In its infancy, the conservative movement was a set of philosophically diverse, isolated camps, whose internal divisions enabled the left to deride them as intellectual weak. These conservative camps would remain divided and functionally conquered—unless an overriding event or an individual of unusual resolve and charisma brought them together. The catalyst turned out to be William F. Buckley Jr., a 29-year-old Yale graduate and privileged son of an oil millionaire. Who was this man who united conservatism, creating converts one National Review issue at a time? How should we understand …
The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources met this morning and, among other things, discussed a national renewable electricity standard (RES). The RES, which mandates that a certain percentage of our nation’s electricity production come from wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energies, already passed out of committee but is likely to be a part of any energy agenda this year. A new Heritage Foundation study analyzing the costs of an RES finds that a national mandate for pricier, less reliable electricity would be harmful to American families, American …
The Washington Post “coincidentally” ran a story today reporting that the president has a meeting on terrorism every week. It is hard not to believe that the White House handed the story to the Post. In the wake of the NYC car bomb plot, the Administration needs to counter criticisms that it is weak on battling terrorism. The story actually makes things worse for the president. First, by “protesting” against the criticism, the story draws attention to it. There are after all some legitimate concerns. As my colleague Jena McNeill …
The European Union (EU) has gone hat in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance in bailing out one of its own. Greece is in a financial death spiral brought on by years of amazingly irresponsible deficit spending and similar behaviors often found in socialist states to the detriment of their economies. Greece also abandoned its national currency in favor of the Euro, in hindsight at least a stunningly bad move which for the EU makes this a major financial crisis and an embarrassment of the first order. …
Today’s edition of The Sun has an extraordinary image of David Cameron on its front page inspired by an infamous Barack Obama campaign poster, with the slogan “Our only hope” (hat tip: ConservativeHome). This is a spectacular, attention-grabbing piece of journalism, which is going to attract a great deal of interest Stateside, but I hope it isn’t an omen for the future. If Cameron becomes PM on Friday, which most opinion polls indicate he will, I hope he avoids using President Obama as a role model and looks instead to …
Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) told reporters about his financial regulation bill, “We’ve ended the ‘too big to fail’ debate. So no longer do I expect any argument to be made that this bill exposes the American taxpayer.” Really. Someone might want to tell Sen. Dodd that in other news yesterday, Freddie Mac announced that it lost another $6.7 billion in the first quarter of 2010 and therefore needed another $10.6 billion in cash from U.S. taxpayers. Since formally nationalizing Freddie in 2008, the federal government has already spent $50.7 …
The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate of any of the 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – a collection of the most economically developed countries in the world. The federal rate is 35 percent. Add on the average state corporate income tax and United States businesses pay a top rate over 39 percent. This is just below Japan which has a rate slightly over 39.5 percent. The average corporate income tax rate in the OECD is about 25 percent. The United …
It must not be easy being Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, these days. His latest task is to sell a skeptical Congress on the Obama Administration’s $90 billion bank tax with something of a convoluted snake oil sales pitch. He tried to make his argument to the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday. You see, Geithner explained, “Banks should bear the costs for bank failure,” and the tax is really a “too-big-to-fail tax” designed to recoup funds used to bail out banks under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Unfortunately for Geithner, that …
British voters go to the polls on Thursday in the tightest political race in the UK in a generation. Several opinion polls have indicated the strong possibility of a hung parliament, with a Conservative minority government led by David Cameron as prime minister. In order to guarantee passage of legislation under this scenario, the Conservatives would be forced to negotiate with other political parties, significantly weakening the government’s power. Other polls, concentrating on key marginal seats, have pointed to a small Conservative majority, which would give Cameron, if elected, a …
The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP) is a comprehensive school choice program that serves some of the lowest performing students in the nation. Now two decades old, MPCP has allowed mostly poor and black parents to choose any school—public or private, religious or secular—for their children to attend. The most recent evaluation report of MPCP shows parents of voucher students continue to report high levels of satisfaction with their children’s education, a common finding in the school choice literature. MPCP has had minimal effect, however, on test scores. When researchers …
