In his recent speech in Kansas, President Obama accused Republicans of advocating “you’re on your own economics”—a philosophy that supposedly holds that “we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” The implication is that unless you favor raising taxes and levying stricter economic regulations, Obama assumes you want to leave poor people out in the cold. In contrast, the President promotes his own economic ethic in the following terms: “We are greater together than we are on our own.” While …
For the last three months, the village of Wukan in Guangzhou, China, has been the scene of unrest. Locals were outraged that, for years, their lands were often being sold from under them by village officials. When petitions to provincial-level authorities brought no relief, they began to stage public protests, which in turn were met by baton-wielding police, causing villagers to surround the local police station and burn several vehicles. To placate the situation, the local authorities agreed to meet with a delegation of residents—but then several of the delegates …
As we’ve argued countless times, government attempts to stimulate the economy create uncertainty that often paralyzes business decisions. Don’t take our word, though. In a letter to President Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the father of Keynesianism himself, John Maynard Keynes, wrote the following: You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform…. Even wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action, before you have had time to …
The misguided federal policy to concentrate the U.S. mortgage finance industry in two huge government-sponsored entities was underscored again this morning when the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged six former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives with misleading investors and Congress about the amount of poor-credit-quality mortgages each entity held before they were taken over by U.S. regulators in September 2008. The charges, if true, also make it clear that both Fannie and Freddie were acting as hedge funds that gambled on high-risk investments in addition to their congressionally …
A new poll from Gallup suggests that President Obama’s class warfare argument and the Occupy Wall Street movement are failing to resonate with Americans — and might actually be backfiring. The new survey reveals that Americans today are less likely to think of the country as divided into “haves” and “have nots” as compared to when Obama ran for office in 2008. That campaign featured the Obama’s “spread the wealth around” rhetoric and followed former Democrat vice presidential candidate John Edwards’ talk of “two Americas.” Americans were equally divided when …
Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D–NV) drifted off to fairy-tale world this week and dreamed up some statistics as he did. On the floor of the Senate, Reid said the following: Many of our job creators are like unicorns—they’re impossible to find and don’t exist. That’s because only a tiny fraction of people making more than a million dollars, probably less than one percent, are actually small business owners and only a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction is a traditional job creator. This claim is wildly off base. Senator …
Bradley Manning, the Army private who allegedly leaked classified information to WikiLeaks, starts his trial process today with an Article 32 hearing at Fort Meade in Maryland. Under military law, this is essentially the equivalent of a preliminary hearing in the civilian justice system. Based on the hearing, the investigating officer will make a recommendation to the convening authority whether Manning should be sent to a general court martial for his actions that led to the worldwide disclosure of highly sensitive military reports and intelligence, as well as State Department …
Citizens across America will have a powerful tool to hold their elected leaders accountable come January. The House of Representatives today adopted new standards that increase transparency and improve access to legislative data. All of the information will be publicly available in a searchable format on one website. “With the adoption of these standards, for the first time, all House bills, resolutions and legislative documents will be available in XML in one centralized location,” said House Administration Chairman Dan Lungren (R-CA). “Providing easy access to legislative information increases constituent feedback and ultimately …
With fiscal year 2012 spending bills now at the brink of completion, The Heritage Foundation’s Appropriations Tracker: FY 2012 has been updated to reflect the final tally. Combined with three bills enacted in November, the massive “megabus” legislation under consideration today brings total base discretionary budget authority to $1.0429 trillion, effectively equal to the excessive level allowed by the Budget Control Act (BCA), the product of the summer-long debt ceiling debate. It is $31.6 billion above the House-passed budget resolution (H. Con. Res. 34). The House budget, passed in April—a …
The mention of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack in the presidential GOP debate hosted by The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute has ignited controversy. After a New York Times article called this threat “theoretical,” Frank Gaffney, director of the Center for Security Policy, offered yet another contribution to the EMP discussion, defending candidate Newt Gingrich’s statement that an EMP attack could be one of the biggest threats the United States faces. An EMP is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy caused by the rapid acceleration of charged particles. …
