The number of Americans dependent on the federal government has exploded over the past five years, reaching a record 67.3 million people, according to Heritage’s annual Index of Dependence on Government. That means 1 in 5 Americans (21.8 percent) today receive some level of assistance from the federal government. This week’s chart — one of 15 featured in this year’s report — depicts the percentage of the U.S. population who receive government assistance and the total number of individuals who are dependent on the federal government. Fifty years ago, before …
In his recent speech in Kansas, President Obama accused Republicans of advocating “you’re on your own economics”—a philosophy that supposedly holds that “we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules.” The implication is that unless you favor raising taxes and levying stricter economic regulations, Obama assumes you want to leave poor people out in the cold. In contrast, the President promotes his own economic ethic in the following terms: “We are greater together than we are on our own.” While …
As marriage rates plummet and the percentage of intact families sharply declines, experiments that challenge the fundamental nature of the family are adding to the chaos that threatens civil society. A new report released this month by the Institute for American Values and the Commission on Parenthood’s Future explores the impact on children of such experimental arrangements throughout the world. The findings are cause for concern. The spectrum of associations referred to as “families” ranges from single parenthood by choice to networks of multiple adults called “parents.” Often masking the …
Many a bachelor has taunted and teased a groom-to-be that “I do” will be his famous last words. But for all the jesting predictions about the finality or fatality of marriage, walking down the aisle could be the healthiest thing you do to keep your relationship alive and your heart ticking. A new study published in the Journal of Health Psychology suggests that when it comes to major heart surgery, marriage can be a good predictor of long-term survival. The study found that married men and women were 250 percent …
A new Gallup poll released today reports that more than nine in 10 Americans believe in God. The number of believers has remained largely unchanged since the 1960s, with 91 percent of respondents affirming a belief in a higher power and almost three-quarters of adults firm in their belief in the existence of God. When this belief translates to action—and it does so with great frequency—the benefits can be significant for civil society. According to Heritage’s Web site FamilyFacts.org, almost 40 percent of Americans attend religious services at least once …
In 1966, God was pronounced dead. More recently, it was determined that God is back. But now a team of researchers has put him on the endangered species list. “Religion may become extinct in nine nations,” says a BBC headline today reporting on a presentation made at the American Physical Society meeting. Based on census data showing increased religious non-affiliation, the study “indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.” “The idea is pretty simple,” says one of the researchers. “It posits that social groups that …
Despite the assertive statements of celebrity atheists, national book tours denouncing God and the perennial docket of court cases challenging the presence of religion in the public square, most Americans believe in God and many regularly practice their faith. Heritage research on the newly launched FamilyFacts.org shows that 75 percent of American adults believe in God and another 11 percent in some higher power. Many Americans take their faith a step further—almost 40 percent of all adults act on that belief by attending religious institutions at least once a week, …
Today’s murder of Pakistani Minority Affairs Minister Shahbaz Bhatti by religious extremists establishes a pattern of growing religious intolerance. It is undermining Pakistan’s struggling democracy by shutting down free speech and political expression in the name of a ruthless ideology disguised as religion. The murderers left pamphlets at the scene of the crime, explaining that they killed Bhatti because of his opposition to controversial blasphemy laws, which are often misused against Pakistan’s religious minorities. Some Pakistani officials had sought to argue that the murder of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer at …
In the midst of a tense bilateral dispute between the U.S. and Pakistan over the case of Raymond Davis—an American Embassy employee who shot and killed two armed Pakistanis in what he claims was self-defense—civil society leaders from both countries met in Lahore, Pakistan, February 17-19. The initiative, dubbed the U.S.-Pakistan Leaders Forum, was convened by the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Initiative (a non-governmental, non-partisan collaboration of four U.S.-based organizations) and hosted by the Lahore University of Management Sciences, a world-class educational institute started in 1985 by Pakistani industrialist Syed Babar Ali. …
Many leftist journalists, bloggers, and talking heads are shamelessly exploiting last weekend’s tragedy in Tucson, Arizona. To them, there is a lesson to be learned in this senseless act of violence by an undeniably troubled man. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman says he was even “at some level, expecting something like this atrocity” to happen. Krugman concludes: “If Arizona promotes some real soul-searching, it could prove a turning point. If it doesn’t, Saturday’s atrocity will be just the beginning.” This fear-inducing argument is a tired and worn-out Progressive prescription, …
