Inflation is ultimately and always a monetary phenomenon. The Federal Reserve’s extraordinary actions during the recent crisis now require executing a difficult exit strategy without short-circuiting the recovery and most especially without letting inflation get out of control. Comments by Fed officials beginning with Chairman Ben Bernanke suggest they are committed to containing inflation and the Fed appears to have the tools to do so. But will they use those tools wisely? A specific, consistent thread in Bernanke’s comments suggest the Fed will yet let inflation get out of the …
The buzz in Latin America was the February 22 shout-fest in Cancun, Mexico between Colombia’s pro-American leader Alvaro Uribe and Venezuela’s populist, anti-American president Hugo Chavez. The showdown erupted during a private luncheon for Latin American and Caribbean presidents gathered to discuss [without the U.S. or Canada present] a framework for Latin American unity and an “alternative mechanism” to the ailing Organization of American States. According to well-placed leaks, the showdown began when President Uribe raised the topic of Venezuela’s commercial blockade of Colombia, imposed after Colombia signed a defense …
The White House recently released President Obama’s health care reform proposal. The plan incorporates a mixture of the many tax increases passed by the House and Senate, hiking taxes by almost $750 billion over ten years. This is on top of $1.3 trillion in other tax increases the President recently proposed in his 2011 budget. Not that there is ever a good time to raise taxes, but doing so as the economy is still emerging from a deep recession is particularly ill-advised and will likely prolong full recovery. Moreover, the …
This Thursday leaders from Congress will join the President for a meet for a ”summit” on healthcare reform. This meeting comes amid reports that despite White House claims that the meeting is to bring both sides together to hash out a bipartisan bill, movement is already afoot to use the reconciliation process to pass the version of Obamacare the public already knows and dislikes. This has provoked concern among Americans hoping for a bipartisan solution, that this summit is nothing more than a sham.
Toyota’s Chief Executive Officer Akio Toyoda testified yesterday about safety and quality control after his company recalled 8.5 million cars and trucks worldwide – 6 million in the United States. A deeply remorseful Toyoda feared the company may have been growing too quickly and outlined how the company would move forward with the recall. Earlier testimony included an anecdote from Lexus owner Rhonda Smith, who avoided catastrophe after her vehicle unexpectedly sped to 100 miles per hour, but she managed to eventually pull over. Smith berated Toyota and the National …
The Heritage Foundation’s stance against expanding subsidies for nuclear energy has once again been manipulated by the anti-nuclear crowd to infer that we are anti-nuclear. This time, Harvey Wasserman on The Huffington Post wrote that Heritage, along with some other groups, believe that nuclear energy is “too expensive to matter.” To be clear: We are not anti-nuclear. The Heritage Foundation has written in study after study over the past three years that we not only believe that nuclear energy can be a critical part of America’s energy future but that …
In a series of events in Washington this week, the Obama Administration has laid out its vision for the future of NATO. As part of NATO’s on-going review of its Strategic Concept, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Secretary of Defense Bob Gates have each made public speeches outlining what NATO should look like in the future. And for the most part, their recommendations follow The Heritage Foundation’s Principles and Proposals for NATO Reform: The Alliance needs a new threat perception to address asymmetrical …
Last night President Barack Obama held a behind-closed-door dinner with 17 chief executive officers from major U.S. corporations including Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan Chase, Verizon Communications’ Ivan Seidenberg, and General Electric’s Jeffrey Immelt. According to Bloomberg, the President made the case to his select guests that his administration is “fundamentally business-friendly.” This comes almost two weeks after the President told BusinessWeek: “[T]he irony is, is that on the left we are perceived as being in the pockets of Big Business. And then on the business side, we are perceived …
The health care plan President Obama recently released is mostly a combination of the different plans passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. But in one major way it breaks with long-standing precedent, proposing a fundamental wrong-headed change to both entitlement policy and tax policy. He proposes for the first time to tax capital income to support entitlement programs. Payroll taxes have always applied just to wages and salaries and the revenue those taxes raise has gone solely to pay for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. The …
The U.S. House is expected to vote today on the creation of the largest tribal entity in U.S. history under the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, despite last-minute opposition by Hawaii’s governor, Linda Lingle (R), and serious questions regarding the bill’s constitutionality. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama promised to sign the legislation. The bill would establish a separate, race-based governing body to represent Native Hawaiians in negotiations with state and federal governments. As The National Review writes, the Act would: …partly disenfranchise a portion of one state’s residents, create a parallel …
