It’s an unfortunate truth about Washington: Those who decide the great issues of the day seldom see the practical results of their legislative or judicial handiwork. Court decisions almost always involve lofty discussions of constitutional rights, legal theory, and precedent. So it was last year when the Supreme Court upheld the racial discrimination claims filed by 20 white and Hispanic firefighters in Ricci v. Stefano. These firefighters had outscored black firefighters in lieutenant and captain examinations, which prompted the City of New Haven, Conn., to throw out the results and …
With concern over the arms control agreement President Obama signed with Russia growing, those pushing for ratification are devising increasingly far-fetched reasons why the Senate should rubber-stamp New START rather than give the treaty the serious and deliberate scrutiny a nuclear arms deal deserves. From the beginning, arguments for the treaty have sounded like scare tactics, an impression only reinforced by the recent allegations that New START will compromise national security. In his most recent effort to drum up support for the treaty, William Hartung asserted in the Daily Caller …
At 300 East 23rd Street in the exclusive Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, where to get into parts of the park you need a key granted just to residents, a new 98-unit luxury apartment complex has been built with an outdoor movie theater and panoramic city views. The problem is that not enough buyers are coughing up the $820,000 to $3 million the project’s developers are asking for the privilege to own a unit in the building. But don’t worry, the Obama administration is coming to the rescue. Last December, …
On Aug. 4, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker threw out Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage. But don’t drop those invitations in the mail just yet. A three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has put that ruling on ice – at least until December, when the court will consider a request by Prop 8 proponents to dismiss Walker’s ruling. The court would do well, in the meantime, to read an op-ed by Edwin Meese III in The Washington Post. The former …
The Department of Interior and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM) announced that blanket environmental exemptions, such as the one granted to BP, will not be given until “it undertakes a comprehensive review of its National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process and the use of categorical exclusions for exploration and drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.” The government should use this time to enact smarter regulations, not unnecessary regulations that make it too costly for projects to move forward. The NEPA process was originally set up to …
China’s reported holdings of U.S. Treasury bonds fell sharply again in June and are now almost $100 billion lower than they were in July 2009. The press reports this as meaningful and important. It isn’t. You may have noticed that American interest rates are not soaring; in fact, they’re at historic lows. One reason they’re not soaring is because, contrary to widespread assertions, American interest rates don’t depend on the PRC. The other reason is, over the same period, reported British holdings of U.S. Treasuries rose $265 billion. Why would …
Despite their key role in creating the housing crisis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not being reformed, and will continue to cost the American taxpayer huge sums of money for the foreseeable future. There will be a housing summit on Tuesday, but its already clear that the federal government will remain in the mortgage business, despite the scandals that have emerged. Bailouts of the mortgage giants have already cost the taxpayer $111 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects they will cost another $290 billion this year alone. (This …
Sen. Kerry (D–MA), Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, took to the pages of U.S. News and World Report again trying to make the case for ratification of the New START treaty. He continues to tow the Administration line in attempts to demonstrate how the treaty is in the national security interest of the U.S. After posing a series of questions, he concludes, saying, “The opponents of New START cannot provide good answers to these questions. All they can do is stand in the way of common sense—and of our …
Obamacare creates a host of new federal requirements billed as consumer protections. But enacting these policies falls not on the feds, but on the states. Some of these provisions were among the more popular components of Obamacare: guaranteed issue for children; letting individuals remain on their parents’ health plan up to age 26; requiring insurers to cover federally-defined preventive services, etc. The goals behind these mandates are worthy. But they could be achieved in better ways. The approach taken here is virtually guaranteed to accelerate insurance costs. Ironically, Obamacare also …
Unless Congress and the President intervene legislatively, federal income taxes will soar on January 1, 2011 for millions of middle- and upper-income Americans. Tax relief enacted in 2001 and 2003 is set to expire. Whose money is this? Is it the taxpayer’s money taken by government, or government’s money left with the taxpayer as a benefit? If current policy is preserved, is it a tax cut, are tax cuts extended, or has Congress prevented a tax hike? As a recent Brookings report reveals, one’s core view of government determines how …
