The Obama Administration’s signature K-12 education program, Race to the Top, has gotten a lot of press in the last couple weeks with the announcement of first-round winners Tennessee and Delaware. But for all the hullabaloo and homework it’s created for states, Race to the Top represents only a small part of the overall K-12 education budget ($4.5 billion compared to $46.2 billion in 2010, not to mention $80 billion overall in K-12 funding from the 2009 stimulus bill) and functions outside the existent federal policy apparatus—essentially as the Secretary’s …
At the close of this week’s nuclear summit, President Barack Obama told a press conference: “Whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them.” Yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) responded to these comments, calling President Obama’s remark a “direct contradiction to everything America believes in.” McCain went on to tell Fox News: That’s one of the more incredible statements I’ve ever heard a president of the United States make in modern times. We …
The capstone of President Obama’s the “Glut the Beast” strategy is to maneuver the country into accepting a massive new Value-Added Tax (VAT). This as yet unannounced policy has been lurking in dark policy corners for months, with no word from the President. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has decided not to wait on Obama’s pleasure, and so has offered an amendment in the form of a Sense of the Senate Resolution to the bill pending on the floor of the Senate to extend Unemployment Insurance benefits. The McCain resolution reads …
The Associated Press reported last week: “Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem. About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009.” A new Gallup poll out this week finds that 45% of Americans believe “the amount of federal income tax you have to pay” are “about right.” 47% of Americans pay no taxes and 45% believe what they pay …
During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama pledged often and everywhere that Americans individuals making under $200,000 individually or families making under $250,000 would not see an increase in their taxes. However, by signing into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, President Barack Obama has officially turned his back on that promise. As the Heritage Foundation’s Senior Tax Policy Analyst Curtis Dubay points out, the impact of Obamacare on taxpayers will spread wide and cut deep. Overall, there are 18 new taxes slipped into …
President Obama’s nuclear-weapons policy is finally taking shape. We now have the text of his “New START” treaty with Russia, the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and statements on fissile materials at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington. But as the policy picture comes into focus, most of what we see is troubling. For starters, there is this irritating habit of wanting moral credit for wishful thinking. Mr. Obama has said his ultimate goal is “a world without nuclear weapons.” Nobody seriously believes this will happen, yet his administration solemnly links …
Patience will be more than a virtue, under Obamacare. It’ll be a necessity. A recent article from ABC News outlines why Americans can expect longer and longer waits before they see a doctor. One reason is that there just won’t be enough doctors to get the job done. ABC reports that 10 years from now, the United States will short 85,000 primary care and high-demand specialty physicians. Says Dr. Kevin Pho, an internal medicine physician in New Hampshire, “I don’t think we have the primary care capacity to meet the …
Recovering drug addicts helped serve the meals at a recent conference in Naples, Fla., on addressing social breakdown. The men were participants in the Men’s Residence, a ministry of the Christian Care Center operated by First Baptist Church of Leesburg, Fla. Serving others proves to be an important part of how these men beat their addictions in a four-month program. When it comes to meeting serious needs, the difference is striking between First Baptist’s approach and that of big government entitlement programs. In contrast to mere handouts, staff of the …
In today’s editorial titled “The K.S.M. Files,” the New York Times laments the good ‘ole days of 2009, when, in their words, “the United States was making progress toward cleaning up the mess President George W. Bush made with his detention policies. The Pentagon was working on closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. The flawed military tribunals were improved, at least a bit. And the Justice Department announced that the accused mastermind of 9/11, Khalid Shaikh (sic) Mohammed, would be tried in federal court.” Setting nostalgia aside, and the fact …
The United States is on an unsustainable financial course, and everyone seems to know it. As Heritage highlighted in our recently published 2010 Budget Chart Book, if nothing is done, federal obligations will reach heights that even enormous tax increases will be unable to reverse. In 2010, the federal budget deficit will be 11 percent of GDP, and the federal debt is on course to continue to skyrocket. Interest payments on the debt in one month alone in 2009 exceeded yearly expenditures on several federal departments, including the Department of …
