Yesterday at the Blair House health summit, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) directly challenged the White House’s deficit reduction claims. From the transcript: Look, we agree on the problem here, and the problem is health inflation is driving us off of a fiscal cliff. Mr. President, you said health care reform is budget reform. You’re right. We agree with that. Medicare right now has a $38 trillion unfunded liability. That’s $38 trillion in empty promises to my parents’ generation, our generation, our kids’ generation. Medicaid is growing at 21 percent this …
It has been a little over one year since the stimulus package was passed through Congress in order to spur private consumption and to decrease high unemployment, and a recent article published in the Wall Street Journal by Harvard economist Robert Barro discusses the impact the stimulus has had on the economy. The article argues that the government’s method of mass spending to improve economic conditions is an inefficient way to spend taxpayer money, and that the questions about whether the stimulus moderated the recession are complex – more complex …
President Obama’s proposal Monday to link Title I funding to adoption of education standards has the education world abuzz. During a speech to the National Governor’s Association, President Obama stated: I want to commend all of you for acting collectively through the National Governors Association to develop common standards that will better position our students for success.and today, I’m announcing steps to encourage and support all states to transition to college and career-ready standards on behalf of America’s students. First, as a condition of receiving access to Title I funds, …
President Obama used his health care summit to give his side every advantage possible. Whenever opponents spoke, he got to respond. By appointing himself the moderator, Obama gave himself the first word, the last word, and the most words. Overall, Obama gave Democrats over twice as much speaking time as Republicans. The 17 GOP’ers attending received a collective 110 minutes. By himself, Obama hogged 119 minutes of microphone time and gave his 21 fellow Democrats an additional 114 minutes. When called to account for this, Obama proclaimed it fair because, …
The day before yesterday’s White House health care summit, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) told reporters: “The only way this works is for the House to pass the Senate bill and then, depending on what the package is, the reconciliation provision that moves first through the House and then comes here.” When Conrad was reminded that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has repeatedly insisted that the House will not pass the Senate bill until the Senate passes a second bill that fixes the first, Conrad replied: “Fine, then it’s dead.” This was …
Following the President’s health care summit, several Heritage scholars provided immediate analysis of the day’s discussion. Bob Moffit: The President’s Health Care Summit was an exercise in public education; it was enlightening. Particularly noteworthy was the threat of rising deficits to the nation’s future articulated by Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI). Congressional Democrats and Republicans often used similar language in describing their broad objectives: lowering the cost of care, improving the treatment of patients, and expanding coverage to more Americans. Representatives on both sides also made it clear that they have …
In preparation for today’s bipartisan Health Care Summit, President Obama released his own version of health care reform earlier this week. The President’s proposal includes several high-ticket provisions for expanding coverage. Since he has promised time and again not to raise taxes on the middle-class in order to pay for health care reform, the President’s bill imposes a Medicare tax on the investment income of high-individuals to off-set some of the cost of expanding Medicaid and financing other provisions of his health agenda. But, as Heritage analysts Karen Campbell and …
As noted before at the Foundry, the free expression that we take for granted in the United States is unknown to those living under the Castro regime. In a chilling reminder of the cold authoritarian repression that still exists only 90 miles from the American mainland, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a Cuban political prisoner, died Tuesday. His death came after he had initiated an 80-day hunger strike aimed at improving his conditions. Raul Castro made a rare motion of “lamenting” over the death of Zapata. In a depressingly predictable move, however, …
President Obama keeps rolling out the tax hikes. In his budget released earlier this month, excluding the tax hikes he assumed to pay for health care, he called for $1.3 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade. Now in his recently released health reform plan, he calls for even more tax increases. Today, the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) released their analysis of the tax increases in the President’s plan. According to the JCT, the plan will raise taxes by another $414 billion between 2010 and 2019. The taxes …
This week, the U.S. Air Force presented its revised request for proposals for the new KC-X tanker aircraft. Industry now has 60 days to submit bids, and the contract for the new tankers should be awarded sometime this summer. A new tanker is long overdue after a much-delayed and mismanaged process. An AOL News story from earlier this week paints an alarming picture of the decrepit tanker fleet. The KC-135 Stratotanker planes the Air Force flies today were built during the Eisenhower administration, and many are more than 50 years …
