General Motors is making moves to sell some of its government-owned stock back to the private sector in what would be one of the largest initial public offerings (IPOs) in U.S. history. While this is certainly a positive sign, it should not be used as an example and an excuse for more government-sponsored bailouts. The truth is that restructuring an inefficient business model is turning around a company. While the economic downturn and the credit crunch exacerbated GM’s problems, the automaker has been hampered by long-term problems such as high …
From John Bolton to Jeffrey Goldberg, commentators, journalists and policy movers have been trying to read the tea leaves on Iran’s next nuclear move, Israel’s potential response, and what it means for the rest of the world. Heritage analyst Peter Brookes lays out the facts of the case and a reasoned discussion of the looming fulfillment of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Listen to Heritage in Focus: Peter Brookes on a Nuclear Iran here. To get regular updates on Heritage’s weekly podcast, subscribe to our RSS feed or visit us on iTunes. …
It was supposed to be done by now. Like cap and trade and Guantanamo before it, President Barack Obama’s New START with Russia was expected to be approved by the U.S. Senate of the 111th Congress. But just as the Obama administration has admitted defeat and is now scrubbing the White House webiste clean of cap and trade references, the administration is retreating on New START as well. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) had scheduled a Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote on the treaty before the August recess but had to …
This November, along with a host of anxious politicians, California’s own greenhouse gas law, AB 32, will be on the ballot. Those worried about the law’s potential economic consequences are pushing Proposition 23 that calls for freezing provisions of AB 32 until California’s unemployment rate drops to 5.5% or below for four consecutive quarters. Serious questions about apocalyptic global warming aside, one would expect California’s horrendous unemployment rate of 12.3% and the state’s near bankrupt status, to deter the golden – or rather green – state’s aggressive emissions regulatory agenda …
On August 13 El Nacional, a Venezuelan daily, published a disturbing photograph of corpses piled up in a Caracas morgue. The photograph drove home an indisputable fact: Caracas has become one of the most dangerous places in the Americas. Reports the latest Economist: Venezuela’s national murder rate is 75 per 100,000 people, up from 49 just four years ago, twice the rate in neighboring Colombia where guerrillas continue to wage war and an astonishing 220 per 100,000 people in Caracas, higher even than in Mexico’s drug-ridden Ciudad Juárez.
The fact is that New Jersey lied and got caught, but taxpayers everywhere may benefit. Yesterday, the State of New Jersey settled with the SEC on charges that the state committed securities fraud by failing to disclose the true state of its state employees pension funds. This admission is an important step toward ending accounting policies that allow states to claim that the state teachers and employees’ pension funds are fully funded, when they really have billions of dollars of deficits. By using accounting tricks, New Jersey claimed to have …
The Senate floor may be empty, but debate over the New START Treaty continues. Dismissing calls for debate as petty partisanship, many on the left urge a quick vote on the treaty. The treaty’s proponents fail to appreciate the Senate’s constitutional role in the treaty-making process. In Article II, Section 2, the Constitution grants the President the “Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.” James Wilson explains, “Neither the President nor the Senate, solely, can …
So far, 21 states have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare. As they move forward, it’s worth pondering what would happen to the health care overhaul if they succeed. Could one lawsuit be the proton torpedo that blows up the Obamacare Death Star? Typically, courts can deem a legislative provision unconstitutional without it spelling doom for the entire piece of legislation. But Obamacare isn’t typical legislation. Ben Domenech explains: “Most laws of large size and scope have something called a “severability clause” attached to them. Essentially, this means that …
When President Barack Obama was selling his economic stimulus plan to the American people, he promised that, if enacted, the legislation would prevent unemployment from rising above 8%. $3 billion in Cash for Clunkers bailouts, $10 billion in government union bailouts, $16 billion in Medicaid bailouts, $13 billion in home buyer tax credits, and $814 billion in stimulus act spending later the nation’s unemployment rate stands at 9.5%. And now the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says that number is not going to come down any time soon. Yesterday, the CBO released …
Earlier this week Commerce Secretary Gary Locke descended on Louisiana to announce a $30.7 million grant for a coastal restoration project near Port Fourchon. He called the funding a sign of the “administration’s commitment to help the Gulf Coast’s economy and environment recover in the wake of the BP oil spill.” There was just one problem — funding for the project was approved months before the oil spill. And according to the state agency in charge of coastal restoration, there was no action even necessary by the Department of Commerce …
