A while back, we pointed readers towards Heritage’s official entry to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Rulemaking Matters! contest and encouraged others to submit their own videos. The contest solicited entries praising the sort of rampant over-regulation that marks much of government today, but we took a slightly different tack, explaining the harm that over-regulation can and has caused average Americans. The Hill reported yesterday that Representatives Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Pete Olson (R-TX) have joined in with their own entry: Last month, after discovering the EPA contest by chance, Blackburn wrote to the …
April 15th is Tax Day, the day that our tax returns are due to the Internal Revenue Service. As we perform this annual ritual it is important to take a look at how much we are paying to the government and what it is being spent on. Our nation has been struggling to recover from a severe recession and the solution proposed by liberal Democrats is to increase federal spending to staggering levels and have the government take over the private sector. It’s amazing how little regard the Administration and …
Last weekend, I headed to Afghanistan with some of my colleagues to view firsthand the conditions on the ground as a follow up to the new strategy outlined by President Obama. We met with our troops and senior military officials and, from my perspective there is a lot of positive momentum coming from them. The morale of our troops is high and our commanders on the ground are confident we can win the tactical battle. The military is pleased with the President’s decision to send additional troops to assist with …
Today, another burden is being placed on America’s small businesses. Effective on this date is the third installment of the increase of the minimum wage that was passed in 2007. Once again, our federal government has provided not a help, but a hindrance to our economic recovery. When the three-phase minimum wage increase was initially signed into law in May 2007, the unemployment rate was 4.5%, and when the first phase went into place, the unemployment rate was 4.6%. Today it stands at 9.5%. At a time of record deficits, …
