In 1986, there were 2.7 million illegal immigrants inside the United States. They were granted a one-time amnesty. Illegal immigration crisis solved? Hardly. More than twenty years later there were around 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. How does the left want to solve this problem? More amnesty. This would work about as well as it did the last time. Since the recession began, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. has actually fallen, thus proving amnesty-or-deportation is a false choice. Illegal immigrants can, and do, choose to …
The spending pace of President Barack Obama and the 111th Congress simply cannot be sustained. There will either have to be spending cuts or higher taxes. The left prefers higher taxes, including the imposition of a value-added tax (VAT). How would a VAT work. Heritage scholar Curtis Dubay explains: The VAT is a consumption tax that taxes the value added by businesses at each point in the production chain. It can apply to both manufactured goods and services. This contrasts with the more familiar income tax, which taxes salaries, wages, …
In August 2005, The New York Times Magazine published an article titled “The Breaking Point” in which Council on Foreign Relations member Matthew Simmons predicted that oil, then about $65 a barrel, would more than triple in price by 2010. New York Times journalist John Tierney read the article, called Simmons up, and eventually bet Simmons $5,000 that the average price of oil over the course of 2010 would be at least $200 a barrel in 2005 dollars. As of January 1st, Tierney will have won. Yesterday, he explained why …
Yesterday, we posted the Top Ten Heritage Charts of 2010. Today we bring you the Top Ten Heritage Papers of 2010. This list combines all non-multimedia publications including WebMemos, Backgrounders, Center for Data Analysis Reports, Legal Memorandums, and White Papers. The papers are sorted by pageviews with the 10th most popular paper on top, and the most popular paper at the bottom. 10. Why is America Exceptional? 9. Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth: Answering the Critics 8. EMP Attacks—What the U.S. Must Do Now 7. Senator Dodd’s …
Hamtramck, Michigan, is running out of money. City Manager William Cooper tells The New York Times: “We can make it until March 1—maybe.” And Hamtramck is not alone. According to the Times, 15 municipalities have pursued bankruptcy in the past two years. And if the economy does not improve revenues, many other local governments will be in the same boat. Many of these cities, like Hamtramck, have already cut spending on parks, senior centers, and road maintenance. But there is one area they can’t cut: salaries, benefits, and pensions of …
“You don’t magically become a Tea Partier – it’s a journey,” says Mary Kass, president of The Greater New Orleans Tea Party. The grassroots activist and mother of three is this week’s Heritage Foundation Featured Facebook Fan, and she speaks from experience. (You can read Mary’s full story and become a Heritage Facebook Fan by clicking here.) When Mary Kass originally told her father that she planned to join the Tea Party, the retired World War II veteran worried that an all-out media assault aimed at smearing the movement could lead to his daughter being …
As 2010 draws to a close, The Foundry will be posting a series of Top Ten lists highlighting some of The Heritage Foundation’s most influential work. The Top Ten Heritage Charts are below, sorted by pageviews with the 10th most popular chart on top, and the most popular chart at the bottom. Turns out the most popular chart of 2010 is the same as the 2009 (with updated info) most popular chart. If we left out your favorite, let us know in the comments. 10. Recent Spending Hikes Are Not …
The most common myth that appears in “net neutrality” debates, even ones that appear in our comment section, is that the internet needs regulation in order to stay “neutral.” In reality, the internet is as open and adaptive as it is because it has been free of government regulation. Slate’s Jake Shafer has fun with this fact with “A counterfactual history of cyberspace” that explores what could have happened “If the FCC Had Regulated the Internet.” Read the whole thing (and our own “net neutrality” research here), but here are …
Microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India have been taking a serious beating recently. The threats and actions of politicians are so bad that they threaten the future of the industry in the country, and the primary reason is microfinance’s success. MFIs are working wonders to help people pull themselves out of poverty. Foreign aid has a bad track record over the past decades of being largely unsuccessful in alleviating poverty. MFIs have shown that there are alternatives to government-driven aid and that the private sector can—and under the right circumstances will—play …
The impact of U.S. sanctions against Iran and other state sponsors of terrorism have been undermined by loopholes that allow exemptions for humanitarian, agricultural and medical exports, according to a report in The New York Times. Most of the loopholes were created by a 2000 law that created exemptions for agricultural and medical exports for humanitarian purposes and resulted in $1.7 billion of U.S. exports to Iran in the last ten years. Although these exports have not directly aided Iran’s military buildup, some of the exemptions have benefited Iranian companies …
