Today Big Labor’s allies in the House and Senate will introduce legislation with the Orwellian title “The Employee Free Choice Act.” Contrary to the bill’s title, the legislation will strip employees of their choice in joining union, and it will lead to a lot less employees throughout the economy. President Barack Obama is strongly committed to the legislation however, telling the Washington Post earlier this year: “You know, now if the business community’s argument against the Employee Free Choice Act is simply that it will make it easier for people …
Dr. Patrick Michaels, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute discussed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR). The EPA bureaucracy is trying to circumvent Congressional legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) and regulate carbon dioxide and other GHGs under the Clean Air Act. Heritage Foundations economists have covered the economic costs of the EPA’s ANPR: • Cumulative gross domestic product (GDP) losses are nearly $7 trillion by 2029 (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars), according to The …
Anthropogenic, (processes derived from human activities) effects on climate change is the topic for the next panel. William Kininmonth, a consulting climatologist with the Australian Climate Research Institute, says that anthropogenic effects on climate change are very real. But his data and evidence suggest there is nothing to worry about. His main conclusions were that carbon affects global temperature through its increase in back radiation at the surface, but carbon dioxide is not dangerous nor are the anthropogenic effects that result in increased carbon dioxide. Jan Veizer, professor of geology …
As many know, much of the global warming hysteria around the world is derived from the conclusions of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which warns that human activity is causing the world to become dangerously warm. Al Gore, who projects 20-foot sea-level raises over an unspecified time period, considers the IPCC report the magnum opus for climate change evidence. Scientists in some respects are being paid to make, at best, guesses or projections of how climate change actually works and what temperatures will be like in the …
Warren Buffet is a known supporter of the Death Tax, a long-time Democrat, was an unofficial adviser on economic policy to President Obama during the 2008 campaign and he recently served on the President’s Economic Advisory Board during the transition between presidential administrations. Oh, and he revealed this morning that he also opposes ending secret ballots for union organizing elections: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH0SmNFfFTQ[/youtube] As scholars here at Heritage have chronicled, the bill has been a top priority of Big Labor for years. The bill’s intent is to strip away worker’s ability to …
Laura Tyson’s “In Defense of Obamanomics” in the Wall Street Journal Monday well portrayed the view of history and government from the classical American socialist perspective – more government is inherently better (except when it involves national defense), higher taxes are inherently better, especially when falling on the most productive, and citizens really can’t get along adequately without giving up more freedoms to the nanny state. Nowhere is this perplexingly twisted view of reality made more clear than in her statement that “the strong expansion of the 1990s proves that …
In a recent Associated Press article, Secretary Hillary Clinton’s trip to Europe and the Middle East showed improvement as far as missile defense is concerned. Secretary Clinton “appeared to suggest that missile defense in Europe was a good idea even if Iran was no longer a worry.” While Iran is currently one of the biggest reasons for an effective missile defense system, Iran represents an evolving threat that will likely exist as long as ballistic missiles do. Missile defense systems are an integral part of national security in the 21st …
In the latest issue of Rolling Stone, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman targets Heritage’s Brian Riedl. In defending the $1.1 trillion “stimulus,” Krugman writes: One last line of attack was the claim that fiscal stimulus, in principle, simply can’t work. You hear this from conservative ‘experts’ like Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation, who declares, ‘Every dollar Congress injects into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. You’re not creating new demand, you’re just transferring it from one group of people to another.’ Borrowing …
Last week the Government Accountability Offices (GAO) released a report calling for better oversight of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) state and local law enforcement training program. We agree that the program could use additional oversight, but the GAO report also recommends a fundamental rethinking of the program that defeats its original purpose. Heritage analysts Jena Baker McNeill and Diem Nguyen explain: The report proposes that the program’s objective should be to only address serious criminal activity and that officers who check the immigration status of those committing …
The cratering stock market and accelerated job losses are beginning to shake the left’s confidence in President Barack Obama’s economic policies. But, being the left, they don’t want an actual change from the borrow and bailout policies that have ruled both the Bush and Obama Administrations. Instead they want even more runaway deficit spending. So Paul Krugman suggests that “the Obama administration’s economic policies are already falling behind the curve” and Talking Points Memo‘s Josh Marshall says the stimulus “was too small, probably offsetting a half or less than half …
