In a Thursday interview with Scribe, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, claimed that President Obama has no real intention of striking a deal with Republicans on the debt ceiling. Rather, he said, the talks between congressional leaders and the White House have been efforts to “run out the clock up against his so-called deadline of August the second” in order to paint Republicans as “irresponsible.” The president fully intends to wait it out until then, DeMint said, “so that he can have a crisis” – which of course smacks of former …
Yesterday, the Obama Administration released its new Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy. This strategy leaves out a glaring issue plaguing border enforcement: Without full access to border lands for the Border Patrol, no amount of manpower, weapons, or other technology will help get control of the border. One of the problems facing Border Patrol agents is that federal land managers have prevented them access to natural resource lands. This is no small chunk of the border either, equaling 20.7 million acres. With that much acreage left grossly under-secured, these lands are …
Amidst the ongoing aerial campaign against Muammar Qadhafi’s forces in Libya, NATO is struggling with a problem that is affecting the integrity of the alliance. Arms producers in France, Italy, and Germany are selling advanced weapons, sensitive dual-use systems, and military supplies to Russia. These military sales to Moscow, which is flush with cash from oil and gas sales, signal the decline in strategic cohesiveness among some of NATO’s most important members. Such military sales include a record-breaking deal signed on June 17 between France and Russia in which Russia …
The Hill reports that conservatives in Congress are considering extending Medicaid drug rebates to low-income seniors participating in the Medicare prescription drug program (Part D) as part of a deficit reduction deal to increase the debt limit. Transforming certain federal health programs—i.e., Medicare and Medicaid—is crucial to making a meaningful dent in the debt, but ideas like this one are best left in the Pandora’s box of bad health policy. Low-income seniors dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid used to receive drug coverage solely from Medicaid, but after the advent …
It took a Twitter town hall to learn how the President really thinks about defense. Not only does Obama want to gut defense as part of his debt deal (a proposal that simply won’t work)—on top of that, he wants to use the Pentagon budget as his personal ATM to fund more stimulus spending. According to Obama, the Pentagon budget is “so big that you can make relatively modest changes to defense that end up giving you a lot of headroom to fund things like basic research or student loans …
The literature on the quality of Medicaid has mixed findings—some shows that having Medicaid is better than being uninsured; some shows the opposite. But virtually all of these studies suffer from a statistical issue that makes it impossible to tell whether or not it’s Medicaid or something else driving the results. This is because there are lots of reasons why people may enroll in Medicaid or decide to remain uninsured—and some of the reasons are completely unknowable to the researcher. For instance, developing a chronic condition that’s expensive to treat …
There’s no good way to spin the news that came out of today’s monthly U.S. jobs report. The economy generated only 18,000 total new jobs, the unemployment rate increased to 9.2 percent, and the number of unemployed Americans has gone up by 445,000. In other words, the recovery appears to have slowed markedly. President Barack Obama’s stimulus-infused “recovery” refuses to ignite, unsurprisingly to all but him. And to make matters worse, May’s paltry job growth numbers were revised even farther downward, from the initial estimate of 54,000 to 25,000. Sadly, the record continues—the Obama …
A former chairman of the National Labor Relations Board on Thursday blasted a proposed rule that would expedite elections for workplace unionization, insisting the proposed rule represents a “radical manipulation of the board’s election process” and an attempt to “tilt the process in favor of organized labor.” “The proposed rule demonstrates once again,” claimed Peter Schaumber in his prepared testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee, “that the current board majority feels unconstrained by the limits of the law and its role under the [National Labor Relations] Act to …
Yesterday’s debt-limit talks were “very constructive,” according to President Obama. But with party leaders still far apart on a number of issues, Obama will reconvene the group Sunday in hopes of reaching a deal before the administration’s Aug. 2 deadline. Rank-and-file lawmakers are growing impatient with the pace of progress. This weekend also marks the Republic of South Sudan’s declaration of independence ceremony. Obama announced an American delegation to mark the occasion. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice will lead the group, which also includes former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. …
Click here to join the chat! we are joined by Heritage’s Education expert, Lindsey Burke. She is taking your questions about the advances in school choice and other opportunities for educational freedom. 2011 has been called the “Year of School Choice“. 13 new school choice programs have been created in various states, and just yesterday, President Obama acknowledged how important school vouchers were to his success in life saying that he “wouldn’t be president if someone hadn’t helped provide some scholarships for my school.” If you would like to be …
