While members of Congress, former cabinet members, long-time aides and assorted VIPs were celebrating Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday at the Reagan Presidential Library in sun-baked Simi Valley, California, I was nearly 6,000 miles away in snow-bound Tallinn, Estonia, a small Baltic country bordering on the former Soviet Union. As a Reagan biographer, I was invited by the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Amb. Michael Polt of the U.S. Embassy to keynote a conference on President Reagan’s legacy and U.S.-Estonian relations, which couldn’t be much better in large part because …
Medicare and Social Security are important retirement security programs for millions of Americans. But they are ticking time bombs with trillions in future unfunded obligations that will bankrupt America if they are not changed. Though awareness of this critical situation continues to grow, Americans remain reluctant to support reform, understandably fearful of the prospect of paying into a program and then not receiving what they paid for. As Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar wrote for the AP, “You paid your Medicare taxes all those years and think you deserve your money’s worth: full …
In the midst of a tense bilateral dispute between the U.S. and Pakistan over the case of Raymond Davis—an American Embassy employee who shot and killed two armed Pakistanis in what he claims was self-defense—civil society leaders from both countries met in Lahore, Pakistan, February 17-19. The initiative, dubbed the U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum, was convened by the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative (a non-governmental, non-partisan collaboration of four U.S.-based organizations) and hosted by the Lahore University of Management Sciences, a world-class educational institute started in 1985 by Pakistani industrialist Syed Babar Ali. …
News sources are reporting that North Korea is confronting a major outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. This virulent disease can be dealt with only by destroying infected stock and quarantining farms that are suffering the outbreak. Given the condition of North Korea’s food stocks, which have remained low, this additional disaster suggests that the North Korean situation may soon become even more dire. At the same time, the potential for this disease spreading to China—and beyond—offers an opportunity for Sino-U.S. cooperation. When the disease hit South Korea, beginning late last fall, …
Speaking to the National Governors Association at the White House today, President Barack Obama endorsed legislation by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA) that would allow states to request waivers from some Obamacare mandates in 2014 instead of the existing 2017 date. President Obama claimed: “It will give you flexibility more quickly while still guaranteeing the American people reform.” Has President Obama even read the legislation? Because that is just plan false. Heritage Foundation Center for Policy Innovation Director Stuart Butler explained in the New England Journal of …
The roaring debate over the budget has flooded Congress with proposals and counter-proposals aimed at lessening the gaping hole between federal revenues and expenses. Almost every part of the federal budget, including defense, has been targeted under various plans. But cutting defense spending doesn’t fix the problem. It doesn’t even come close. According to Heritage Foundation Vice President Kim Holmes, Congress could eliminate the entire Department of Defense budget and still have crushing debt in the future. The greatest slice of the federal budget goes to cover Medicare, Medicaid, and …
“It’s not about the money,” says University of Wisconsin Associate Professor of Political Science and Law Howard Schweber. Wisconsin Education Association Council President Mary Bell agrees: “This is not about protecting our pay and our benefits. It is about protecting our right to collectively bargain.” Both Scheber and Bell are half right: the fight in Wisconsin is not about the money… of state employees. These workers have already agreed to pay more for their health care and retirement benefits. But this is about someone’s money … the union’s. Consider that …
In a private phone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, almost two weeks after the unrest began, President Barack Obama finally called for Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi to step down. While the President’s inertia may have been mitigated by the need to get Americans out of the country so Qadhafi could not take any hostages, the incident demonstrates again that the wave of revolution currently sweeping North Africa and the Middle East took the Obama Administration completely by surprise. And for good reason: President Obama’s “engagement” strategy toward the “Islamic …
House Cloakroom Analysis: The House returns next week from the Presidents’ Day recess to tackle a shortened two week Continuing Resolution (CR) package unveiled on Friday that includes more than $4 billion in spending cuts. HR 1, passed in the House on February 12th, cut spending by $61 billion for the remainder of the fiscal year, but the Senate has refused to take up the package and, in general, refused to get serious about making significant spending reductions in any kind of bill. According to the House Appropriations Committee, the …
Early yesterday morning, the Wisconsin assembly passed Governor Scott Walker’s (R) budget repair bill, which includes language requiring public employees to contribute 5.8 percent of their salaries to cover the cost of their pensions and pay 12 percent of their health insurance premiums. The measure also significantly limits collective bargaining for government employees, such as teachers. Although the measure has passed the assembly, it must still be passed in the Senate, where Democrats remain in hiding to avoid consideration of the bill. Charles Krauthammer dissects the stalemate in today’s Washington …
