Driving the conversation: President Obama released his deficit reduction plan on Monday, which would reduce the national debt by $3 trillion over ten years through a variety of tax hikes, superficial cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, and by incorporating savings gleaned from drawing down America’s military presence in the Middle East. Taxes: As he is wont to do, Obama called on Congress – specifically, the supercommittee – to reform the tax code. The only tax changes included in the president’s plan are – surprise! – tax hikes. Those will include …
Heritage’s experts watched President Barack Obama’s debt reduction and tax increase proposal. Here are their immediate reactions: Obama’s Plan Is More Bad News for Defense President Obama’s approach to deficit reduction, which he outlined in a Rose Garden statement today, means additional bad news for the defense budget and the nation’s security. According to the fact sheet provided by the White House, accompanying his statement from the Rose Garden, the deficit reduction plan sees the continued application of $1.2 trillion in discretionary spending cuts already included in debt ceiling law …
Yesterday, the State Department released an official reaction to media reports on upcoming joint naval exercises between Russia and North Korea. The U.S. declared that “any engagement with the North Koreans should be conducted in a way that does not detract from the international community’s clear message of concern about the North’s weapons programs, and the necessity for Pyongyang to do what is necessary to return to the Six-Party talks.” The response is timid, considering the danger that the recent behavior of both countries presents to U.S. interests. Continued North …
Last week, Russian political scandal season reached a boiling point. On September 16, Mikhail Prokhorov, Russia’s third richest man (with an estimated personal net worth of $18 billion), promised revenge against Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of the presidential administration, after being ousted from the helm of Right Cause, his own newly launched political party. The tycoon accused President Dmitry Medvedev’s deputy chief of staff of “privatizing the political system” and orchestrating his downfall. As the metals magnate ran afoul of the powers that be, the order was given last week …
Today, President Barack Obama is expected to announce his latest plan for reducing the deficit, and central to it are $1.5 trillion in new taxes, aimed predominantly at wealthy Americans. Unfortunately for the 14 million unemployed Americans, the President is continuing down his steady path of ushering in big spending policies, then turning to even higher taxes in order to pay for them. Who ends up paying the price? America’s job creators and those on the unemployment line. It’s a “glut the beast” strategy the President has employed before–increase spending …
President Obama unveiled the details of his jobs plan last week, including a proposal to offset the new government spending with tax hikes. It’s a bizarre strategy for a president who says he wants to create jobs. As the above chart from Heritage’s 2011 Budget Chart Book illustrates, Americans are already grappling with the prospect of massive tax increases. If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire on Dec. 31, 2012, and more middle-class Americans have to pay the alternative minimum tax, taxes will reach unprecedented levels. The president’s budget …
The Heritage Foundation is proud to wish the United States Air Force a happy 64th birthday. Sixty-four may not sound old in the context of American history, considering that some of the founding members of the Army Air Corps are still living. Yet the history of these men and women goes back to early aviation itself. The U.S. Air Force (USAF) has much to boast. It developed aerial combat and produced the nation’s first Ace. From World War I and the plains of western Europe, it conquered the skies. In …
A flurry of newspaper articles reporting that the Obama Administration may decide to disregard the advice of its military commanders and reduce the U.S. military presence in Iraq to less than 4,000 troops by the end of the year prompted 42 distinguished American foreign policy experts to write an open letter to President Obama on September 15, urging him to reconsider. The letter, published on the website of the Foreign Policy Initiative, stated that the signers were “gravely concerned” about the risks entailed in retaining such a small force: Failure …
Earlier this week at Heritage, a Bush-era deputy assistant attorney general shared the stage with a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union. It’s not exactly the type of combination you might expect talking about terrorism 10 years after 9/11. But for John Yoo and Nadine Strossen, it was an opportunity to discuss the future of national security. Yoo is the co-editor of a new book with Dean Reuter that features essays from 22 contributors spanning the ideological spectrum. The compilation, “Confronting Terror: 9/11 and the Future of American …
In an article entitled “China and US on Edge over Vote in Taiwan,” today’s Financial Times (FT) quotes a “senior US official” as saying Taiwan DPP presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen “left us with distinct doubts about whether she is both willing and able to continue the stability in cross-Strait relations the region has enjoyed in recent years.” The article goes on to quote the official as saying that it was “far from clear…that she and her advisers fully appreciate the depth of (Chinese) mistrust of her motives and DPP aspirations.” …
