The U.S. House of Representatives will likely vote tomorrow to continue about 50 expiring tax incentives known as “tax extenders.” It must do so each year to prevent significant tax increases for some taxpayers. This year, however, the House will likely pass increases in other taxes to offset the supposed cost of the tax extenders. This is nothing more than Congress hiding behind the guise of fiscal discipline as an excuse to raise taxes year after year. Continuing the tax extenders is not a tax cut. It is the prevention …
Carbon dioxide is dangerous and a threat not only to human health but our entire planet. How do we know? The Environmental Protection Agency told us so, officially announcing that carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases are “the primary driver of climate change, which can lead to hotter, longer heat waves that threaten the health of the sick, poor or elderly; increases in ground-level ozone pollution linked to asthma and other respiratory illnesses; as well as other threats to the health and welfare of Americans.” But there’s two important …
Imagine if 20 years ago on the south side of Chicago two thousand low-income, predominantly African-American families were given an opportunity to take their children out of failing and violent schools and send them to a school where they had a chance to graduate and attend college. What if this program had numerous studies that showed the students within the program were making statistically significant gains in reading? What if the program was so wildly popular that for every one scholarship that was awarded, there were four applicants? And then, …
Debate continues on the Senate floor on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 (H.R.3590), and the focus continues to be on Medicare and Medicare Advantage. While proposing spending cuts in one program to create another, the Senate leadership is claiming that all of these Medicare cuts are possible without cutting benefits or services in current Medicare programs, such as Medicare Advantage and Home Health Care. Stabenow’s Medicare Advantage Amendment. Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) proposed an amendment which would ensure that spending reductions to the Medicare Advantage program …
A recent Pew Research survey included a bizarre result: 44 percent of Americans believed China was the world’s top economic power, against only 27 percent picking the United States. Tough times have made people pessimistic and the media has picked up that pessimism and run, to the point of saying the United States is economically subservient to the PRC. But the belief that the United States is inferior economically to China is way, way off the mark. Individual wealth is easy. In a very hard 2008, the average American earned …
This is the third in a four part series. Matthew Spalding’s new book, We Still Hold These Truths, examines the timeless principles and practical wisdom that have been the source of America’s monumental success. In this video segment Spalding details how the rise of Czars in American government – unelected bureaucrats with great regulatory power - pose a grave threat to the liberty of all Americans and fly in the face of the nature of the Constitution. Watch:
An innocent young girl rises from her bed in a dry, barren wasteland and watches as an earthquake violently splits the land around her, while a tornado rips apart a metropolis far in the distance. A tidal wave rushes toward her, and she jumps to a tree branch with no time to spare, avoiding a horrific death. She awakens from her nightmare, screaming in fear, and then solemnly implores the viewer, “Please help the world.” This exploitative video from the environmental left shockingly debuted yesterday at the Copenhagen Climate Change …
The closer you look at the 2074 page Senate Health Bill (H.R. 3590), the more and more complicated it becomes. Forget that level playing field. As the Congress tries to figure out how to extend health insurance coverage to all Americans (They won’t, of course), Senate Democrats have proposed a federally designed health insurance exchange to operate in the several states through which individuals and small employers can purchase bureaucrat- approved health insurance. Embodied in this scheme is the inclusion of generous taxpayer subsidies for Americans whose income falls below …
The health care reform wallowing through Congress includes a ploy reminiscent of the “liar loans” prominent during the recent real estate bubble before its collapse. The bill cuts imaginary Medicare spending and uses the funds for real spending elsewhere. Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH) has blown the whistle on this charade. Health care reformers are not amused. “Liar loans” describe so-called no documentation mortgage loans used to finance home purchases in the worst of the real estate bubble. In qualifying for loans, borrowers were on their honor not to misstate their …
A lesson on Copenhagen from George Mason professor Charles Rowley, who recently started blogging: A fox, caught in a trap, escaped by tearing off his bushy tail. After that, the other animals mocked him, making him feel so ashamed that his life was a burden to him. He therefore worked out a plan to make all the other foxes the same as him, so that in their common loss he might better conceal his own deprivation.
