With Congress and President Barack Obama ramping up their health care reform rhetoric this week, it seems all of the major players in the health policy arena are weighing how likely meaningful health care reform will pass and be doable for Americans and the private health care system. One theme everyone seems to be in agreement with is that any health care legislation must have broad support to actually pass and be implemented. “If Congress wants long-lasting health care reform, they’ll need broad consensus on what that is,” Heritage’s Nina …
In order to get the Waxman Markey cap and trade bill through the House Energy and Commerce Committee, handouts had to be given. The basic idea behind cap and trade is to put a price on allowances, or the right to emit carbon dioxide. President Obama’s budget proposal suggested a 100 percent auction of these allowances so companies would bid on the right to emit. Businesses, knowing very well their companies would be severely affected, sent their best lobbyists to Washington to protect them. And it worked.
The Administration’s plan to take over General Motors certainly startled a lot of people, both in the U.S. and internationally. Now comes word that even Hugo Chavez — an acknowledged expert in the theory and practice of nationalization — found the move remarkable, publicly musing as to whether President Obama has now outflanked Fidel Castro and himself. On a live television broadcast Tuesday, the Venezuelan president remarked: “Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end …
In the spring of 1989, millions of Chinese peacefully seized control of their own capital and demanded democracy. After then-Premier Li Peng declared martial law on May 19th, the people of Beijing, not just students, responded by setting up bus and truck barricades to protect the demonstrators’ command post in Tiananmen Square. But on the morning of June 4th, 20 years ago today, China’s rulers sent in tanks and soldiers to regain control. The Chinese government claims only 241 people died that day, but the Chinese Red Cross puts the …
Handshakes with Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, steps to alter Cuba policy, positive enthusiasm for a Leftist regime in El Salvador, and a generally apologetic tone for past U.S. misbehavior in Latin America has done little to calm the anti-American rage of the vanguard of Latin America’s Bolivarian leaders. Ready to shred constitutional guarantees, trample individual liberties, and manipulate political systems to perpetuate power, the Bolivarian cabal argues that democratic governance must not be an issue between the U.S. and the rest of Latin America. The latest stratagem is to permit totalitarian …
Led by Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), the House of Representatives this week will consider the “Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2009.” This $1 billion bill would give federal employees four weeks of paid maternity leave. Currently they recieve twelve weeks of unpaid leave. Proponents of the bill say it is PAYGO (meaning it is budget neutral), which is such a false assertion that CNN labeled Congresswoman Maloney it’s “Wingnut of the Week” for saying it. At a time when federal employees wages and benefits continue to go up …
Ben Bernanke made an important point while testifying before the House Budget Committee: lawmakers must reduce the federal deficit and return the nation to fiscal sustainability. The deficit, set to hit $1.8 trillion this year, is not expected to dip under $500 billion per year during the next decade, even under President Obama’s unusually optimistic economic forecast. Chairman Bernanke notes, “With the ratio of debt to GDP already elevated, we will not be able to continue borrowing indefinitely.” Put simply, the country is on a fiscally unsustainable path and action …
Heritage Senate Relations Director Brian Darling notes: President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, 2nd Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor, owes the American people an explanation on her view of the Second Amendment. Most nominees come before the Senate Judiciary Committee and refuse to answer questions about hot-button issues such as abortion, gay marriage, gun rights and the death penalty. But Sotomayor shouldn’t be allowed to skirt the Second Amendment issue, because she cosigned a decision in a case earlier this year that exhibited a dismissive and hostile view of …
As a candidate, Barack Obama repeatedly pledged that no lobbyist would work in his White House. But does that policy apply to his auto companies? It’s a timely question, as General Motors, soon to be majority-owned by the U.S. government, announced this week that it planned to retain its in-house lobbying staff (although it is cancelling contracts with its outside lobbyists). GM issued a statement explaining the decision, stating that the company has “an obligation to stay engaged” on key issues. But stay engaged on whose behalf? While GM coyly …
Despite his many promises to the contrary, President Barack Obama has repeatedly failed to bring transparency to the federal government. That failure now continues with the Obama administration’s nationalization of General Motors. The Detroit Free Press reports: A day after filing for a bankruptcy reorganization that will be largely financed by U.S. taxpayers, General Motors Corp. said the private automaker that emerges from Chapter 11 expects to release less financial information to the public.
