Why is the Obama administration frantically trying to push New START, a strategic arms-control agreement with Russia, through the “lame duck” session of Congress? Because of the president’s deep commitment to U.S. nuclear disarmament. He fears that New START may not garner the necessary votes in the new Congress. He also realizes that a failure to approve the treaty in the departing Senate could undermine his broader policy to curb nuclear weapons and eventually eliminate them. But these concerns shouldn’t trump the newly elected senators’ opportunity to review a significant …
Health economists and policy analysts have long known that Medicare spends much more, per patient, in some parts of the country than in others. In fact, the primary project of a large research group at Dartmouth is devoted to analyzing the geographic patters in Medicare spending. Last year, Atul Gawande brought this phenomenon greater public attention with an article in The New Yorker on medical care in the areas of McAllen and El Paso, two regions in Texas that have superficially similar demographics but vastly different levels of per-patient Medicare …
The Senate may soon consider a bill that would force states to allow for the unionization of public employees. In addition to the extraordinary amount of mandates imposed under President Obama, Congress has been attempting to extend the burden of collective bargaining imposed upon every state and local government. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D–NV) recently reintroduced the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act in an attempt to rush it through Congress before Republicans take control of the House in January. This legislation would mandate collective bargaining for police, firefighters, and …
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) will impact every corner of the health care system, especially Medicare. Unfortunately, the new law speeds the program’s travel in the wrong direction by building upon existing problems and creating new ones. There’s a better way to restore Medicare, as Heritage’s Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., and James Capretta outline in recent research. Obamacare makes $575 billion in cuts to Medicare and increases bureaucratic micromanagement of seniors’ care. If history is any indicator, this will be a failed attempt to increase efficiency. …
“The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers. At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.” So wrote Judge Henry Hudson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia yesterday in striking down Obamacare’s individual mandate. Specifically, Judge Hudson found that Section 1501 of the act, which forces …
Between 2000 and 2007, the United States Congress created 452 entirely new crimes, a rate of over one new crime every week. By the end of 2007, the U.S. Code included more than 4,450 federal crimes, with an estimated tens of thousands more located in the federal regulatory code. Worse, a joint study released this May by The Heritage Foundation and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), found that more than half of the bills that would have added or modified non-violent, non-drug criminal offenses in 109th Congress …
The Washington Post today ran a lengthy front-page story headlined “As Mexico drug violence runs rampant, U.S. guns tied to crime south of border.” The title pretty much sums it up: the Post states that an “unprecedented number of American guns [are flowing] to the murderous drug cartels across the border” and that this is fueling the violent battle between drug runners and the Mexican government. Of course, one reason that battle has turned violent is because the Mexican government of Felipe Calderon is trying, for the first time, to …
Part of living in a democracy involves accepting election results. Americans know to move on when their side loses. Neither Republicans nor Democrats would suggest redoing the vote until their side won. Someone should tell that to the union movement. The Obama Administration recently made it easier to organize Delta airlines. Delta’s employees nonetheless voted the union down. Instead of accepting defeat, the union movement is now asking for a re-vote. They will not take “no” for an answer. The saga began when non-union Delta acquired unionized Northwest airlines in …
In December 2006, Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon launched a campaign against Mexico’s drug-trafficking organizations. That war continues to rage four years later. In a violent and visible confrontation that began on December 9, 2010, the Mexican federal police delivered a punishing blow against La Familia Michoacana, a dug trafficking cartel with cult-like aspects. Mexican authorities believe Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, a.k.a. “El Chayo,” was killed in the action. Moreno was the “Family’s” second top commander. In the last year, Arturo Beltran Leyva, Edgar Valdez Villareal (a.k.a. “La Barbie”), and Antonio Ezequiel …
In the most significant decision to date involving the numerous challenges to Obamacare, a district court today ruled in favor of the Commonwealth of Virginia’s challenge, and declared the individual mandate portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The fact that the decision is based upon cross motions for summary judgment means among other things, in simple English, that the parties have had two major hearings and two sets of merit briefs before the Court, which has now issued its second major opinion (and this is leaving …
