Heritage Policy Analyst Kathryn Nix recently released a paper explaining why the premium support, or defined contribution, model for Medicare reform found in Heritage’s Saving the American Dream is the best way to get out of our health care spending and debt crises. Several elements of this approach to reform have already been applied to the program under Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage. Writes Nix, “Applying their successes to the rest of Medicare can restore permanent solvency to the program, preserve robust access to high-quality care, encourage continued physician …
News broke yesterday that three officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who were instrumental in the agency’s botched Fast and Furious operation had been promoted. That was jarring enough, given the large and seemingly growing scope of the scandal. Now we find out that Fast and Furious was an even bigger disaster than initially thought. Not only were guns from the operation discovered at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry’s murder, but an additional 57 Fast and Furious firearms were recovered at 11 different …
Today a new report was released indicating nearly one in five children in the U.S. is poor. The report, from the Annie Casey Foundation, was technically correct; it followed conventional Census procedures for identifying poor children. But what does it mean to be “poor” in the U.S.? Government data show that the typical poor family with children has a computer, cable TV, air conditioning, a car, multiple TVs, a microwave, and an Xbox in the home. News stories typically equate “poverty” with homelessness and feature despondent children living in the …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. A Politicized Justice Department Strikes Again – Hans von Spakovsky, National Review Online Social Security lies on super committee’s chopping block – Dorothy Zhang, Daily Caller Obama ‘No Child’ Waiver Proposals Rile Conservatives – Mallie Jane Kim, U.S. News & World Report Poverty Debate Raises Tension Between Obama and Black Leaders – Steven Gray, Time Block grants designed for needy end up in wealthier communities – Maureen Groppe, Indianapolis Star After …
America’s bleak jobs picture would be even worse if not for foreign direct investment (FDI) in the U.S. economy. FDI in U.S. factories and property offers firms a source of new technologies, capital, products, and organizational skills, and it fuels economic growth. Most importantly, FDI creates jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, 5.6 million Americans worked for U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations as of 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Every state in the country benefits from FDI (See chart). As The Heritage …
A business owner in Southeastern Michigan was shot last week after confronting a man carving “SCAB” into his car. John King, the shooting victim, owns King Electrical Services, the largest non-union electrical contractor in the area. Last Wednesday, King reportedly awoke at night to find someone in his driveway vandalizing his car. When King stepped outside, the man shot him in the arm and fled. King has been forced to endure other incidents of harassment by labor unions, the Daily Caller’s Matthew Boyle reports: Labor unions have attempted, unsuccessfully, to …
The resumes of the Obama administration’s hires at the Justice Department Civil Right Division’s Special Litigation Section read like a manual on professional advancement in the world of left wing legal practice. Every one of the 23 career civil service attorneys hired since Obama took office has stellar liberal credentials. That ideological uniformity, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Hans von Spakovsky, suggests that liberal politics are a “prerequisite for employment in the Division – there is no other explanation for this.” The Special Litigation Section enforces civil rights laws on the …
In the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) mandates that we need to consume 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022. EISA also contains a mandate within the mandate for advanced biofuels, with the applicable volume of cellulosic ethanol set at 250 million gallons this year, 500 million gallons in 2012, and ultimately hitting 16 billion gallons in 2022. The problem is, when you look at the monthly production of cellulosic biofuel on the Environmental …
Participants in the annual Space and Missile Defense Conference in Huntsville, AL, have a shared goal: protect the U.S. homeland, forward-deployed troops, and allies from a ballistic missile threat. The current fiscal environment and missile defense policies of the Obama Administration make this task ever more difficult. The most recent debt ceiling bill, unless repealed, will severely compromise U.S. national security. The law establishes a goal of reducing federal deficits by $1.5 trillion, while requiring automatic spending reductions of $1.2 trillion if the goal is not met. In the latter …
