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  • Entitlements, Taxes & Spending

    Replace the culture of entitlement with the culture of mutual responsibility.

    Charlie Sheen Gives Washington a Lesson in Fiscal Responsibility

    Maybe the lawmakers in Congress can pick up tips from the Rockstar from Mars. Charlie Sheen doesn’t exactly epitomize responsibility, but even he knows how to live within his means. Sheen earned about $30 million last year and spent just around half that sum, according to a new video by … More

    Social Security is Adding to the Debt Now

    Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) just doesn’t have a strong grasp of the facts when it comes to Social Security and the debt. Yesterday, at a campaign rally calling on Congress to “Back Off” Social Security Reid again repeated his line that: “Social Security has not contributed one penny to the … More

    Obama Budget Adds $80,000 per Household to National Debt

    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has completed its initial review of President Barack Obama’s budget request and found that the White House significantly understated the cost of and red ink in its budget. While President Obama claimed his budget would produce $7.2 trillion in deficits (a staggering figure) over the … More

    A Voodoo Baseline Won’t Reduce the Deficit

    As Congress continues the struggle to tame federal deficit spending, some argue that tax hikes and defense cuts are necessary and inevitable. For example, a recent brief from the Concord Coalition on the prospects for the House Majority’s coming budget resolution for fiscal year 2012 makes the case that conservatives … More

    CBO Report Confirms: Obama’s Budget Laden with Debt

    Coloring President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for fiscal year (FY) 2012 are the undeniable shades of masked fiscal disaster and a want of long-term solutions. According to analysis (pdf) by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the President’s budget would result in $1.43 trillion and $1.16 trillion deficits for FYs 2011 … More

    Heritage in Focus Roundtable: Herman Cain, Gas Prices and Budget

    In this week’s Heritage in Focus Roundtable, Heritage panelists discuss this week’s Blogger’s Briefing with special guest Herman Cain, gas prices and the budget. Just under one year since passage, Obamacare has already taken its toll on businesses, which is why the recent address by Herman Cain (former CEO of Godfather’s … More

    We Can’t Afford to “Leave Social Security Alone”

    This year Social Security will pay out $45 billion more in benefits than it collects in taxes. And this is not the first year Social Security has had an operating deficit. Last year, Social Security paid out $37 billion more in benefits than it collected in taxes. And this year … More

    America’s Decline: Not a Given

    Critics of America’s traditional style of leadership seem to have once again adopted a narrative of America’s inevitable decline. Drawn-out wars, China’s rising influence, and a crushing national debt are seen as kryptonite to the world’s sole superpower. The challenges these issues pose to American influence in the world is … More

    Lunch With Heritage Online Chat – Cutting the Budget

    Spending is out of control. We are under a tremendous debt and it is getting worse. Is there anything that can be cut? We are joined by Heritage’s Budget expert, Brian Riedl. Brian has written extensively on the budget, including a paper on $343 billion worth of programs that can … More

    White House Shirks Responsibility to Address Medicare Insolvency

    If lawmakers are serious about tackling out-of-control government spending, they have no choice but to tackle entitlements. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the three largest entitlement programs and together represent 40.2 percent of the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget. For the sake of comparison, total spending on national … More