Forty-five kindergarten children sit attentively in a cold classroom in a poor school on the outskirts of Santiago, Chile. Bundled in blue and white uniforms, they patiently wait on their teacher’s next instruction, a child occasionally moving across the small room to access materials in his personal cubby-hole. In a neighborhood plagued with drugs and violence, the private voucher school is a sanctuary for the low-income children who reside there. For many, their home life is one full of neglect: out-of-work parents (if any), unsanitary living conditions, and a familiarity …
Releasing 30 million barrels of petroleum from strategic reserves is not an energy policy, and it is not an especially useful response to either short-run or long-run pressures on gasoline prices. Because the release is scheduled to stop in 30 days, market adjustments will partially offset the release’s impact in the short run. And in the long run, there is no additional output. In fact, the current released oil will need to be replaced in the future. Most of OPEC is producing at capacity, so the notion that it is …
In 1987, President Ronald Reagan explained the relationship between federal spending and the U.S. trade deficit: “Here in the United States, we must restrain government spending. Our trade deficit in goods and services reflects that, over the past several years, we have spent more than we have produced—and we have spent too much because of the profligacy of the federal government. As the Congress reviews my proposed 1988 budget, it should remember that a vote for more government spending is a vote against correcting our trade deficit.” Today, the government …
In a press conference on Wednesday, President Barack Obama promised to boldly go where no President has gone before, taking “unprecedented” steps to cut back the tangle of regulations that are strangling businesses and leading to America’s anemic job growth. It’s certainly a welcome idea, but the only trouble is that despite the President’s claim, his brave new idea isn’t all that unprecedented, and he is, in fact, a big part of the problem. Government regulation takes a heavy toll on the economy, tying down businesses and preventing them from growing, …
America’s trucking industry is on pace to pay a whopping $138.7 billion for fuel in 2011 — an increase of $37.2 billion over last year due to higher energy prices. That’s a lot of money for gas. And unfortunately for consumers, they’re likely to pick up the tab. A new study from the Consumer Energy Alliance blames the lack of a national energy policy for America’s economic woes. Higher prices are costing jobs and putting a strain on families struggling to make ends meet. Higher costs for the transportation sector …
Robert Gates said goodbye to the Pentagon yesterday after serving two presidents and spending nearly five years as defense secretary. On his final day, President Obama surprised Gates with a Medal of Freedom. Leon Panetta takes over today after serving as CIA director since February 2009. He’ll be replaced at the CIA by Gen. David Petraeus, who won Senate confirmation on a 94-0 vote Thursday.
