As 2009 draws to a close, The Foundry will be posting a series of Top Ten lists highlighting some of The Heritage Foundation’s most influential work. The Top Ten list of WebMemos below is sorted by pageviews below with the most popular memo at the bottom. If we left out your favorite, let us know in the comments. 10. Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional 9. CBO Grossly Underestimates Cost of Cap and Trade 8. Son of Waxman-Markey: More Politics Makes for a More …
Late this December, the Unites States Treasury will reach the $12.1 trillion statutory ceiling on the national debt. It will mark the 91st time Congress has had to raise the debt limit since the original $43 billion ceiling was established in 1940. Many on the left argue that the United States federal government can borrow and spend as much money as it wants, and that any concerns about what it might cost us in the future are just a Phantom Menace. But as the chart to the right shows, we …
When the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their original estimate of President Obama’s Budget , they said it was going to be expensive: in ten years the President would accumulate over $9 trillion in deficits. Turns out, that was low-balling it. In their original estimate, CBO assumed that interest rates would be held constant. This makes modeling the costs a bit easier, but makes little economic sense. In reality, as annual deficits are piled onto the national debt, any rational person (or foreign government) debating whether or not to …
CBS News reports: President Obama’s call last year for “shared sacrifice” doesn’t extend to federal employees, at least based on the details of his administration’s 2010 budget released this week. At a time when the official unemployment rate is nearing double digits, and 6.35 million people are receiving unemployment benefits, the U.S. government is on a hiring binge.
On Wednesday we exposed the farcical nature of President Barack Obama’s proposed spending “cuts” and today we posted a graphic putting his spending transfers in perspective. Senior White House economic advisor to President George W. Bush Keith Hennessey adds another angle comparing President Bush’s last spending cut request with Obama’s latest effort: This graphic does a great job exposing the Obama administration’s effort to cut our nation’s defenses while exploding every other area of federal spending
President Barack Obama recently released a list of 121 proposed program terminations and reductions, that he claims would save taxpayers $17 billion. Obama has described these program terminations as spending “cuts”. This is simply not true. Every dollar that Obama “cuts” he has immediately turned into new spending elsewhere in the budget. At least his request last month for a total of $100 million in cuts from this year’s budget were real spending cuts (all be it pitifully small ones). So this is what Obama’s fiscal responsibility record really looks …
President Obama today released a list of 121 proposed program terminations and reductions, at a savings of $17 billion. It is important for any president to get acclimated to the idea of streamlining government, and this exercise can be the first step. Many of the programs that President Obama has asked to eliminate – particularly in transportation, education, and health – are functions best left to state and local governments anyway. One concern, however, is that defense accounts for nearly half the cuts even though it constitutes only 20 percent …
In the past year, Russia’s defense spending has risen 34 percent. China’s defense spending has risen 15 percent. Within the past four months, Iran and North Korea have tested missiles that could someday carry warheads to Europe or the United States. With such conventional and asymmetric military capabilities rising around the world, what is the Obama Administration’s plan? To decrease overall defense spending, including on critical programs such as the F-22 stealth fighter, even though the U.S. Air Force has stated up to 60 more F-22s would be needed to …
This week, China celebrated the 60th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) with a large military parade to display to the world how far the PLAN has come and where it intends to go. The scope of China’s military advancements in recent decades was summarized well in the Pentagon’s new 2009 Report to Congress: On March 4, 2008, Beijing announced a 17.6 percent increase in its military budget to approximately $60 billion. China’s military budget doubled between 1989 and 1994, and almost doubled again between 1994 and 1999. …
At last week’s speech at the Air War College, Secretary Gates told the officers present that, “Health care is eating the [Defense] Department alive.” The massive expansion of military compensation spending in the past decade has placed the entire system in jeopardy. Healthcare spending alone for 2010 is set for $47 billion. And in fiscal year 2009, nearly 25 percent of the defense budget was allocated for military compensation. Fortunately, a solution exists. According to Mackenzie Eaglen, to achieve cost-effective reform, the system should become more competitive, flexible, and more …
