Some national business leaders are outright opposing measures of fiscal responsibility. Fortunately, fiscal conservatives in Congress are fighting back. Case in point: reaction to House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I) Chairman John Mica’s (R–FL) proposed six-year reauthorization bill, which limits transportation spending to the federal fuel tax revenues flowing into the trust fund. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s reaction was to label the proposal “unacceptable.” Apparently in their view, the proposal doesn’t spend enough money on the business community. Chairman Mica quickly responded to the president of the Chamber on …
News on Thursday that there were more new jobless claims last week than initially expected gives new weight to the words of a pair of business leaders who recently singled out President Obama and his big-government approach to economic policy as key impediments to economic recovery. Stephen Wynn, CEO of the Las Vegas-based casino company Wynn Resorts, lit into Obama’s policies during a company conference call on Monday. The Obama administration has been “the greatest wet blanket to business and progress and job creation in my lifetime,” Wynn insisted, due …
Desperate for a “balanced” approach to resolving the debt ceiling impasse, President Obama glommed on to the Gang of Six’s plan before the ink was dry. The plan has lots of tough-talking language intended to make both sides of the aisle tingle. But that’s where the balance ends. In reality, it’s a mostly empty bipartisan shell—heavy on tax hikes and promises of spending cuts, but devoid of details on how to make the sweeping transformative changes needed to solve our debt and spending crises. A core problem, of course, is …
The Wall Street Journal yesterday published an important op-ed by a distinguished intelligence specialist, Fred Fleitz, that alleges that the U.S. intelligence community remains in denial about Iran’s accelerating drive for nuclear weapons. Fleitz noted that Iran has accumulated over 4,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, enough to arm four nuclear weapons if it is further enriched to weapons grade. Tehran has accelerated its uranium enrichment efforts and recently announced plans to install more advanced centrifuges in a fortified facility build deep inside a mountain. Yet despite mounting evidence that Iran’s …
This week, Representative Buck McKeon (R–CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, released a memorandum to Republicans on the committee. He appropriately criticized the “Gang of Six” budget outline from the Senate for its possible negative consequences for national security. Since the Gang of Six proposal is nothing more than an outline to this point, McKeon is right to flag the possible ramifications. The few specific numbers its proponents have described do not meet the requirements for appropriate analysis, let alone the more stringent requirements for budget scoring. Unfortunately, …
Fellow conservatives, We find ourselves in the midst of an important battle, the outcome of which will be determined by decisions to be made in the immediate days ahead. We must win this fight. The debate over raising the debt limit seems complicated, but it is really very simple. Look beyond the myriad details of the awkward compromises, and you see an epic struggle between two opposing camps. On one side are those who have come to realize it would be madness to let the political class borrow more without …
Adding to the looming national debt crisis, means-tested government welfare spending continues to skyrocket, with no significant improvement in poverty rates. Private, faith-based community leaders, however, are successfully helping low-income individuals escape poverty and maintain economic independence. Within the crime-ridden neighborhoods of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in between crack houses and subsidized apartments stand restored homes whose exterior renovations mirror the personal renewal taking place inside. These homes are projects of Challenge House, Inc., a faith-based nonprofit that aims to connect members of Hopkinsville’s low-income community with the employment resources of local …
The Senate Banking Committee welcomes Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to testify on the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The financial regulation bill has contributed to higher unemployment by imposing needless regulation on small and large financial institutions. It has deterred investment by imposing ill-defined restrictions on those who want to invest in the economy. The law has recently been under increased scrutiny. Today also marks the opening of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by Dodd-Frank. Heritage’s Diane Katz called it an “unchecked regulatory …
This week, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released its recommendation of women’s preventive services that should be covered with no co-pay or deductible under Obamacare—a list that included birth control and emergency contraception. While this raises important questions regarding social policy, it’s also relevant to the ongoing debate about Obamacare and the consequences of allowing bureaucracy to over-regulate health benefits. Obamacare’s requirements that health plans cover certain preventive measures with no cost-sharing were implemented through Health and Human Services (HHS) regulations in July of 2010, but as part of the …
How secure are federal workers’ jobs? According to a recent USA Today study, death is the leading cause of job loss in 15 federal agencies. The federal government laid off or fired 0.55 percent of its workforce, according to USA Today – about one sixth of the firing/layoff rate in the private sector. A pair of agencies, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, did not fire or lay off a single worker in the budget year that ended September 30, despite employing roughly 3,000 workers between them. …
