Millions of American homeowners face foreclosure, but at least one sort of housing crisis has been remedied: No longer will research rats suffer the indignities of crowded cages. That is to say that the federal government has ordered labs to provide precisely measured living quarters for all rodents used in federally funded research. Thus, a female rat and her offspring must be housed (for their short, genetically altered lives) in lodgings that feature no less than 124 square inches of floor space and 7 inches of head room. By comparison, …
President Obama unveiled a long list of economic policies during the State of the Union address that he wanted Congress to focus on this year. Click here to join us right now for our “Lunch with Heritage” chat. We are joined by Bill Beach, Heritage’s Director of the Center for Data Analysis, and he is taking your questions on the President’s proposals. Lunch with Heritage feat. Bill Beach
Did World War II spending boost economic growth? Although some statistics appear to affirm this, wiser historical analysis demonstrates that artificial increases in output during the war masked a debilitated private economy. Meaningful growth increased after the war, when free-market mechanisms returned and marginal tax rates were reduced. Gross national product (GNP), the total value of everything produced by United States domestically or abroad, did increase during the war and trended downward as the war ended in 1945, falling considerably in 1946 and 1947. It would be shallow analysis, however, …
“Over a thousand Americans are working today because we stopped a surge in Chinese tires,” asserted President Obama in his State of the Union Address. President Obama referred to steep tariffs that his Administration imposed on tires imported from China. Not everyone sees it that way. According to the Tire Industry Association (TIA): TIA believes this was a politically motivated decision that will end up costing more jobs than it saves. These tariffs will not bring back the jobs that the union claims have been lost; it will not create …
Beneath the President’s bully pulpit in the House of Representatives last night must be a very thick carpet under which Barack Obama managed to sweep a great number of inconvenient facts and issues in the Americas. When it came to our Hemisphere, north and south, he told us not to worry. A single sentence sufficed to sweep every issue under the carpet: “Our ties to the Americas are deeper.” No need to worry about the Americas, right? Wrong! For starters, we ought to ask why the Obama Administration currently has …
A high school diploma has long served as the most basic requirement for an entry-level job (notwithstanding declining standards in government schools). But now comes the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) declaring that a sheepskin prerequisite constitutes discrimination. In the opinion of the vaunted EEOC Legal Counsel staff, requiring a high school diploma has a “disparate impact” on individuals with a learning disability. In other words, requiring a high school diploma discriminates against those who don’t have one by holding them to a standard they fail to meet. Proponents of …
President Obama will release his annual budget proposal late yet again. Choosing the date is not merely a convention. By law, the President must release the budget by the first Monday in February, which falls on February 6 this year. Yet yesterday the Administration announced it will release its fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget a week late, marking the third such delay in four years. Right now, when the economy is struggling, annual deficits consistently exceed $1 trillion, and Americans are demanding that Washington govern responsibly, this delay is beyond …
IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde has been talking up the need for greatly expanded resources to bail out ailing European economies. European nations have offered to channel about $200 billion of their own funds to themselves through the IMF (a kind of gentleman’s money-laundering to avoid restrictions in their own treaties). Lagarde wants others to add $300 billion to that kitty. The U.S. Treasury has said no, and rightly so. Replacing current euro-debt with IMF loans, no matter how rigorously structured, will only prolong the agony. The failing euro-zone economies …
Leading up to his third State of the Union (SOTU) address tonight, President Obama appears once again less interested in facilitating real job growth than in creating the mere appearance of job creation. In a SOTU preview video released over the weekend, Obama declared that American energy fueled by homegrown and alternative energy sources is an important step toward rebuilding the economy. This statement in conjunction with last week’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline suggests a continuation of the misguided focus on the government pushing so-called “green jobs,” whether …
When the Chinese government is the sole source of information, how much of it should be believed? In terms of economic performance, not that much. The Wall Street Journal’s Tom Orlik, author of a book on the subject, challenges those skeptical of Chinese numbers to make a better case. Challenge accepted. To be clear, it is not true that Chinese numbers are wrong all the time. Also, China does not always overstate its economic performance. GDP growth was slower in 2011 than Beijing claims, but it was faster in 2010. …
