Anyone who has ever watched Law & Order knows that someone is held in contempt of court when they egregiously disrespect the role of the court and the rule of law. Holding someone in contempt is a powerful sanction in a judge’s arsenal to redress an intentional disregard for the law and the courts. So it is no small matter when yesterday Federal District Court Judge Martin Feldman held the Obama Interior Department in contempt of court for dismissively ignoring his ruling to cease the job-killing drilling moratorium imposed by …
Join us from 12-1 ET for our Lunch with Heritage online chat. We will be joined by Heritage’s Middle Eastern Affairs expert Jim Phillips. Jim has been following the protests very closely will be taking your questions about them. Jim has written a number of blog posts and reports about the crisis and is on the forefront of the issue. Lunch With Heritage feat. Jim Phillips
House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R–WI) has released a fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget target. This target—302 allocation in budgetary parlance—was necessary since the previous congressional Democratic majority failed to pass a 2011 budget resolution or even enact a single 2011 appropriations bill. Instead they passed a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government, which expires on March 4. Thus, this dereliction of the basic duties of governing required the new Congress to start from scratch. The Ryan proposal would cut non-security discretionary spending by $58 billion below the …
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) promised during his campaign that he would balance the Empire State’s budget without increasing taxes or borrowing. Left untouched, the state’s $135 billion budget would otherwise result in $10 billion in deficit spending. This week, Cuomo appears to have taken the first step to making good on his promise. He unveiled a budget proposal that would, on paper, reduce New York’s spending by $3.5 billion from what was spent last year. (This is, however, a deceptively high estimate based on accounting gimmicks. The actual …
The Great Recession lasted 18 months—slightly longer than the recession of 1981—and it might not be fair to compare the two. Unemployment was higher, for example, during the 1981 recession. But Reagan’s approaching centennial brings to mind the Reagan Recovery, and the economic climate of 1983 must be enviable from where President Obama sits in 2011. Tomorrow the Department of Labor releases its monthly jobs report, and early reports do not suggest improvement. The numbers will certainly not be anywhere close to those 14 months into the Reagan Recovery. A cool …
President Obama yesterday signed the U.S. instrument of ratification for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia yet did not release the text of the document to the public. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to exchange this instrument with the Russian government’s corresponding instrument this weekend in Germany, which is the last step required for bringing the treaty into force. The Senate should be suspicious for two reasons. First, it should be suspicious about the White House’s failure to make public the text of the …
What happens when the going gets tough for unions? They protest, even if they don’t have a legitimate reason to do it (other than an inability to compete and their plummeting membership rolls). Take the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters (MRCC), for example. As The Mackinac Center for Public Policy reports, the union has been protesting Ritsema Associates, a Michigan construction company since last summer – even though its members don’t work there. Why? The union claims that the company pays “substandard wages and fringe benefits,” but they don’t offer …
The announcement last week by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s government that Argentina intends to repay nearly $9 billion in official sovereign debt—a higher figure than it had said previously that it owed—to other member nations in the Paris Club could be seen as a step forward. But apparently it was not enough evidence of progress to convince the Obama Administration that Argentina is sincere about living up to its obligations as a member of the G-20. Kirchner was reportedly miffed when President Obama announced during his State of the …
On February 11, the U.S. Department of Commerce will release our country’s 2010 trade statistics. The following three principles will help in understanding what the numbers mean: Unlike the U.S. budget deficit, the size of the trade deficit does not matter. The trade deficit results from people in other countries spending more dollars investing in our economy than buying U.S.-made goods and services. Every dollar spent by someone in another country to buy U.S. Treasury bonds, purchase stock in a U.S. company, or build a new factory in the United …
February 2 marks the start of President Hugo Chavez’s 13th year in power. Venezuela’s populist authoritarian took office back in 1999. That day was a somber day for the Americas and friends of democracy around the world. In a recent discussion with American diplomats to the Andean region, someone asked our senior representative in Caracas John Caulfield if Venezuela is still a democracy. A silence descended over the audience as it awaited a response. Like all diplomats, he shied away from an ugly truth that would surely create friction and …
