As international pressure on Iran has mounted due to its accelerating uranium enrichment, its foiled plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S., and its systematic human rights abuses, the embattled regime in Tehran has lashed out verbally against Turkey, Britain, Israel, and the United States. On Saturday, General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the aerospace unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), warned that if the United States or Israel attacks Iran, then the IRGC would target NATO missile defense installations in Turkey. The Iranians claim …
This week the House will take up several regulatory reform bills. The Regulatory Accountability Act would increase the requirements an executive agency has to meet in the rule making process as well as expand judicial review of legislation. The House will also take up the Workforce Democracy and Fairness Act that would prevent micro-unions. When the Senate returns from the Thanksgiving holiday this week they are expected to vote on an extension of the payroll tax cut.
Be sure to listen to a special Heritage Libertad podcast on the recent Spanish elections. Click here to listen. With 23 percent unemployment overall, and 46 percent unemployment among its youth, how does the new government in Spain increase employment going forward? Furthermore, what effect will this election have on U.S.-Spain relations? Do we have a role to play in their recovery? Click the above link to hear answers to these questions and more!
Tax hikes were the focal point of the contentious, failed supercommittee negotiations designed to reduce the national debt by at least $1.2 trillion. Democrats wanted massive tax hikes. Republicans flirted with a tax reform deal lowering rates and closing loopholes. But the fact that tax hikes were at the center of the debate indicates that the committee – which includes Michigan Reps. Dave Camp and Fred Upton – fails to grasp the true nature of our debt crisis. Overspending, especially on entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, is …
Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor and made a bold assertion–that there isn’t any evidence that regulations cost jobs, citing statistics from a Labor Department report that “last year, only three-tenths of 1 percent of people who lost their jobs were let go principally because of government regulation or intervention.” In a new paper, Heritage’s James Gattuso takes Reid’s assertion head on, writing “The statistics are of doubtful accuracy and have little to do with the primary cause of joblessness in the U.S. economy …
Over the summer, Hurricane Irene and the East Coast earthquake put national attention on America’s disaster response system, especially the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). And once again, the problems that The Heritage Foundation has been pointing out for years—the federalization of routine disasters, FEMA’s funding issues, and the condition of capabilities at all levels of government—were exposed. As the chart below shows, the number of disasters the federal government has declared has accelerated substantially in the past year. (Read more below chart) The exploding number of declarations is trend that Heritage’s Matt …
We hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving yesterday and continue to enjoy spending time with friends and family today. While we at The Heritage Foundation enjoy our holiday, we invite you to read President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation below. The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature …
A new report from a New Orleans-based group reveals that the Obama administration is approving just 35 percent of the oil drilling plans for the Gulf of Mexico so far this year. It is also taking an average of 115 days — nearly four months — to secure approval from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. Those numbers contrast sharply from previous years. This historical average is a 73.4% approval rate. The approval time has nearly doubled; the historical average is 61 days for the government to approve …
Most of us have heard or read at least part of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamation at some point. But even those who have heard it many times can overlook two important aspects of this important document. The first is its timing: October 3, 1863. The nation had already endured two years of appalling carnage on the battlefields of the Civil War. And although Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg seemed to mark a turning point in favor of the Union, there was no clear light at the end of the …
The spirited CNN debate hosted by The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute provided a fantastic opportunity for Americans to hear from the presidential candidates about critical national security and foreign policy issues. We have put together a Flickr gallery of photos from before, during, and after the debate for you to browse. Take a moment to watch the slideshow above and check back often as we continue to add more photos to this collection over the next few days. And if you missed our exclusive behind-the-scenes video from …
