This Wednesday Maine Attorney General William Schneider announced that the Pine Tree State would become the 23rd state participating in Florida’s multi-state suit against Obamacare. With Oklahoma and Virginia each pursuing their own seperate suits, that brought the number of states fighting Obamacare’s budget busting Medicaid expansion to 25. It didn’t take long for that number to become 26. The Kansas City Star reports: Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt sent a letter Wednesday seeking to join almost two dozen states in challenging the new federal health care reform law.
This week The Heritage Foundation released the 2011 China Global Investment Tracker. Heritage Asian Studies Center Derek Scissors explained the product: China’s investment overseas is increasingly important to the United States and the international community.The China Global Investment Tracker created by The Heritage Foundation is the only publicly available, comprehensive dataset of large Chinese investments and contracts worldwide beyond Treasury bonds. Details are available on well over 300 attempted transactions—failed and successful—over $100 million in all industries, including energy, mining, transportation and banking.
Treating teachers like professionals, giving parents school choice, and using education dollars wisely: these three priorities frame the agenda of Students First, the newly established nonprofit headed by former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee. The plan, released Tuesday on StudentsFirst.org and outlined by Rhee in The Wall Street Journal and an on Fox News Wednesday, provides further detail regarding the agenda, which she calls “a comprehensive set of policies and legislation that … create the right environment … where transformational school reform can take hold.” The three priorities are described …
Next Monday, January 17, is the 50th anniversary of President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address. The speech is most commonly remembered for President Eisenhower’s warning about the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex,” but often left out of the story is Ike’s warning about profligate federal spending as well: “We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” Ike went on to …
As the House of Representatives prepares to vote on repealing Obamacare next week, several governors have emerged as the law’s leading critics. Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) is one of them. “There’s obviously real sentiment in the country for repealing this bill — for the colossal mistake that it was,” Daniels said in an exclusive interview with The Heritage Foundation. Daniels sat down with Heritage last year to explain the challenges facing Indiana as a result of Obamacare. Chief among them: the likely demise of the Healthy Indiana Plan, a program …
We are joined by Research Associate Nick Loris and he will be talking about the lack of oil and the rising gas prices. Nick has written extensively about the damaging effect of the drilling moratorium. Come join us with your questions for Nick and learn why gas prices are on the rise. Lunch with Heritage Feat. Nick Loris
The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom is out, and the news is not good. For the second year in a row, America became less economically free. The U.S. is now just the ninth-freest economy in the world. The decline in the U.S. ranking was driven by skyrocketing government spending, new regulatory uncertainty associated with Obamacare, and government intervention in housing and financial markets. Economic freedom matters for many reasons. It is the way societies create wealth: government is necessary, but it provides only the framework within which autonomy can flourish. …
While it’s being reported that every state (except Florida) had snow on the ground this week, 46 states are digging out of another kind of mess — a combined deficit of at least $127 billion. Democratic and Republican state leaders alike are grappling with structural budget deficits, many of whom are proposing budget cuts to tackle the problem. But then there’s Illinois. President Barack Obama’s home state is beleaguered by a $15 billion budget deficit that is said to be the worst in the nation. And apparently the last thing …
In what could only be described as a bizarre and illogical first move as the newly elected governor of Rhode Island, Lincoln Chafee (I) announced a ban on state employees having any contact with radio broadcasters. The move is part of a broader attack on radio broadcasters by liberals across the nation in the wake of the tragedy in Arizona. Shortly after the heartbreaking incident in Tucson, liberals across the spectrum immediately began assigning blame for it, without evidence, to conservatives and the tone of rhetoric in today’s politics. Even …
The wake of a violent tragedy is an appropriate time for reflection, investigation, prayer, and the promotion of healing. It is a particularly inappropriate time for political opportunism. After last weekend’s tragedy in Arizona, Congress should put the brakes on any desire to ram through gun-control legislation that will neither solve the perceived problems in federal law nor prevent any future assaults on public officials. Observation teaches us that in the wake of crisis, politicians’ instinctive reaction is to check the legislative box and claim that they have solved a …
