Nearly a year ago, President Obama delivered a speech calling for an increase in oil and gas production. Since then, he has canceled more production than he has allowed. Today he delivered a speech at Georgetown University outlining a plan to cut oil imports by one-third by 2025. President Obama said when gasoline was $4 a gallon, “you had a lot of slogans and gimmicks and outraged politicians waving three-point plans for two-dollar gas—when none of it would really do anything to solve the problem.” Then he offered his own …
Maybe the lawmakers in Congress can pick up tips from the Rockstar from Mars. Charlie Sheen doesn’t exactly epitomize responsibility, but even he knows how to live within his means. Sheen earned about $30 million last year and spent just around half that sum, according to a new video by Bankrupting America. Congress, by comparison, brought in $2.3 trillion in taxes — but spent $3.6 trillion, one and a half times the amount received. Thanks to the government’s virtually nonstop spending, the nation has a debt burden of $14 trillion …
One major concern of Obamacare is its huge incentive for businesses to dump employer-sponsored coverage. Recently, the Obama Administration acknowledged that this is likely, though it did so in an attempt to portray it as a positive outcome of its signature legislation. In reality, Americans will experience severe consequences if this effect of the new law comes to fruition. Under Obamacare, those without government-qualified employer-sponsored insurance will be able to purchase insurance in the new exchanges. The new law creates generous subsidies to make coverage more affordable for low- and …
Recently, the Organization for International Investment released a report showing that the United States received $194.5 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2010. This FDI is responsible for millions of jobs, billions of dollars in exports, and higher wages for U.S. workers. FDI occurs when someone in another country directly builds a facility in the U.S., like the $1.5 billion Toyota Tundra plant in San Antonio, Texas, that employs nearly 1,700 people. FDI does not include the billions of dollars that foreigners invest in the U.S. each year by …
Monday, the State Department announced that the United States and the European Union have begun “negotiations on an agreement to protect personal information exchanged in the context of fighting crime and terrorism.” This is very welcome news. As Heritage analyst Sally McNamara wrote earlier this month: The EU–U.S. counterterrorism relationship has been marked as much by confrontation as it has by cooperation. Brussels has long opposed key U.S. counter-terror programs such as renditions, and under new powers granted by the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament has challenged two vital data-transfer …
As I wrote in April 2009 and in July 2010, “The Obama Administration’s worksite audit policy is resulting in illegal immigrants simply moving to different jobs elsewhere in America.” In today’s Wall Street Journal, that outcome is confirmed in spades. The story details what happened to the roughly 1,200 illegal immigrants terminated in Minnesota after a worksite audit occurred at two companies, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Harvard Maintenance. A representative of the union that covered most of the workers noted that “most workers stayed in the area and began hustling …
Today, a bill that would restore and expand the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (DCOSP)—the flagship school choice program for low-income schoolchildren in the nation’s capital—will hit the House floor for a vote. Despite the program’s track record of success and the overwhelming support from parents and D.C. residents, the program has been under attack since the Obama Administration came to town in 2009. And even as the bill, sponsored by Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH), comes up for a vote today, the Administration continues to argue against the …
Thirty years ago today, Ronald Reagan almost joined the ranks of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, James Garfield, and William McKinley as the fifth assassinated president. President Reagan initially seemed to have escaped unharmed when shots were fired on March 30, 1981 outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. But, in the presidential limousine, Reagan began spitting up blood and complaining about his breathing. He insisted on walking into the emergency room of George Washington Hospital, where he collapsed. Although the bullet had stopped only one inch from his heart and he …
Pity the poor librarians. Those gentle custodians of the written word currently find themselves in a regulatory purgatory of sorts wherein compliance with hellish safety standards threatens to defy their hallowed purpose of providing books for all. It is a dilemma borne of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, which prohibits even minute levels of lead in any product intended primarily for children 12 years of age or younger. That includes millions of children’s books printed with leaded ink. (Use of the metal in ink dates back centuries—including …
I’ve spent most of my life working to advance school choice — to give all parents the power to decide where their children go to school. Most Americans support this idea, but in reality only those parents with the financial means can decide where to send their kids to school, leaving many underprivileged families forced to send their kids to consistently failing public schools. Many of these struggling families live in the nation’s capital. Washington, D.C., is home to some of the most troubled public schools in the country. Today …
