President Obama apparently has a soft spot in his heart for religious liberty. And the New York Times editorial board is not pleased. The president last week issued a much-awaited executive order setting government-wide policy on community-based and religious nonprofits that receive federal grants. The executive order is meant to act on the recommendations of the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. That panel’s recommendations cover many topics arising in the context of federal financing of religious nonprofits, which receive and spend about one third of the money …
Education policy has often stumped or scared conservatives. It shouldn’t—we’ve long sided with children and parents against special interests—and especially not now. Federal education policy has all the defects that fueled activists’ ire this election season: skyrocketing spending, bureaucratic meddling and overreach into states’ constitutional authority. And it still leaves American children behind their potential. Washington first ventured into local school policy with the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). The 31-page, $1 billion Great Society project redistributed wealth to low-income districts, aiming to close the achievement gap …
What is the Obama Administration thankful for, or at least hopeful for, this Thanksgiving? That controversial Thanksgiving Eve announcements won’t receive any media attention. While most Americans were in transit Wednesday afternoon, the Department of Interior was finalizing its polar bear habitat protection, which sets aside 187,000 square miles of sea ice off the coast of Alaska as critical habitat. The announcement does not prohibit economic activity in these areas, but it could make it much more difficult for oil and gas development, since the designation requires federal officials to …
Americans really are blessed. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, and most of us are free to approach it as we please: Gathering once again as family and friends to enjoy favorite food and company, we may choose to thank God for all we have. We may just dig into the turkey and trimmings with a general sense of gratitude for our lives. Or we may face Thanksgiving like just about any other holiday from work — except with more football games and parades. The local religion sheriff doesn’t check to make sure …
We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving Holiday yesterday and continue to enjoy spending time with friends and family today. The Heritage Foundation will be posting on The Foundry throughout this Friday so please check back frequently. Till then, do enjoy President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation below. The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been …
Between football and pumpkin pie, take a few minutes today to learn about the history of Thanksgiving in America. In this week’s Heritage in Focus podcast, Assistant Director of the Center for American Studies David Azerrad discusses the history and meaning of Thanksgiving in America’s uniquely free and religious society. David Weinberger hosts. Listen here. To get regular updates on Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes.
More than any other day of the year, families by the millions will give thanks today for America’s abundant and affordable food supply. The impressive bounty on display contrasts sharply with claims that more stringent federal regulations are needed to ensure food safety. Despite the fact that America’s food supply is superior to every other in the world, legislation now pending in the Senate would grant vast new powers to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate how food is grown, processed, and sold. Underlying the power grab is …
As truly an American holiday as Thanksgiving is, it was not actually made a formal federal holiday until 1941. And it wasn’t even routinely celebrated nationally on the fourth Thursday of every November until after President Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Address in 1863. Still, the holiday does have a strong basis in our nation’s history—a history that is all too often left untold. As described by Plymouth Colony Governor William Bradford in his diary Of Plymouth Plantation, the first Pilgrim winters in America were tough. The colonists failed to produce adequate …
On the way to a defense ministerial in Bolivia, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was asked about Iran’s growing presence in South America, particularly in Bolivia and Venezuela. He answered most cautiously: Bolivia, obviously, can have relationships with any country in the world that it wishes to. … But I think Bolivia needs to be mindful of the number of United Nations Security Council resolutions that have been passed with respect to Iran’s behavior. Gates said exactly what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last year. Nevertheless, at the defense …
The Bipartisan Policy Center’s (BPC) Debt Reduction Task Force – a highly diverse group of private individuals – has laid out a comprehensive approach to closing the deficit and slowing the rise in national debt. They do this through a combination of spending reductions, many though not all of which are excellent and transformational (about 53%) and tax increases, all of which are ill-advised (about 47%). The report’s near silence on Obamacare is noteworthy and unfortunate even to the exclusion of the universally abhorred CLASS Act. Their cuts to defense …
