barack] Obama’s plan for health care, I see it leading …
The Heritage Foundation has long had a strong commitment to transparency in government, and hopes all of you participate in the American Society of Newspaper Editors‘ Sunshine Week. ASNE describes the project: Though spearheaded by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public’s right to know what its government is doing, and why. Sunshine Week seeks to enlighten and empower people to play an active role in their government at all levels, and to give them access to information that makes their lives better and their communities stronger. Sunshine Week is …
Reducing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere has been the talk of town for awhile now, but uncertainties remain on how to best do it without completely devastating an already crippling economy. One of the biggest challenges is how to burn coal, which provides 50% of America’s electricity, without emitting CO2.. At present time, the most viable option is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The goal of CCS is to capture carbon emitted from coal burning generation facilities, compress it, transport it, and store it in sealed geologic formations, but when …
