What can be done to advance American strength? The list is long and the mission is urgent. It starts with this: Strengthening America must become a priority. That is not the case at present as anyone who takes the trouble to read the Obama administration’s new 52-page National Security Strategy (NSS) will learn. True, the document proclaims a “commitment to renew our economy, which serves as the wellspring of American power.” But can anyone seriously argue that America’s economic dynamism is being enhanced, rather than debilitated, by the accumulation of …
Head Start, which provides child development services primarily to low-income families and their children, is one of the few popular programs that came out of President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But following up on hotline tips alleging fraud and abuse, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) began an undercover investigation of Head Start centers in California, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin. Heritage Senior Policy Analyst David Muhlhausen details what the GAO found: In eight of the 13 eligibility tests, the fictitious families were told by Head Start staff that …
Remember how President Barack Obama promised that his health care plan would reduce the deficit and put us on a path towards fiscal responsibility? Remember how Congress kept gaming the system to come up with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) score that could justify those claims? Well, now that Obamacare has become (hopefully only temporarily) the law of the land, the CBO is singing a slightly different tune. Last Friday CBO Director Doug Elmendorf wrote on his blog: The central challenge is straightforward and stark: The rising costs of health …
A motley crew of Turkish Islamists, European leftists and Israeli Arab leaders yesterday succeeded in provoking a bloody clash with Israeli forces that were enforcing an arms embargo against Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Six ships with more than 600 “peace activists” left Cyprus bound for Gaza but were intercepted by the Israeli Navy and special forces commandos before they could land in Gaza. The first five ships complied with Israeli forces, but the passengers aboard the sixth vessel, the Mavi Marmara, attacked Israeli commandos with steel poles, knives and pepper …
Federal statutes seem to contradict a memorandum from the White House counsel released on Friday that claimed that no law was violated when Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) was offered a government post in exchange for dropping out of the Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary against Sen. Arlen Specter. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs blithely dismissed the issue for months. “Lawyers in the White House and others have looked into conversations that were had with Congressman Sestak, and nothing inappropriate happened,” he said. But the two-page memorandum admitted that White House …
Why is there so much excessive—indeed, downright wasteful—spending in health care? One reason is the disconnection between patients’ wallets and their health care bills. Most Americans get health insurance through their employers. They neither witness nor control the flow of their dollars from employer to insurer to health care provider. Yes, those health care dollars are their compensation, just like wages. But with no visible “skin in the game,” they have little incentive to limit spending. Engaging patients in the cost of their own care is one way to motivate …
Early Monday morning in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, helicopters lowered Israeli Commandos onto a Turkish-flagged ferry carrying 600 passengers determined to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Beset by activists armed with poles, knives and guns, the Israelis defended themselves, and the resulting violence left at least nine dead. Hours later, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report claiming that Iran now has enough nuclear fuel, with further enrichment, to make two nuclear weapons. These two stories are not unrelated. And they ought to serve as a …
