Today, the Senate is once again slated to take up the issue of college loan interest rates. President Obama has made this issue a big deal, touring college campuses to herald the absolute necessity of keeping student loan rates artificially low instead of letting what was supposed to be a temporary reduction expire. In reality, the debate around student loan interest rates is a distraction from what really troubles new college grads: an anemic economy that is hindering students’ ability to find jobs and reach their earning potential. As AEI …
Deep in the cover of night in the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, a team of Navy SEALs descended from helicopters, breached the compound of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and brought him to justice. The story is the stuff that blockbuster movies are made of, but many of the details are largely a closely guarded secret. That was until the Obama White House granted extraordinary access and information to Hollywood filmmakers for their film about the raid, originally slated to be released just before the November presidential elections. As disturbing …
President Obama’s latest budget request was completely rejected by Congress, failing to receive even a single vote. Yet Obama’s budget—universally rejected by Congress—is taking educational opportunity away from low-income children in the nation’s capital. President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget request cuts funding for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, a private school choice program for low-income children in Washington. This is despite his agreement last spring to reauthorize the program. As Speaker of the House John Boehner (R–OH) wrote on Tuesday: The president inexplicably chose to zero out funding for …
The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), created in 1970 and based in Madrid, identifies itself as the “United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.” It announced last year that Zambia and Zimbabwe jointly “won the bid” to host the 20th session of the UNWTO General Assembly in 2013. Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, has been appointed a “United Nations international tourism ambassador” in recognition of the promotion and development of tourism. These decisions are appalling. Zimbabwe’s once-robust economy was all but destroyed by …
Last week, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human Resources held a hearing addressing an obscure regulatory loophole, known as “excess MOE,” that is gutting the work requirement of the 1996 welfare reforms. Most states are taking advantage of this loophole, which allows them to get credit for moving people into employment without having to help a single person. States began to take significant advantage of this loophole in 2005, when Congress reauthorized the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program and tightened the work requirement. This reauthorization created …
Controversy has swirled around the Smith–Mundt Modernization Act since it passed mark-up as an amendment to the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act last Friday. Smith–Mundt has prohibited U.S. citizens from accessing the public diplomacy products of the U.S. government, whether in print or on the airwaves, since 1948. Critics on the left and right alike have charged that modernizing the act will lift the floodgates for U.S. government propaganda aimed at U.S. citizens. Not so. Rather, the amended act will force greater transparency and accountability regarding the work of the State Department and the Broadcasting …
Making something busted luster again. That’s the basic premise of an innovative television show called American Restoration featured on the History Channel. On the show, people bring their worn, rusted, creaky old stuff from America’s past—stuff like an old Dodge pickup truck, an old Chicago police phone box, or an old slot machine, to Rick Dale and his crew to restore the old item to like-new quality. One of the best episodes is when Rick restores a very special item of Americana—a 1960s NASA helmet. Private equity firms such as …
The American people in many cases do not recognize the incredible value of one of the crown jewels of the nation: the National Guard. Most people have only a vague idea of what it is and what it means to America. And yet as important as its role is, the National Guard is facing significant cuts that would hurt domestic readiness. The National Guard is the oldest military force in U.S. history, tracing back to the Minutemen at Lexington and Concord. It has the federal mission of acting as the …
Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez has long been Iran’s greatest ally in the Western Hemisphere, but as Chavez’s cancer grows and his country’s future becomes increasingly uncertain, Iran may need to find a new best friend in Latin America—and fast. Enter Bolivia. Since Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first visited Bolivia in 2007, the relationship between Amhadinejad and Bolivian President Evo Morales has grown. The two even played soccer together in Tehran not too long ago. But Morales and Ahmadinejad’s fancy footwork aside, it’s clear that the relationship between Bolivia and Iran is …
China is taking over the world! A lot of people believe this. And a few very smart people point to China as being a huge external creditor as a main reason. These people have a point about China’s growing influence, but it is a much exaggerated one. The world’s top creditor country last year wasn’t China. It certainly wasn’t the U.S. It was Japan, which you might remember from such news stories as “Japan Hasn’t Grown for the Past 20 Years.” No one thinks Japan is taking over the world—quite …
