Thanks to a new tax that takes effect tomorrow, some small-business owners will get a first-hand look at Obamacare’s impact. “The first present we get under this new health care law takes effect this week — and that is the tanning tax,” lawyer and small-business advocate Karen Harned said yesterday at The Bloggers Briefing, hosted by The Heritage Foundation. The tax will hit small-business owners particularly hard, said Harned, who directs the Small Business Legal Center of the National Federation of Independent Business. Approximately 19,000 “mom and pop” small businesses …
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their annual Long-Term Budget Outlook today, and the updated projections—which include the effects of Obamacare—paint a grim picture. If Obamacare really did bend the cost curve down, CBO shows little evidence of it in this report. In fact, CBO openly admits that “projections understate the severity of the long-term budget problem because they do not incorporate the significant negative effects that accumulating substantial amounts of additional federal debt would have on the economy.” Here are a few highlights: Debt held by the public will …
In March of 2010, the Department of Energy (DOE) filed a motion to withdraw its licensing application to construct the geologic nuclear materials repository at Yucca Mountain. If successful, the action would essentially terminate the project. Yesterday, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, the three-judge panel charged with conducting licensing hearings for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission rejected that motion. This is a resounding victory for the future of nuclear energy. Though the Board’s decision was a surprise, it was the correct decision. Existing statute is clear that Yucca Mountain shall …
Deputy Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation Robert Alt is scheduled to testify as a minority witness this Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing on the nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Throughout the hearings, he and his colleagues will be providing real-time updates here at The Foundry. 5:56 PM – An Alienating Response on Inalienable Rights Should we take Elena Kagan at her word when it comes to her thoughts …
The oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico gets worse by the day. Oil spews from the broken well, further polluting our water and shores. The clean-up efforts drag on with bureaucratic interference, making matters worse. And what is the Obama administration doing? It continues to push for unrelated responses that will have a disastrous effect on our economy, especially the economy of the Gulf states most affected. In fact, President Obama summoned a bipartisan group of senators to the White House on Tuesday to discuss his climate change …
Day two of the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings saw a little less posturing than yesterday’s opening salvos by Senators bent on diverting attention from Kagan’s record by excoriating the current Supreme Court and falsely characterizing it as a bunch of “conservative activists.” Unfortunately, there was the same lack of meaningful information regarding Kagan’s qualifications to be given a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court. Kagan dodged probing questions on a wide range of important legal issues – the value of precedent, the role of the Court, the identification of …
Pressure from Senator George LeMieux (R, FL) and others has paid off with an emergency federal rule to permit oil cleanup vessels to leave their posts elsewhere along America’s coastline and finally head to the Gulf of Mexico to provide help. The Coast Guard and Environmental Protection Agency are to publish the formal rule tomorrow (June 30), LeMieux announced. Normally, large amounts of ships and equipment are required by law to be kept in standby reserve to handle possible spills in harbors, drilling areas, etc. Those federal dictates have prevented …
As the Obama Administration’s allies are gearing up to spend $125 million over the next five years to sell the health overhaul law to the public, including seniors, there has been a noticeable vacuum in the discussion over the impact on younger adults. This topic was in the spotlight at a recent event sponsored by the CATO Institute: “How Will Obamacare Affect Young Adults?” While the President received one of the largest margins of support from 18-29 year old voters during the 2008 election, there is growing skepticism over the …
Responding to North Korea’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship in March, I blogged a series of recommendations – one being that we should ratify the long shelved Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). It has many economic benefits, and would demonstrate “no retreat by the U.S. from Northeast Asia,” I argued. One skeptical reporter responded with a “like that will happen.” Well, this weekend KORUS got a shot of life. At the G20 summit in Toronto, President Obama and South Korean President Lee vowed to get it done over the …
Elena Kagan is a notably opaque Supreme Court nominee. In order to perform their constitutional function, the members of the Senate will have to reach a conclusion about her views and whether they are in the mainstream. Certain of the documents that she has generated give clues that lead to disturbing answers. One such document is her 1987 memorandum to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall regarding the petition for certiorari in Pughsley v. O’Leary, written while she was one of his clerks. In that memo, Kagan demonstrates how far out of the …
