Calling for a necessary transition to a low carbon energy economy, 83 CEOs sent a letter to President Obama demanding movement on cap and trade legislation to create green jobs. According to the press release, “the letter was signed by 83 CEOs from some of the nation’s largest electric power, manufacturing, clean tech, technology and consumer facing companies.” Imagine that. The politically invested companies that stand to gain the most from cap and trade and spent millions to lobby this bill through Congress want to see it passed at the …
Other people are getting paid by the federal government so why shouldn’t we? That’s the sentiment coming from the forest industry over reducing carbon dioxide emissions. This is how a bad bill becomes a bad law. When there’s money up for grabs, special interests and their lobbyists swarm like bees to honey seeking to protect or improve their bottom line. Inevitably, few win at the expense of many. And when you can get paid not to do anything, all the better. Jessica Leber of E&E (password required) reports: About 15 …
Does marriage provide health benefits? According to the research, it does, but not according to many in Congress. Under the Senate-passed health care bill, couples who choose to wed, or to remain wedded, will face financial penalties cohabiting couples will be spared, even if a married couple makes the exact same combined income as a cohabiting couple. Robert Rector explains that the “anti-marriage discrimination” found in the Senate bill is due to married couples’ income being counted jointly, reducing the amount of subsidies they can receive for health care. For …
In Senator-elect Scott Brown’s victory speech on Tuesday, he boldy stated that “our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation – they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime … In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them.” Politico’s Josh Gerstein today reported on how Brown’s victory — and views on terrorism — may impact President Barack Obama’s anti-terrorism agenda, which to date has included plans to shut-down Guantanamo Bay, moving those prisoners to the …
Just one year after President Barack Obama took office, we released the 16th edition of the Index of Economic Freedom in both Hong Kong and Washington. Once again, it provides empirical evidence that economic freedom is the pathway to prosperity. The good news is that despite the global economic crisis, the overall level of global economic freedom remained about the same. Some countries improved while others declined. The bad news is that the United States is one of the economies that declined. For the first time since we began measuring …
In his new book, We Still Hold These Truths, Heritage’s Dr. Matthew Spalding explains that American students lack a fundamental understanding U.S. history. Dr. Spalding writes: The Department of Education reports that more than half of high school seniors lack even a basic knowledge of American history. Many college students, another study finds, can’t identify the Gettysburg Address and don’t know that James Madison was the father of the Constitution. …High schools largely ignore, minimize, or disparage the story of America’s Founding in the classroom…We must reverse this course by …
Trying to move the political spotlight away from the new Senator from Massachusetts and the resultant chaos enveloping health care legislation, President Obama’s team can resort to a time-honored Washington strategy: Change the subject. By setting his nationally-televised State of the Union speech for next week, President Obama is following that approach. He can shift media attention to a White House-controlled presentation while his party huddles (away from C-SPAN cameras). It’s a diversion from the Humpty-Dumpty-like efforts to reassemble the shattered pieces of health care plans. Obama had delayed setting …
From the President who brought you unaccountable, constitutionally-questionable czars comes the latest innovation in pass-the-buck leadership: a White House executive commission designed to solve the behemoth of a spending problem plaguing the federal government. Members of Congress have described the commission as a “nothing burger,” a “fig leaf” and “something that is put in place to kind of cover [President Obama’s] rear end.” Colorful critiques aside, it’s an executive commission tasked with making policy recommendations aimed at reducing the country’s projected $1.4 trillion deficit. News of the commission follows the …
After much congressional handwringing over what budget process reform to attach to a must-pass increase in the debt ceiling, support for the legislative proposal crafted by Senate Budget Committee leaders Kent Conrad (D-ND) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) has crumbled. It fell apart as many members recognized two political facts of life. One is that it would inevitably lead to tax increases. The other, reinforced by the Massachusetts election, is that Americans are in no mood for a back-room, members-only commission that rushes its plan through Congress just after the November …
Fostering diversity in, and minority access to, channels of communication has long been a key goal of the Federal Communications Commission. In practice, this all too often has been interpreted to mean ownership limits, set-asides, preferences and other mandates imposed by the agency. Usually lost in the heated debates is the fact that ill-considered regulation itself can impede minority access and diversity. In comments filed at the FCC last week, a group of sixteen minority and civil rights organizations — ranging from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law …
