Last August, NBC News’ Chuck Todd posed a question to President Barack Obama from Elkhart, Indiana, resident Scott Ferguson: “Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.” The President responded: “We have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect during a recession. … He’s absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up, take more demand out of the economy and …
In the mid 1960s, education policy took a wrong turn, away from America’s founding principles. That was when President Lyndon B. Johnson, as a part of his War on Poverty, created the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). It was the first major federal foray into local schools. But the Constitution doesn’t provide for a federal role in education, and public schools had traditionally been under the jurisdiction of local authorities. What’s more, Washington’s intervention seemed to bring out the worst in education governance: State officials became the …
A mangled piece of the 360-foot TV and radio antenna that once topped the World Trade Tower North now stands in Washington D.C.’s Newseum, surrounded by 127 front pages of newspapers from around the world that reported on that fateful day, nine years ago. As one might expect, visitors to the museum walk by this exhibit and reflect, shed tears and remember. There are, no doubt, memorials of this kind all over the United States. Likewise, there are men and women in all walks of life who remain vigilant while …
President Obama reportedly plans to name Austan Goolsbee to head his Council of Economic Advisers. This appointment is good news for advocates of expanded international trade. One of the world’s leading trade economists, Jagdish Bhagwati, described Goolsbee as a valuable source of free-trade advice over almost a decade. During the presidential campaign, Goolsbee described his views on trade in the following way: I do believe there’s no one more in favor of open markets than me and that said, if you look at a free trade agreement—if you have never …
While Medicare held the spotlight for much of the debate over health care reform last year, the changes to the health care program for seniors and the disabled that were most widely acknowledged were the $575 billion in cuts to the program. These cuts threaten to result in reduced benefits or access to health care providers. But this isn’t the only way in which the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will affect seniors. In recent Heritage research, Clete DiGiovanni, MD, and Robert Moffit, Ph.D., lay out …
After a major foreign policy speech, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked to comment on the drug violence in Mexico. She answered quite frankly: We face an increasing threat from a well-organized network drug trafficking threat that is, in some cases, morphing into or making common cause with what we would consider an insurgency in Mexico and in Central America. The Mexican government quickly challenged the statement. The Secretary’s top diplomat for Latin America, Arturo Valenzuela, also questioned the correctness of the Secretary’s views. He asserted that Mexico in …
The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg recently went to Cuba at the bidding of that island’s dictator. The results weren’t pretty. The tone of the first two articles by our man in Havana makes clear that he was intent on presenting Fidel Castro as a charming old rogue, a bit of a cute killer. Then, suddenly, news happened. The octogenarian reprobate had five seconds of lucidity and uttered to his shocked interviewer: “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” The death-bed confession came in response to Goldberg’s question on whether the …
It’s been 9 years since the 9/11 attacks. America is still being attacked—the Times Square and Christmas Day plots are the most recent examples. Congress, however, continues to act like it is still September 10, 2001. For instance: It continues to ignore key 9/11 Commission recommendations—the Commission emphasized that Congress needed to reform its oversight process for homeland security. Instead of doing so, the problem just got worse. Now 108 committees, subcommittees and commissions have oversight over the Department of Homeland Security—creating a big headache for homeland security and a …
When the U.S. Senate reconvenes on Sept. 13, a very rare event will begin in Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building: an impeachment trial. A specially-formed committee chaired by Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and vice-chaired by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), will hear testimony and receive evidence in the impeachment trial of Louisiana Judge G. Thomas Porteous, Jr. According to the Committee, such a proceeding has occurred only 15 times in our history, while three other impeachments terminated due to the resignation of the judges in question. In fact, …
It seemed so simple: To reduce energy use, Americans must abandon the old-fashioned incandescent light bulb in favor of new energy-efficient lighting. Congress even passed legislation in 2007 mandating a phase-out of the familiar “Edison” bulb in the name of saving energy. Now comes a study concluding that energy-efficient lighting will likely increase energy use. The study, sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, is based on the observation that the percentage of gross national product spent on artificial lighting has …
