If you ask attorney Harold Apolinsky who really profits from the death tax, he’ll tell you, “I think I do, as an estate planning lawyer,” but then he will tell you why the tax needs to be permanently repealed. According to Apolinsky, the death tax (or estate tax, as it is also known) taxes the transfer of a business from the deceased to their heirs upon death at an extraordinarily high rate. The tax first came into law in 1917 in order to pay for World War I, was abolished …
Iran’s firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has been unusually active this week in the run-up to the February 11th anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution. On Sunday he proclaimed that Iran will deliver a harsh blow to “Global Arrogance” (the United States) on the anniversary, a remark that has spurred speculation as to what he intends to do then. In Ahmadinejad’s twisted mind, Iran is a world power that leads a global alliance against a United States that seeks to dominate the world. Any action that signifies Iranian independence and progress on …
The Obama Administration’s preference to treat terrorists as mere criminals, and not as hybrid enemy combatants to be tried in military commissions, has been made crystal clear. The Administration boasts that the United States has successfully prosecuted hundreds of terrorists in federal court in the past, and as such, we should continue to use federal courts for the most serious terrorists, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. What they don’t tell you, however, is that they are playing fast and loose with the numbers and types of terrorists tried in federal court. …
Forget George Washington, James Madison, Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln—nothing meaningful happened in America before 1877. That’s the lesson North Carolina public high schools may start teaching. Under proposed changes in their high school history curriculum, the U.S. History course (which seniors take) will cover events from 1877 forward only. It will be as if the American Founding never happened. According to Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, the goal of this change is to teach what students will feel connected to, “where they …
The Department of Homeland Security’s Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) is out. Like the Pentagon’s QDR it is supposed to detail future threats and how our government will deal with them. This report, also like the QDR (and the annual assessment of the Director of National Intelligence), includes the obligatory reference to global warming. The QHSR warns: [d]ependence on fossil fuels and the threat of global climate change that can open the United States to disruptions and manipulations in energy supplies and to changes in our natural environment on an …
The president’s proposed FY2011 budget increases funding to the Department of Education by $3.5 billion. But despite this significant increase, his budget effectively cuts the freedom of choice and educational opportunities from the lives of children living in the District of Columbia. What began last year as a low-profile attempt to quietly phase out the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program has become a noticeable agenda of denying school choice to District families. Representative John Boehner wrote about the administration’s decision today: “President Obama’s job-killing budget does away with school choice in …
UPDATE: This graph is now over one year old. For up to date information see this post: The Truth about Obama’s Budget Deficits, in Pictures UPDATE: Chart revised 5/14/2010 Releasing his budget this Monday, President Barack Obama told the American people: We won’t be able to bring down this deficit overnight, given that the recovery is still taking hold and families across the country still need help. … Just as it would be a terrible mistake to borrow against our children’s future to pay our way today, it would be equally …
The New York Times highlighted a speech that Justice Clarence Thomas delivered at a Florida law school in which he defended the Supreme Court’s recent campaign finance decision in Citizens United v. FEC. In that speech, Thomas also addressed why he chose to forgo the president’s state of the union address: “I don’t go because it has become so partisan and it’s very uncomfortable for a judge to sit there,” he said, adding that “there’s a lot that you don’t hear on TV — the catcalls, the whooping and hollering …
Regular readers of the Foundry are probably aware that the federal government’s school voucher program in the nation’s capital, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program, is benefiting students by improving school safety and providing higher academic achievement. We thought you’d probably like to know that they’re finding the same trends in Milwaukee, home to the nation’s longest-standing urban school voucher program. A recent report from School Choice Wisconsin presented an analysis of the number of calls made to 911 from schools in Milwaukee, similar to a Heritage analysis from last summer …
1. There will be lots of positive measures in the bill that conservatives will support. That does not matter. A massive amnesty will overwhelm all the positive affects of visa reforms, added security workplace enforcement , and even establishing temporary worker programs. That is exactly what happened when the same approach was tried in 1986. 2. The first thing we have to do is deal with the illegal population that is already here. Wrong. Starting with amnesty will pretty much insure that none of the other issues get addressed. Once …
