New U.S. Commerce Department statistics on America’s economy highlight growth in the U.S. trade deficit of $3.2 billion dollars between October and November 2009. That’s good news for Americans. The statistics also show real GDP rising 2.2 percent in the third quarter of 2009, as well as growth in personal income and consumption in November 2009. It is no surprise that rising economic activity and a growing U.S. trade deficit go hand in hand. As the economy and incomes grow, business and consumer demand for all goods, including imports, rises. …
It is fun and politically profitable to attack banks and bankers, especially in the wake of a bailout program estimated to have cost American taxpayers some $150 billion. Given this, the plan floated yesterday by the Obama Administration to charge a “fee” (read tax) on financial institutions to cover losses under the TARP program is understandable. That doesn’t make it sensible. The plan will do nothing to force those responsible for much of TARP’s losses — primarily AIG, General Motors, and Chrysler – to reimburse the Treasury one cent. That …
Yesterday Thomas Geoghegan argued in The New York Times that the Senate filibuster is “at worst, unconstitutional and, at best, at odds with the founders’ intent.” However, the most rudimentary reading of the Constitution suggests that the Founders wanted the passage of legislation to be exceedingly difficult in order to prevent a slim majority from ruling the country with impunity. If the Founders were so against supermajorities (as the author suggests), then why is a “two thirds” vote in Congress required no less than 5 times in Article I of …
In the ongoing attempts of Congress to find an alternative to the “public plan” in health reform, the Senate bill includes a provision to give the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which oversees the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) a new role: sponsoring health plans to compete against private health plans in every state in the nation. Heritage expert Ed Haislmaier has studied the provisions responsible for this new role for OPM, and finds that OPM’s new power would go well beyond its current capacity and allow for the …
Last Saturday the Baltimore Ravens inflicted a stunning defeat on the New England Patriots in an NFL wildcard game. In interviews after the game, the Ravens’ all-world middle linebacker, Ray Lewis, explained how his defense had stuffed one of the great offenses of the modern era – through study and insight he knew their offense and tendencies as well as the Patriots did. Knowing the opposition has long been a key to victory. As opposing forces gather in 2010 it’s important to understand the goals, mindset, and overall stratagem of …
The 2010 United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen ended as another colossal failure for the Obama administration, but the loss did not come cheap to American taxpayers. As CBS News reported last night, over 101 people (including Senators, Representatives, their spouses, and staff) took three military planes and racked up 321 hotel nights and ate tens of thousands of dollars in meals … all on the taxpayers dime. Watch CBS News Videos Online
New data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows why a jobs recovery remains far off. This report, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), will receive much less press attention than last Friday’s unemployment report. However its figures hold the key to understanding why unemployment has risen so greatly. Between the collapses of the auto industry in Detroit, the finance industry in New York, and the housing bubble nationwide, media coverage of the recession has focused on layoffs. There is a lot of truth to this. …
While the nation’s unemployment rate continues to linger around 10%, Congress will soon return to Washington to devise a way to get a health care bill passed by both the House and Senate. As the negotiations loom, a recent paper by Heritage’s John Ligon explores the devastating effects that the employer mandate in the House health care bill would have for small business. In order to pressure more businesses into providing health care for their employees, the House bill includes an incremental payroll tax on employers that fail to do …
Ever since President Barack Obama made a campaign promise to move forward with comprehensive immigration reform early in his presidency, there has been a series of studies aimed at making the economic case for another amnesty. The newest, a study by the Center for American Progress (CAP), claims that legalizing the 11 million illegal immigrants inside the United States would increase GDP by at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Touting amnesty as an economic stimulus is weak on several points. First, these studies almost across the board assume that …
The Washington Post’s EJ Dionne’s had an op-ed yesterday detailing six policy areas where House Democrats believes they can pull the Senate health care bill further to the left. For every issue that Dionne identifies, a House victory would lead America even further down the path to government run medicine: 1. A National Health Insurance Exchange A national exchange would create a vehicle for federal regulation of insurance policies and one-size-fits-all health plans that don’t necessarily meet the needs of all Americans. This threatens the federalist division of power between …
