One of the more talked about highlights of the President’s energy budget is his growing support for small modular reactors (SMRs). This includes $30 million for research and development and $67 million for licensing activities. While the President should be commended for recognizing the potential of SMRs, his approach unfortunately misses the mark. Research and Development, Yes; Commercialization, No The federal government does have a legitimate role to play in providing some basic research and development money to fund projects that may hold potential but are too risky for the …
House Republicans are attempting to live up to their pledge to cut $100 billion from the federal government’s current fiscal year 2011 budget. One of the proposed programs placed on the chopping block is the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) hiring grants. Created in the middle of President Bill Clinton’s first term, COPS promised to add 100,000 new state and local law enforcement officers on the street by 2000. Research by The Heritage Foundation has demonstrated that COPS failed to add 100,000 additional officers to America’s streets and was ineffective …
Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson was on Morning Joe yesterday morning to talk about the cover story he wrote for the latest edition of Newsweek on President Obama’s foreign policy failure in Egypt. During his appearance, Ferguson made it clear that he felt the President had mishandled the crisis in Egypt—a perspective that clearly shocked the show’s hosts. Disabusing them of their optimism, Ferguson noted that parliament had been dissolved, the Egyptian constitution had been suspended and that the country was under control of the military—hardly the expected signs of …
Nearly 10 months after the Gulf oil spill, the Obama administration’s refusal to waive the Jones Act was still on the minds of a few Republicans at a House hearing last week. Two freshman lawmakers, Reps. Jeff Landry (R-LA) and Blake Farenthold (R-TX), pressed retired Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the oil spill, about the Jones Act. The law regulates maritime commerce in U.S. waters and between ports. Landry opened his questions by asking Allen if he felt the “waiver provisions in the Jones Act provide sufficient …
Standing in front of a Baltimore County middle school yesterday, President Barack Obama said, “Even as we cut out things that we can afford to do without, we have a responsibility to invest in those areas that will have the biggest impact in our future. And that’s especially true when it comes to education.” Accordingly, the President’s budget includes a $13 billion increase in Department of Education spending from the 2010 budget. But this is hardly the first time a White House has significantly raised education spending. In fact, since …
Missed deadlines by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) continue to show us the absent-minded way in which Obamacare was put together. Finishing the health care reform race “first” was more important to the liberals in Congress than finishing with “success.” Lawmakers hastily wrote and passed a book of reforms on our exhausted health care system without taking the time to fully comprehend the negative side effects the law would have—not to mention whether or not it was even possible to expand the reach of government to the …
If there existed a company that for nearly half a century had failed to improve upon its product, had watched as other companies passed it by in its ability to be innovative, and all the while had more than tripled its overhead costs, it’s unlikely that company would be in business much longer. And let’s imagine for a moment that the company, adding insult to injury, was planning to go back to its shareholders to request yet more capital, expecting to be granted the new money because this time—without any …
This week, both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate are set to vote on reauthorization of three key counterterrorism provisions—two found in the PATRIOT Act and one in the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004. These provisions include: Roving surveillance authority, which is used by investigators, working within the law, to track a suspected terrorist as he or she moves from cell phone to cell phone. Business records orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, where business records and similar items are required to be disclosed …
Last Monday, Sergey Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, made clear yet again that Moscow reserves the right to withdraw from New START, a strategic nuclear weapons arms control agreement with the United States. Ryabkov threatened that if the U.S. expands its missile defense system qualitatively or quantitatively, the Kremlin would retaliate with military or technical measures. In addition to these threats, the Russians are also preventing any negotiations about tactical nuclear weapons until the United States reconsiders the plans for the NATO missile defense shield in Europe …
Since President Barack Obama was sworn into office total entitlement spending has grown 4%, total discretionary has soared 16%, and the national debt has exploded 43%. Over that same time the United States economy has lost 3.3 million jobs. President Obama cannot be blamed for the most recent recession, but he certainly can be held accountable for the failure of his deficit spending policies in response. Today’s FY 2012 budget released by the President doubles down on this failed record. The White House is trying to portray this document as …
