The U.S. Department of Education’s released a report today presenting the finding of an academic evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. It found that, after three years, students who were offered vouchers to go to private school through the program had made statistically significant gains in reading achievement. Specifically, the IES report found that “those offered a scholarship were performing at statistically higher levels in reading—equivalent to 3.1 months of additional learning.” Like previous evaluations, it also found that “the [Opportunity Scholarship Program] had a positive impact overall on …
Bloomberg reports today: The Federal Reserve’s $1 trillion effort to restart the market for securities backed by loans is encountering resistance from investors, undermining Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s attempt to further drive down borrowing costs. … Investors are concerned that Congress, while responding to taxpayer anger over bank bailouts, hasn’t described how the most sweeping regulatory overhaul since the Great Depression will change the ways financial companies turn a profit. The government needs Wall Street to help revive credit yet can’t ignore the outcry over aid to firms that took …
In the New York Times today, David Brooks has a column in which he describes two theories about the financial crisis: “greed” and “stupidity.” The “greed” theory is not what you might be thinking—it is not the simplistic notion that Wall Street is just full of greedy capitalists that swindle the people out of their money. It is a little bit more sophisticated than that, because it involves the government bailing out the banks. They do this, of course, because politicians earn handsome rewards for it. This theory has some …
This morning the Iowa Supreme Court became the fourth state supreme court to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. Justifying his decision Iowa Supreme Court Justice Mark Cady invoked his court’s 1839 decision which struck down slavery laws. Heritage’s Matthew Spalding addressed the specious argument back in 2003: The argument of these judges is that homosexual “marriage” is simply the extension of privileges to a discriminated class in the name of civil rights. The parallel is made to the Supreme Court’s striking down, as instances of arbitrary and invidious discrimination, …
The war against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is the direct result of the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Those attacks resulted in NATO invoking Article 5 of its Charter, and thus calling upon all NATO members to contribute to the defense of the United States. The war – for what this is worth – was also repeatedly endorsed by the UN Security Council. Simply put, the war, apart from being an expression of the inherent right of self-defense, has an excellent claim to be the most legally correct conflict …
DON’T BORROW, SPEND, AND TAX AWAY OUR FUTURE The President’s Plan Blames Bush: President Obama correctly points out that he inherited a projected $1.2 trillion deficit in 2009 from President Bush and a Democratic Congress. However, his budget adds an additional $659 billion to that deficit, pushing it above $1.8 trillion. Although Obama has pledged to reduce the budget deficit to approximately $600 billion by 2012, that would still be $150 billion above pre-recession levels. Quadrupling the deficit and then cutting it in half is not “change.” Increases Spending, Again: …
President Obama’s tele-prompted speech to thousands of hand picked town hall guests at a sports stadium in Strasbourg was received with the customary rock star greeting that the President and the stylish First Lady have grown used to by now in Europe. Throngs of students applauded rapturously when President Obama talked passionately about the urgent crisis of climate change, and the ‘moral shame’ of Guantanamo bay. Less enthusiastic were they for his message about the essentialness of winning in Afghanistan, which perhaps explains why he spent such little time on …
“Arriving in Tehran,” Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez declared, “for us is like arriving at one’s home town.” It certainly should be as this is his sixth as President. The purpose of the visit, Chavez announced was to form with Iran a “common revolutionary front … in the world.” As for patching up relations with President Obama and the U.S. in the run-up to the Fifth Summit of the Americas, to be held in Trinidad and Tobago from April 17-19, Chavez was less positive. I don’t have much hope, because behind …
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, March 27, 2009: This is a crisis that was caused by white people with blue eyes. And before the crisis, they looked as if they knew everything about economics. Associate Press, April 2, 2009: During a lunch at the Group of 20 summit in London, Obama shook hands with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and said: “This is my man, right here. I love this guy.”
Is the Obama administration taking North Korea’s threat to launch a long-range missile seriously enough? With North Korea poised to launch as early as this weekend, you would think we would have deployed our SBX radar. You’d be wrong. The ship-borne Sea-Based X Band Radar (SBX) is one of the best missile tracking radars in the U.S. inventory. It was used most recently in the successful Dec. 5, 2008, missile-defense test. In that test, we directed an interceptor missile from California right into a missile fired from Kodiak Island, Alaska. …
