Former Representative Bob Barr’s (R–GA) criticism of the Medium Extended Air Defense System (MEADS) anti-aircraft and missile program is understandable but misplaced. Representative Barr, quite reasonably, points to the Obama Administration’s plan to continue spending money on this cooperative program with Germany and Italy despite an announcement early last year that it is moving to exit it. What he fails to appreciate is that the Administration’s earlier decision to exit the program was itself misguided.

MEADS is important and advantageous for several reasons. First, MEADS successfully completed its design review last August. Second, it had a successful flight test last November. Third, integration testing of the system continues to advance. Fourth, MEADS will very likely provide a much-improved capability over the Patriot system in fending off combined attacks by both cruise and ballistic missiles, while providing 360-degree coverage. Fifth, the alternatives to MEADS would hardly be cost-free and would start at less advanced positions in the acquisition process. Finally, the MEADS program is one of the few missile defense programs that is receiving direct development funding from U.S. allies.

The last of these facts deserves special consideration, because it is about more than the foreign contributions. The Obama Administration has stated that it is its policy to foster foreign cooperation in the broader missile defense program, but its actions indicate otherwise. First, it moved to pull the rug out from under the governments of the Czech Republic and Poland by canceling existing agreements to field a missile defense radar and interceptors on their respective territories. This system was being designed to provide protection toU.S.territory as well asEurope. The withdrawal was to appeaseRussiawhen it insisted that theU.S.and its allies inEuropebe left vulnerable to Russian missile attacks. Then the Administration announced its intention to exit the MEADS program, thereby pulling the rug out from underGermanyandItaly.

Most recently, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta stated in a letter to Senator John McCain (R–AZ) that he is likely to cancel the current missile defense program forEurope, called the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA)—which is supposedly the centerpiece of the Administration’s broader missile program—under the automatic defense cuts the Administration favors.

There is a pattern developing here: The Obama Administration makes commitments to U.S. allies regarding missile defense and then abandons those commitments in a way that does serious damage toU.S.relations with its allies and the missile defense program. It certainly appears that the President recognizes that the American people want to be protected against missile attacks, but he is not committed to that defense himself. The answer to this dilemma, apparently, is to advance certain missile defense programs for a while and then terminate them later. The American people, as well as U.S. friends and allies, deserve a serious and sustained missile defense effort.

This brings us back to the issue of money. The real source of waste in these instances is the President’s pursuing missile defense programs only to the extent that it leaves an impression in the mind of the public that he favors such a defense. If this is his strategy, he is undertaking an expensive public relations campaign.

A month before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of Obamacare, liberal supporters are already planning an aggressive propaganda campaign to sway media coverage and public opinion.

The focus of the liberal public-relations campaign will be on “real people” — individuals who can speak about the impact of the ruling regardless of what the Supreme Court decides. A newly released memo, first published by BuzzFeed, suggests liberals should adapt their message and events to defend government-run health care.

“No matter what the flavor of our response is, we’ll need real people who are impacted bythe decision to anchor our message and create urgency,” according to the memo, which was prepared by Health Care for America Now and circulated to coalition allies by the Herndon Alliance.

Liberal groups are encouraged to have statements prepared by Memorial Day. The memo advises them to host events within 12 to 24 hours after the Supreme Court decision.

The best way to demonstrate public outrage or public celebration about the decision is tostage an event that shows average people actually responding to the news. We can do thisby organizing events as quickly after the announcement of the decision as possible while themedia window is still open–ideally, within 12-24 hours. To do this, we’ll need to startassembling the elements of these events now, so that they will be lined up and ready to goon decision day (if the ruling comes early in the day) or the following day.

Suggested venues for events include federal courthouses, senior centers, hospital emergency rooms and even Planned Parenthood abortion centers. The memo encourages speakers such as teachers, doctors, nurses and small businessmen.

The ultimate goal, according to the memo, is to highlight the impact on people who benefit from Obamacare and avoid talking about arcane legal and policy implications.

This, of course, isn’t the first time liberals have shared their propaganda plans to sell Obamacare to the media and public. In advance of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in March, Heritage obtained a detailed strategy memo explaining how liberals sought to influence coverage of the case.

The new memo appears below.

Rapid Response on SCOTUS Ruling

President Obama has repeatedly claimed that he is “going to keep on fighting for what matters to middle class families.” Well, in this “fight,” the President seems to be his own worst enemy. His health care law does far more damage than good to the American middle class.

Here are the five most prevalent and harmful burdens the middle class will be forced to bear under Obamacare:

1. More taxes. Obamacare imposes $502 billion of new or increased taxes and fees. Heritage expert Curtis Dubay explains that several of the taxes “will ultimately be passed on to [middle-income families] through higher prices. These include the fees on medical device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, and health insurance companies and the new tax on tanning services.” The middle class will also be burdened by the individual mandate to purchase insurance, new restrictions and limits on their tax-free health and flex savings accounts, and a new tax on high-cost (Cadillac) health plans. Starting next year, Obamacare increases the Medicare payroll tax from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent for individuals earning above $200,000 and couples earning more than $250,000 and for the first time extends the tax to income earned from investment. But the threshold for the higher rate isn’t indexed to inflation and will impact more middle-class families each year. The 2012 Medicare trustees report states, “By the end of the long-range projection period, an estimated 80 percent of workers would pay the higher tax rate.”
2. Loss of existing coverage. As many as 35 million people could lose their existing coverage because of Obamacare. This is because Obamacare creates financial incentives for employers to drop coverage for their employees. One report that examined the health insurance costs of 71 fortune 100 companies estimated savings of $422.4 billion between 2014 and 2023 if they dropped their employee coverage and paid the employer mandate penalty. Another study predicts that 30 percent of employers will definitely or probably drop coverage under Obamacare.
3. Higher premiums. Americans who purchase coverage in the new Obamacare exchanges will find that health insurance is still very expensive. American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Scott Gottlieb, MD, explains, “For a family of four, premiums on even one of the lower priced ‘silver’ options could still cost more than $15,000 annually on the exchanges.” A family’s income might exclude them from subsidies but not be high enough to pay $15,000 for Obamacare’s government-approved insurance. “A family of four earning $90,000 annually takes home about $60,000 after local, state, and federal taxes. If they lose workplace coverage, and move onto the exchanges, they could find themselves spending as much as 25 percent of the family’s take home pay for an average policy ($15,000 for the ‘silver’ plan).”
4. Rising health care costs. As premiums and overall health care costs continue to rise, middle-class families, including those receiving a subsidy, will be left paying more. Beginning in 2019, Obamacare’s cost-containment strategy for the exchanges is to hold the total cost of the subsidies to 0.504 percent of GDP. Charles Blahous, a Medicare trustee, concludes that “this limitation would likely cause the federal subsidies to grow less rapidly over the long term than the cost of health care and thus require low-income individuals in the exchanges to shoulder a steadily increasing percentage of their health costs.”
5. More government control of health care. Obamacare transfers massive authority over to the Secretary of Health and Human Services and expands the role of government in delivering care and coverage. This huge expansion of government’s role in health means that, by 2020, more than half of all Americans will be dependent on the federal government for health care and government bureaucrats will be in charge of deciding what you can and cannot buy.

If President Obama is serious about “fighting for what matters to middle class families,” he should start by repealing his own health care law.

To watch Heritage’s video on Obamacare’s Impact on Families and Future Generations, click here.

We know that “progressives” favor what they call “living constitutions,” governing documents that change easily to accommodate the changing tastes of voters. Sometimes they rely on judges to “breathe life” into the Constitution, as the Supreme Court did in 1965’s famous Griswold v. Connecticut.

But some also seem to be rooting for dead constitutions. On Thursday, an NPR interviewer had an interesting idea: “I have to say that when I talk to friends across the country, they look at this system in California and they say: well, why don’t they just throw out this [state] constitution that requires voters to approve everything that they do?” Jeremy Hobson asked Governor Jerry Brown (D).

But Brown seemed to realize he’s stuck living under the document that’s been “perfected” by his progressive predecessors.

“Why don’t we just throw out this constitution?” Brown answered. “They’ve done that in a number of countries, it’s called a coup d’état. Look, this is a democracy, you can find fault with it but compared to the paralysis in Washington, at least we have an ultimate arbiter, which are the people themselves.”

Brown and his fellow progressives are being hobbled by the very system they designed. It will be interesting to see how that plays out.

Suppose you could produce $50 of electricity but it cost you $100 to do so. Would that make any sense? It would if you work at the White House.

In a speech at a wind-turbine blade manufacturer in Iowa, President Obama called for extending two sets of subsidies that turn energy economics upside down and force higher costs on consumers and taxpayers.

The first extension is for the production tax credit (PTC), which is set to expire at the end of the year. It provides wind-energy producers with a subsidy of about 40 percent of the wholesale cost of electricity. So, when a wind-energy producer sells $50 worth of electricity, Uncle Sam adds another $20 for a total revenue of $70 to the producer.

The second extension is for the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Credit—originally funded in President Obama’s “stimulus” bill. This 30 percent credit cuts the cost of $100 worth of equipment to just $70.

So there you have it. Fifty dollars of actual revenue is bumped up to $70 with the PTC and $100 of costs are cut to $70 after the special tax credit. That is, $50 = $100 after taxpayers make up the difference.

When wind-energy advocates claim that wind power is on the verge of being competitive, they mean that after the PTC and the manufacturing credit, wind is almost, maybe someday soon, or maybe later (and only if you ignore transmission costs and fickleness of supply problems) on par with conventional power. What a deal.

Perhaps not all of the costs of the wind farm will qualify for the manufacturing credit, but don’t despair. There is more. Many states and regions have renewable power mandates that force consumers to buy renewable electricity—regardless of costs. So there is almost no limit to how expensive renewable electricity can be and still generate a profit for the supplier.

And even that’s not all. Many renewable energy projects and manufacturers receive federal loan guarantees that cut millions of dollars off their costs. In green-energy math, $50 may be greater than $100.

No matter how slick the financial shell games may be—subsidies on top of subsidies on top of mandates—overpriced electricity cannot boost the economy. It may seem like a boost if you are the one getting the subsidy…at least for a while. The workers at the Iowa plant better hope their presidential green-energy photo op works out better for them than it did for Solyndra’s employees.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Steven Pifer responded to Senator Jon Kyl’s (R–AZ) op-ed that argued that President Obama should refuse to provide written assurances to Russia that compromise America’s ability to defend itself.

Pifer’s complaint with the Senate Republican Whip’s argument is that “an assurance could open a path to a cooperative NATO-Russia missile defense.” Pifer misses the point.

Missile defense is inherently defensive in nature and poses no offensive threat to any country. The Russians want assurances from the U.S. that U.S. missile defenses will not ever have the ability to intercept Russian missiles headed toward American cities. Pifer believes that since the U.S. missile defense system is not currently able or intended to defend against Russian missiles, which the Senator readily admits, then it would do no harm to make this the permanent status quo.

Here’s the problem with that: Russia has the capability to pose a strategic nuclear threat to the U.S. It currently does not have the intent to employ strategic nuclear weapons. But intentions can change.

The U.S. should reserve the right to build up or alter its national security systems and strategies as it deems necessary for its own security. Even if an assurance (such as the one Pifer would have the U.S. provide to Russia) would please Moscow, it would do nothing to further U.S. national security objectives. Indeed, it would only further Russia’s objectives.

Arms control can be a useful means to achieve security aims, but it should never come at the expense of security.

According to press reports, just days ago Russia launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile, broadcasting to its neighbors and the U.S. that it is improving its offensive arsenal. Yet we never heard a peep from the U.S. President or arms control advocates requesting assurances from the Russian Federation that its missiles would not be used against the U.S.

Sri Lanka's former army chief Sarath Fonseka gestures to supporters as he leaves the main prison in Colombo on May 21, 2012. AFP/GettyImages

Three days after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sri Lankan Foreign Minister G.L. Peiris met in Washington, D.C., to discuss Sri Lanka’s human rights record, former Sri Lankan Army General Sarath Fonseka was released from prison.

Fonseka is viewed as a war hero by the Sinhalese majority for his victory over the terrorist group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009, ending a decades-long civil war. He resigned from his post as Chief of Defense Staff in 2009 to run for the presidency. He was defeated by Mahinda Rajapaksa by a 17-point margin. Fonseka was arrested one week later and subjected to court martial for “military offenses.” He was discharged dishonorably from the military, sentenced to a three-year prison term, and unseated from Parliament in 2010. In November 2011, he was handed down another three-year prison term. Many assume his imprisonment was politically motivated for Rajapaksa to quash Fonseka’s overwhelming national popularity and prevent competition in future elections. The Obama Administration designated Fonseka a political prisoner, calling for his release.

Sri Lanka’s human rights record has been a key concern of the United States since the ending of the Sri Lankan civil war in 2009 and the subsequent release of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) report in 2010. Debate over the implementation speed of the LLRC report recommendations has heated relations between Sri Lanka and the international community. The internationally perceived lack of seriousness and commitment displayed by the Sri Lankan government toward reform produced a U.N. resolution in March forcing Sri Lanka to implement the LLRC recommendations.

The increased international attention has caused an uproar within the country, many calling the resolution an attack on the “sovereign rights of the state.” The United States has been adamant that Sri Lanka apply the LLRC proposals, work to improve its human rights record, and respect civil liberties. The Sri Lankan government asserts that Fonseka’s release is not the outcome of increased international or national pressure.

Sarath Fonseka’s freedom is a small victory for human rights watchers and a step in the right direction for Sri Lanka on the path to democracy. The Sri Lankan government should continue to apply the LLRC recommendations it is capable of immediately implementing to illustrate its commitment to justice, reform, and unity. Clinton urged Peiris to create and publicly promote an “action plan” for the implementation of the remainder of the LLRC recommendations to demonstrate the “importance of accountability, and strengthen public confidence in the process, and speed up the healing of the country.” Although Peiris did not come to Washington with an action plan in hand, he is certainly aware that the government’s actions will continue to be closely monitored for progress. Hopefully, the release of General Fonseka will prove to be one of many actions illustrating Sri Lanka’s willingness to carry out reform and promote democracy.

Syria’s “Arab Spring,” long delayed by barbaric repression, is now rapidly deteriorating into a bloody civil war.

The Bashar al-Assad regime’s stubborn rejection of political compromise and its brutal suppression of the opposition has led increasing numbers of Syrians to take up arms against the regime. They have been joined by a small but growing stream of foreign Islamist militants who have flocked to Syria like moths to a flame.

The Assad regime has been targeted by a series of suicide bombings carried out by the Al-Nusra Front to Protect the Levant, which emerged in February and claims that its attacks are meant to avenge Sunni Muslims killed by the Alawite-dominated regime. Al-Nusra is believed to be a front for Al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch, which is expanding its operations into Syria. There are also rumors that other Al-Qaeda affiliates are seeking to expand their operations in Syria.

The Assad regime has also imported Hezbollah militants to help crush the opposition. Based in Lebanon, the Shia Islamist terrorist group has dispatched fighters to support Assad’s military campaign against the Syrian opposition in areas near the Lebanese border. These Lebanese surrogates are reportedly sometimes accompanied by Iranians, who also serve as technical advisers in training Syria’s security services to monitor communications and ferret out opposition leaders.

The intensifying conflict and growing activity of Islamist extremists has prompted the U.S. and other countries to make contingency plans to seize Syria’s huge stockpiles of chemical weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists if the regime collapses. U.S. intelligence agencies are monitoring chemical weapons production and storage sites, which reportedly remain heavily guarded by the regime. But if the Assad regime disintegrates, U.S. forces may be called in to keep the chemical genie bottled up.

See also: Syrian WMD: Counter-Proliferation Contingency Planning Needed.

There are some things that are so apparent that they’re not even worth mentioning. What goes up must come down. The earth is round. President Barack Obama is a big spender. But this week, some in the media and in the White House are denying one of these totally obvious truths. It shouldn’t be a big surprise which one it is.

On Tuesday, MarketWatch’s Rex Nutting wrote that claims of Obama’s big spending ways are overblown and that the “Obama spending binge never happened.” In a press gaggle on Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney picked up on the argument and claimed that “this President has been–has demonstrated significant fiscal restraint and acted with great fiscal responsibility.”

But sure as the sun rises in the east, not in the west, claims of Obama’s supposed “fiscal restraint” are just plain wrong. Heritage’s J.D. Foster explains:

Federal spending as a share of the economy will average over 24 percent during Obama’s term, and each and every year of that term will see a higher share than during any year since the Second World War. That apparently qualifies as ‘significant fiscal restraint’ Obama-style.

Fiscal responsibility? Obama has had by far the largest budget deficits, driven in large part by the eruption in spending.

Heritage’s Alison Fraser and Emily Goff thoroughly dismantle of the Nutting-Carney claim and point out that President Obama’s near-trillion-dollar stimulus “drove spending to a record 25.2 percent of the economy in 2009 and deficits topped $1 trillion for the first time in the nation’s history.”

You can see the proof for yourself in Heritage’s 2012 edition of the Federal Budget in Pictures. Of the last ten presidents, going back to John F. Kennedy, president Obama’s budget deficits as a percentage of GDP have exploded. And if you take a look at where spending is headed under President Obama’s budget, you’ll see that the country’s debt crisis just keeps getting worse. The President’s FY 2013 budget would increase the debt to 76.5 percent of GDP by 2022, despite $2 trillion in tax hikes. That’s not “fiscal restraint,” no matter how you slice it.

As bad as spending is today, President Obama wants to spend more, especially on transportation, infrastructure, education and research. He says that more spending, paid for with higher taxes, is the key to getting the U.S. economy back on track — even though that strategy has failed miserably over the past three years. Here’s the president’s problem. The American people don’t want Washington to spend more, they want it to spend less. They don’t want Washington to tax more, they want it to tax less. According to a new Rasmussen Reports poll, 53 percent of voters believe that tax cuts help the economy, and most say that more government spending has a negative impact.

The president wants to have it both ways. He’d like to be viewed as someone who cuts taxes and has demonstrated fiscal restraint, but he also wants to keep on taxing and spending. But sure as apples fall from trees and go down, not up, President Obama is a big spender who has done anything but show fiscal restraint. There are some laws of nature that just can’t be denied.

Quick Hits:

• There are signs of a global economic slowdown. A new report shows that businesses are slowing their orders of computers, aircraft, machinery and other long-lasting goods. Meanwhile, business sentiment in Europe is down and China saw a drop in its manufacturing index.
• The Senate yesterday failed to pass legislation that would have extended a $6 billion taxpayer-funded subsidy to keep student loan interest rates from rising to 6.8 percent by July 1. Both Republicans and Democrats have said they want to freeze rates for another year.
• Illinois is slashing Medicaid spending in order to save the program. Lawmakers yesterday approved $1.6 billion in budget cuts that supporters say are necessary to prevent the collapse of the entire Medicaid system.
• It’s not clear whether he resigned or was fired, but Jeffrey Neely, the General Services Administration executive who was responsible for the $823,000 taxpayer-funded conference in Las Vegas, is no longer with the agency.
• Exclusive Video: Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) visited The Heritage Foundation and talked with us about the “Debt Bomb.” Watch the video on The Foundry.

What can someone accomplish in four months? It’s possible to play an entire NFL football season, but you’d need another full month to complete the playoffs. You could try to build a new home. But you’d need plenty of cooperation from your contractor to get it finished on time.

Or you could try to write, from scratch, the greatest governing document in history.

Well, no point in trying for that last one, since it’s already been done. That’s right. The U.S. Constitution, which has enabled our country’s growth and success for more than 220 years, was written in a mere four months.

The remarkable four months that gave us the Constitution began 225 years ago, today, on May 25, 1787. State delegates gathered to discuss ways to replace the failing Articles of Confederation. The process proceeded in several stages. One scholar on the Constitution Convention Gordon Lloyd divides the summer into a four-act drama.

Act I (May 1787) centers around the Virginia Plan, which was a proposal for a bicameral legislature, with representation based on state populations.  The New Jersey Plan, by contrast, proposed a unicameral legislature with equal representation for all states. The smaller states favored the New Jersey plan, because they feared losing their voice to the larger states under the Virginia Plan.  Nevertheless, the Act concludes with the adoption of the Virginia Plan and the creation of a bicameral legislature.

In Act II (June and July), the Convention is at a stalemate. Many delegates are concerned that they have exceeded the Congressional mandate to revise the Articles of Confederation and are worried about the possible failure of an extended republic.  The Connecticut Compromise (adopted in mid-July) assuages the majority of these fears. The Compromise blends both federal and national characteristics, thus enabling a republic to succeed on a large scale.  Under the Connecticut Compromise, we first encounter the form of Congress that we have today: one in which the House represents the individual people, and the Senate represents the states more completely.

In Act III (July and August), the first drafts of the Constitution are crafted, as a result of debates over specific Congressional powers.  Regional struggles are especially evident in the notes from this time, as debates regarding the trade and practice of slavery moved to the forefront.

Act IV (September) encompasses the final three weeks of the Convention. Congressional matters have largely been decided, and the delegates move their attention to the executive branch.  After much debate pitting national and federal powers against each other, the Convention adopts the Electoral College: as with the Connecticut Compromise, the President would be elected by a combination of the people and the states.  The final draft of the Constitution is written.  On the last day of the Convention, James Madison records this in his notes:

Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution] Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun.

Condensing this momentous summer of 1787 into four short paragraphs runs the risk of de-emphasizing its significance. We ought to delve into a study of the Convention, and recognize the incredible work done by brilliant, patriotic men at a time when their country’s very survival was in question.  It should be our task this summer to return to the constitutionalism they painstakingly crafted, and to defend it against further attacks.

What Americans can and ought to do is spend these next four months reading the Constitution, and thinking about how to protect and restore it. The Constitution translates the principles of the Founding into a framework of limited republican government that remains central to the American way of life. Visit The Heritage Foundation’s First Principles Web page and check out our three must-reads and some basic Q&As to get a handle on constitutional government. When you’re ready for more, dive into the online Heritage Guide to the Constitution, read the primary sources yourself and explore the Constitution in greater depth.

Better yet, be social! Start a reading group to learn about America’s First Principles. Download the Heritage Guide to the Constitution’s online Teaching Companion and learn about the Convention or the entire document.

Over the next four months, Americans will be bombarded with political ads and harsh words from leaders on both sides. That’s part of a rough and tumble political process that doesn’t always look pretty, but has worked well for more than two centuries. We owe our success to the genius of the Founding Fathers, and the brilliance of their work in Philadelphia.