President Obama’s economic stimulus was supposed to revive America’s economy and put people back to work. But nearly three years after Democrats rammed the bill through Congress, it’s a clear-cut failure. The nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate stands out as one of consequences. Then there is the high-profile Solyndra scandal and countless other government schemes gone awry. In a new video from Reason.tv, Jim Epstein takes a closer look at other examples — in a setting just a few miles from Capitol Hill. In Silver Spring, MD, government contractors pocketed …
In an exclusive interview with The Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sharply criticized President Obama for engaging in class warfare and accused him of shifting the focus away from his own failed policies in advance of next year’s election. “My view is he’ll have a hard time convincing Americans he deserves four more years of this,” McConnell said. “There’s nothing he’s done that the American people approve of, so of course, he’s trying to change the subject.” McConnell addressed a range of issues during the interview, from …
Following the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) criticized liberals for insisting that any deal include a massive tax hike. In a speech at Heritage last week, he said tax revenue isn’t the problem facing the United States in the future; it’s the massive increase in federal spending. “It’s actually arithmetically impossible to solve this problem on the tax side alone,” said Toomey, who noted that Democrats on the Super Committee wanted to hike taxes by $1 trillion without making any fundamental reforms …
This month marks the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany and Italy. December 1941, according to historian Craig Shirley, transformed America in ways that might be unimaginable today. In a new book called “December 1941: 31 Days that Changed America and Saved the World,” Shirley documents the rapid shift of a war-weary country to one that mobilized instantly after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Each chapter of the 656-page book documents the events of one day during the …
As one of the 12 members of Congress on the Super Committee, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) had a front row seat for all the negotiations. Since the committee’s announcement late last month that they had failed to reach a deal on at least $1.5 trillion in savings, Toomey has been very vocal that we cannot now ignore our nation’s fiscal crisis and that a deal still much be reached. He visited Heritage this week to discuss the fallout. We caught up with him in his Senate offices to discuss what happened and …
Silicon Valley is one of the few bright spots in the U.S. economy today, but a new report warns that Washington’s outdated regulation and antitrust policy threatens to stifle growth among innovative technology companies. The report, produced by the Progressive Policy Institute, analyzes the impact of acquisitions in the technology sector. It concludes that acquisitions lead to economic growth and job creation. There’s just one problem: Washington bureaucracy. The federal government’s process of approving acquisitions — a problem well-documented by Heritage’s James Gattuso — can slow down innovation, hamper growth …
Media coverage of Occupy Wall Street has dominated the news lately, supplanting stories about the Tea Party movement and the grassroots uprising that took Washington by storm. For one of the movement’s early leaders, it has come as no surprise. Jenny Beth Martin is a co-founder and national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. Today she continues to fight against big government, albeit while fending off comparisons to Occupy Wall Street. In an interview with Ginni Thomas at The Daily Caller, Martin talked about the early rise of Tea Party and …
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 …
The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute will host their first-ever presidential debate tonight at 8 p.m. ET on CNN. Over the past few days, workers transformed an empty auditorium at Constitution Hall into a full-scale television set. As the final preparations were made, watch our behind-the-scenes look at how it all came together. Featuring interviews with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who will moderate tonight’s debate; Kate Lunger, senior executive producer for CNN Special Events; Sam Feist, CNN’s Washington bureau chief; Keith Thornhill, debate project manager, and our own Edwin J. …
Foreign policy takes center stage in Washington this week as eight Republican presidential candidates gather tomorrow evening at DAR Constitution Hall for a debate hosted by The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute. It airs at 8 p.m. Tuesday on CNN. Last week Heritage hosted House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) to discuss President Obama’s performance on matters beyond U.S. borders. We spoke to her about the Obama Doctrine, her concerns about U.S. policy toward Cuba and Israel, and why she is trying to reform the United Nations. “What …
