Under the Waxman-Markey cap and trade program, businesses that emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases must obtain allowance permits from the federal government for every ton of carbon emissions they produce. The government issues fewer allowance permits in each subsequent year to decrease overall emissions, so the permit price rises as the reduction in supply has to meet the same demands. During his campaign run, President Obama told Grist: “I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a …
We’ve written about this issue before, here and here, but the Fairness Doctrine is rearing its ugly head again. This time, however, its being pushed by Mark Lloyd, newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer of the Federal Communications Commission. In the name of “diversity,” Lloyd recommends that “Local public broadcasters and regional and national communications operations should be required to encourage and broadcast diverse views and programs.” It’s not hard to read between the lines and understand that successful conservative pundits will be the ones pushed off the airwaves by this. …
During the mark up of H.R. 3200, House Ways and Means Committee member Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI) voted against an amendment that would have required Members of Congress to forfeit their current private coverage and force them to enroll in the newly-created public health insurance plan. This would only be fair since independent analysis from the Lewin Group shows that if Obamacare passes, employers around the nation would sever the current private coverage of about 88.1 million Americans, and send them onto the public plan. Kind’s constituent’s are not happy …
Writing for the National Review’s blog, The Corner, Heritage’s Mike Franc details at length the evolution of this summer’s health care debate, what works, what doesn’t and who to be afraid of: “Beware the modest proposals of extreme leftists.” Each day brings another twist to the health-care-reform saga. Should the president heed the braying of his hard-left allies, manipulate Senate procedural rules, and push through a massive overhaul of our entire health-care system? Or should he scale back the ambition of the proposals already approved by four congressional committees and …
According to the Polish daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, sources in the United States have confirmed that the Obama administration has made the decision to abandon our anti-missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Unfortunately this news is not surprising at all. In March of this year it was revealed that President Obama “secretly” offered Moscow a grand bargain whereby it would sacrifice missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for Moscow’s help discouraging Iran’s nuclear program. Then in his July summit with Moscow, Obama reinforced his …
Congressman Jim Moran recently demanded to see identification from a constituent at a townhall meeting. Presumably, Moran thought he had caught an astroturf protester from out-of-district. No such luck. Watch: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfyfq-gqxWk[/youtube] At The Corner, Heritage Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky adds: Earlier this week, Rep. Jim Moran (D., Va.) berated attendees at his town-hall meeting for not being residents of his district, going so far as to demand a driver’s license from one of his questioners to prove his residence. Too bad Moran isn’t equally committed to verifying the …
President Obama and Democrats in Congress want to impose two costly health insurance regulations nationwide. The first is community rating, which prohibits insurers from varying premiums based on an individual’s health status. The second is guaranteed issue, which forces insurers to sell policies to everyone at anytime, even individuals who wait until after they are sick to obtain insurance. Community rating and guaranteed issue are designed to raise healthy people’s premiums in order to subsidize the premiums of high-risk individuals. It is important to work to ensure that high-risk individuals …
The White House splashed news about an advisory panel report predicting 90,000 would die from the swine flu this fall. Today, the press is reporting that the US government’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) thinks that estimate could be way too high. Americans should take the upcoming flu season seriously. They should definitely not panic….but they should prepare. Here are the facts. About 30,000 people die from medical complications after the flu every year. We live in a country of 300 million so while the odds are with …
The Waxman–Markey energy bill, which would restrict greenhouse gas emissions by creating a cap-and-trade system, was passed by the House in June and will likely be considered by the Senate soon. If this bill becomes law, gasoline prices would increase significantly in order to meet emissions limits imposed by the legislation. To see specific estimates, hover your mouse over each state below:
International graduate students are cooling on the United States a new study released this week by the The Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) shows. Offers of admission from U.S. graduate schools to prospective international students decreased 3% from 2008 to 2009, the first decline since 2004. More than half of responding institutions reported a decrease in international offers of admission, a decline that is founded on a major drop of 16 percent declines in offers to students from both India and South Korea. (Overall numbers would have been even lower …
