Some of the stiffest competition facing U.S. exporters does not come from Europe—or even China—but the U. S. Treasury Department. Yesterday, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced that foreign customers spent $1.83 trillion on U.S. goods and services in 2010. They spent $119 billion on U.S. agricultural exports, $370 billion on machinery and equipment, $112 billion on vehicles and parts, $166 billion on consumer goods like pharmaceuticals and household goods, and $546 billion on services.
There is no limit to the amount of distortion the enviro-left is willing to deploy to accomplish their policy goals. Last month, the Obama Commerce Department issued a report finding that the “scientists at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration did not manipulate data or otherwise engage in wrongdoing.” But as University of California at Berkeley Professor of Physics and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory Faculty Senior Scientist Richard A. Muller explains in the accompanying video, this does not mean that what these scientists produced on global warming can be considered science: …
At a House hearing Tuesday morning on the burden of federal intervention into American schools, Representative Mike Kelly (R–PA) referred to the federal government as “the people that are … making the rules but have never played the game.” Witnesses included three school administrators from various states along with Heritage Director of Domestic Policy Jennifer Marshall. Kelly noted that schools have continued to receive burdensome mandates and regulations from Washington, yet politicians are not the ones who have to deal with the consequences. As the Kelly put it, “They talk …
Which American politician said the following? “The lessons of history, confirmed by the evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence upon relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit.” Had to be a mean-spirited Tea Party conservative, right? Wrong. President Franklin Roosevelt included these words in his 1935 State of the Union Address. Twenty-nine years later, the American welfare state was still relatively small, …
On Monday Politico ran a column by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) taking issue with my critique of his proposal to accelerate the granting of waivers under Obamacare. Unfortunately, he missed a central point I was making about limitations on the waivers that could be granted. Apparently the senator was offended by this paragraph, from my New England Journal of Medicine piece on his bill: Even more problematic to proponents of state flexibility on both the left and the right is that states would not be able to fold other health …
Two days ago a mail bomb exploded at the office of an Islamic group in Jakarta, injuring four people including two police officers who tried to defuse it. The package was addressed to Ulil Abshar Abdalla, a liberal Islamic scholar and activist known for his criticism against radical Islamist groups in Indonesia. Ulil, as he is widely known in the media, is the founder and former director of The Liberal Islam Network (JIL), whose office was the package’s destination. He is also a member of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s (SBY) …
Since the passage of Obamacare, the federal government’s role in American citizens’ lives has grown significantly. In a recent lecture, Heritage expert Robert Moffit discusses how passage of the health care law has not only grown the size and scope of government, but has also ignited a debate over the proper role for Washington in Americans’ everyday lives. Moffit writes that, under Obamacare: Over the next eight years, millions of Americans will be on the receiving end of a flood of red tape—tens of thousands of pages of new rules, regulations, and …
The head of China’s People’s Congress announced Friday that any movements toward a Western-style democracy were off the table. Within the announcement, Wu Bangguo specifically ruled out multi-party elections, the division of the People’s Congress into two houses, separate branches of government with power to balance one another, and formal privatization. According to Wu, “Different countries have different systems of laws, and we do not copy the systems of laws of certain Western countries when enacting the socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics.” Then again, why should they? After …
Like an eager kid who desperately wants to be included in his cooler older brother’s activities, America looks to the European Union for cues on sophisticated governance. But what happens when that cooler older brother is middle-aged, unemployed, and still living in your parents’ basement? This is America’s dilemma. Will America learn from Europe’s mistakes? Or, will America continue to be enamored with the European Union, despite its failed policies and unsound philosophical grounding? Practical problems of governance abound in the EU. Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France all agree: multiculturalism …
If forced to enter a duel with a Founder, James Madison would be an easy opponent—slender, diminutive, and painfully shy. But if you were to engage in any sort of intellectual debate with “little Jimmy,” you would indeed suffer a cerebral defeat. Today we celebrate Madison’s birthday, and though he is not with us, his Constitution still stands. In May of 1787, Madison arrived at the Constitutional Convention having read scores of books about political philosophy, the rise and fall of empires, and enlightenment thought. For four summer months, Madison …
