The bankruptcy of solar energy company Solyndra is making national headlines and has put President Obama’s green jobs programs under the microscope. Click here to join the chat! We are joined by Heritage’s Energy and Environment Policy Analyst Nick Loris. He is taking your questions about what can really create jobs and why it is not a good policy for the government to be picking winners and losers. Submit a question in the form below and we’ll answer as many as we can! Lunch with Heritage feat. Nick Loris
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe The Great $16 Muffin Myth – Kevin Drum, Mother Jones Global Meltdown: Investors Are Dumping Nearly Everything – Patti Domm, CNBC US walks out as Iran delivers anti-US speech – Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press Boehner: ‘There’s no threat of a government shutdown’ – Nicholas Ballasy, The Daily Caller Bill Clinton: Obama’s Approach to the Deficit is ‘A Little Confusing’ – Real Clear Politics Census: Recession takes big toll on …
Think big government unions affect everyone equally? Think again. Union contracts often hurt workers who need more flexible schedules or less traditional work arrangements. The Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) recently published a policy paper regarding this unfair arrangement. IWF’s Carrie Lukas points out that, like many big government ventures, unions assume that one-size-fits-all work and compensation packages will satisfy everyone. Unfortunately, they don’t take into consideration working mothers, part-time workers, and the low-skilled or entry level. Union contracts are negotiated through collective bargaining, where one master contract covers all the …
President Obama is touting his new mega tax on millionaires–a.k.a. “the Buffett Rule”–as the best thing since sliced bread (or since his plan to spend $447 billion on more stimulus), but not everyone agrees–namely, entrepreneurs and those who have seen the effects of soaking the rich in order to pay for more government spending. In today’s Washington Post, Eric M. Jackson, formerly of PayPal and now CEO of CapLinked, an online platform for private investing, explains how the President’s plan to set a minimum tax rate for those with annual income above $1 …
This morning Scribe wrote about the tendency of large government interventions in the economy to nudge private economic actors into the political sphere, where they can curry favor with the people controlling the (massive) purse strings. The video above, via KFAQ Radio in Tulsa, OK, shows billionaire oilman George Kaiser, a major Obama donor and key investor in bankrupt solar company Solyndra, discussing President Obama’s stimulus package as just what it was: a tremendous source of money available to the politically connected – to people like Kaiser. “There’s never been …
What do the presidential candidates think about the Constitution? In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Seth Lipsky proposed a televised debate for GOP presidential candidates to discuss their views on the Constitution. Sounds great! But if we are going to have a real conversation about the Constitution, let’s not waste time responding to trite fictions about our Founding document. The Constitution has been around for 224 years—long enough for rumors to spread. We at New Common Sense have been keeping track of them. Here’s a look at the top …
Buried deep within the President’s tax plan is a proposal to “reauthorize the special assessment from domestic nuclear utilities.” Translation: The President wants to place an additional tax on nuclear utilities that will result in higher energy prices for consumers. The United States gets 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. So what the President characterizes as a $2 billion “savings” over 10 years is really a $200 million annual price increase for the millions of American consumers who rely on nuclear energy. The money would be placed into …
President Barack Obama is slated to give a speech tomorrow lauding the benefits of granting waivers to states for the burdensome provisions of No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Obama, unhappy with the pace at which Congress is undertaking NCLB reauthorization, has decided to grant the conditions-based waivers to states to fulfill his own timeline and push his own policy preferences. States have felt the federal heat from provisions in NCLB that require all children to be proficient in reading and math by 2014. And as that deadline approaches, many states could find the …
While in New York for the formal launch of the Open Government Partnership, a multilateral initiative aimed at bolstering transparency and eliminating corruption, President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines delivered a simple message to President Obama: Come visit the Philippines. Indeed, throughout this trip, President Aquino has extolled the U.S. and praised its treaty alliance with the Philippines. During a speech at the Asia Society on Monday, Aquino expressed support for a stronger U.S. role in Southeast Asia, stating that “the Philippines welcomes America’s active re-engagement across Asia by strengthening …
As featured in a recent issue of World Magazine, the faith-based organization Hope Now for Youth is successfully reaching out to young men embroiled in gangs and violence in Fresno, California. Hope Now helps gang members and their families break a generational cycle of violence and poverty by achieving lasting self-sufficiency through mentorship and job training. The Hope Now program equips young men with job skills and helps them find jobs, teaching them the values of personal responsibility and work ethic necessary to become self-reliant. Beyond material well-being, however, Hope …
