Senator Kerry (D–MA) penned an op-ed in the Washington Post making the case that ratification of the New START Treaty is in the best interest of U.S. national security. His article is in response to former Governor Mitt Romney’s (R–MA) recent op-ed calling the treaty Obama’s biggest foreign policy mistake. Sen. Kerry refers to Mr. Romney’s objections as “uninformed” and “political” as he engages in a “footrace to the right against Sarah Palin.” Opposing this treaty is not political and there are several informed reasons to not support ratification. 1. …
Increased government control has once again failed to improve the quality of education for America’s minority students. According to Charles Rose, general counsel at the Department of Education who testified at a recent Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing, Native American students are the country’s most underserved. Rose went on to say at the hearing, during which revisions to the No Child Left Behind Act were being considered, that this act had succeeded only at exposing the poor performance of disadvantaged and minority students. The statistics for Native American students …
Health care rationing czar Dr. Donald Berwick may be stealing all the headlines, but he is not the only bureaucrat President Barack Obama is forcing on the American people without proper Senate review. Unlike Dr. Berwick, at least the Senate got the opportunity to question President Obama’s new associate director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology, Phillip Coyle. Coyle’s new title may have the word “science” in it, but he is in fact the “high priest” of missile defense denialism. At National Review Online, …
Last week, Heritage Foundation Senior Fellow Robert Rector went head to head with TV personality Tom Colicchio of Top Chef at a House Education and Labor Committee hearing, both testifying about proposed increases to federal funding for child nutrition. Unfortunately, unlike the television show that results in one contestant coming out on top, no one wins with this new policy. The $8 billion bill claims to expand food assistance to low-income school children in order to fight hunger and prevent unhealthy eating. The more likely outcome, however, is simply the …
Last week in a legislative briefing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) stoked the unemployment insurance (UI) debate by stating that unemployment checks are the fastest way to create jobs. Let me say that unemployment insurance… is one of the biggest stimuluses (sic) to our economy. Economists will tell you, this money is spent quickly. It injects demand into the economy, and it’s job creating. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative you can name. Given that a similar debate over extending federal unemployment benefits may also …
Although President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law , the battle against the federal takeover of health care is far from over. To the contrary, states continue to fight against the vast overreach of Washington marked by the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which impedes states’ abilities to enact their own health care reform or continue existing programs. One of the first to arrive on the battlefield against the President’s health bill was Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. As we highlighted …
The Justice Department filed its expected lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law (S.B. 1070) yesterday and issued a press release trumpeting its action. It is clear from reading the lawsuit and the press release that politics—not an objective analysis of Arizona’s law—is driving the Justice Department’s action. This should be no surprise to anyone given the Justice Department’s recent politicized actions in other matters like the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. But it should concern everyone who understands the enormous power of federal prosecutors and the danger posed by …
When Linda O’Boyle was diagnosed with bowel cancer, her doctors told her she could boost her chances of survival by adding the drug cetuximab to her regimen. But the rationing body for Britain’s National Health Service, the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), had previously ruled that the drug was not cost-effective and therefore would not be paid for by the government. So O’Boyle liquidated her savings and paid for the drug herself. But this is not allowed under NHS rules. When government bureaucrats found out that O’Boyle …
This past weekend, Civic Platform’s (PO) Bronislaw Komorowski narrowly beat Law and Justice’s Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the second round of voting for the Polish Presidency. After a race that was closer than most pundits were predicting, Komorowski will formally take control of the presidential office in August, consolidating the leadership of PO Prime Minister, Donald Tusk. The early election was called following the tragic death of President Lech Kaczynski in April. His twin brother Jaroslaw and leader of the Center-Right Law and Justice Party performed far better than expected. Komorowski’s …
President Obama promised to address the growing costs in health care with passage of his “reform” bill. But instead of reducing costs, Obamacare will succeed only at shifting the burden to taxpayers and the privately insured. Americans with private health insurance will indirectly subsidize care received by those reliant on Medicare and Medicaid. It is for this reason that for many Americans, Obamacare will actually cause medical costs to rise. Some reform, right. A recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the rate of growth in medical costs will slow to …
