Congress was unable to pass an oil spill bill in response to the Macondo well blowout last year, and now policymakers are eager to return to the issue. The largest outstanding issue is undoubtedly the oil spill liability or the secondary costs that stem from offshore oil and gas accidents. The law currently caps liability at $75 million, with up to an additional $1 billion available from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund paid for by a per-barrel tax on imported and domestic oil. Both Republicans and Democrats offered knee-jerk …
In a luncheon speech to American business executives in which he urged the United States to recognize China’s claims over Tibet and Taiwan, Chinese President Hu Jintao said yesterday: “We do not engage in an arms race, we are not a military threat to any country. China will never seek to dominate or pursue an expansionist policy.” We certainly hope this is true. But our leaders must do more than just hope. As President George Washington asserted in his First Annual Message, the “most effectual means of preserving peace” is …
Writing in 1995, before anyone in the West thought all that much about war online, Major General Wang Pufeng (the former Director of the Strategy Department at the China’s Academy of Military Sciences) observed, “Our sights must not be fixed on the firepower war of the industrial age. … Rather they must be trained on the information warfare of the information age.” “In the final analysis,” General Pufeng added, “information warfare is conducted by people.” And China has a lot of people. For over a decade, China has been building …
This week we are joined by Senior Health Policy Analyst, Ed Haislmaier. Heritage has released a series of papers called the Case against Obamacare. These papers give the arguments on why Obamacare is bad for the U.S. Please join us with your questions and we will answer as many as we can. Lunch With Heritage Ed Haislmaier
An outspoken conservative leader in the House, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) appeared at The Heritage Foundation this morning to outline how to champion conservative values in the 112th Congress. Before today’s event, the Congressman sat down with us to talk about the repeal of Obamacare and the effort to wrangle federal spending under control. The new chair of the Republican Study Committee, Jordan has locked onto the federal government’s spending addiction and plans to work with his colleagues to tackle this persistent and critical problem. “The next six month will …
The new Congress has made spending reduction a priority. This week, Members are getting to work on that promise. Yesterday, by a vote of 245–189, the House passed legislation to fully repeal Obamacare. The new health law represents unsustainable new spending, including an expansion of Medicaid and the creation of a new health entitlement. On paper, this massive growth in government is paid for by burdensome new taxes and unrealistic cuts to Medicare. But at the end of the day, Obamacare will explode the deficit, and its repeal is the …
January 20, 2011, marks the 30th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s inauguration as the president of the United States. Ronald Reagan, throughout his presidency, used humor as a way to captivate audiences whenever he spoke, which earned him the nickname ‘The Great Communicator.’ However, President Reagan was always serious when he talked about the size and scope of the federal government, as well as his mission to put communism on the “ash heap of history.” Reagan set the tone of his presidency during his inaugural address. One mission of his presidency …
The U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling that has had the effect of blocking an initiative or referendum vote on same-sex marriage in the District of Columbia. The high court’s action brings to an end this judicial phase of the effort to rescind a same-sex marriage law enacted by the D.C. city council in 2009. The law took effect in March 2010 and has never been enjoined by a court of law. As a result, same-sex marriages have been taking place …
Democrats profess great concern about the health care issue. Yet they avoided including any form of medical malpractice reform when passing their major health care legislation in 2010. This despite the fact that abusive tort litigation is one of the driving forces in the high cost of health care. Such litigation greatly increases malpractice-insurance costs, to the point where yearly premiums can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in some medical specialties. This not only raises the cost of health care, it actually drives providers out of business and decreases …
On ancient maps, the edges carried the warning: Here be dragons! Admiral Gary Roughead, the Chief of US Naval Operations, implicitly gave the same warning in an interview with the Financial Times. The comments have been taken to suggest that he does not see the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) – i.e., the Chinese navy – as an insuperable threat. This is consistent with his function as head of the United States Navy. I fully expect the CNO to be talking about how the Chinese navy is not yet a …
