“Economic fairness” is expected to be the topic of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, during which he will likely sound the same populist notes of progressivism that America heard last month in his speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. Fairness, though, is in the eye of the beholder. And in the President’s eye, “fairness” means equality of outcomes, not of opportunity. He says he will “lay out a blueprint for an American economy that’s built to last,” but if his Kansas speech is any indication, that …
Barack Obama ran for President claiming the mantle of Abraham Lincoln. Then he took office and recast himself as the second coming of FDR. He then railed against the “Do Nothing” Congress in his very best Harry Truman impression. Now, in a pilgrimage to the small town of Osawatomie, Kansas, President Obama has given the defining address of his administration and revealed that his heart lies with the old Bull Moose progressive, Theodore Roosevelt. Osawatomie is where Teddy Roosevelt delivered his famous speech in 1910 calling for a “New Nationalism” and …
On the front page of the White House’s website, a clock slowly ticks away, second by second, counting down to the day, hour, minute, and second that the nation’s payroll tax “holiday” expires and the American people get socked right where it counts — in the pocket book. And just next to that clock is a message laying the blame squarely on the House of Representatives. But today the real culprit in this debacle is the U.S. Senate which, right now, is home for the holidays already, celebrating with family …
Well, we can’t say he didn’t warn us. After the November 2010 elections when the President’s party lost control of the U.S. House, Barack Obama told America that where he can’t legislate, he will regulate. In the last year, he lived up to that pledge, and now he’s promising to do even more of it in 2012. With 2011 coming to a close and the President about to embark on an election year, he is unabashedly showing his cards and telling America that he’s going to enact his agenda, whether the legislative …
If there was any doubt where President Barack Obama’s ideological heart lies, yesterday he let it be known loud and clear in a wide-ranging speech in Osawatomie, Kansas. President Obama is at his core a dyed-in-the-wool progressive who sees the federal government as the answer to all of America’s problems. And he is charging full steam ahead on this far-left course toward Election Day 2012, despite the total failure of his big-government policies and an American people who have flatly rejected the message he is trying to sell. True to …
Liberals stumping for tax cuts are as rare as three-dollar bills and hardcover digital books, and for good reason. Devoid of any other organizing principle, the only job of progressivism today is to grow government, and taxation is the blood stream of government. It is thus with the same healthy does of skepticism that we would greet a talking turtle that we should approach claims by the Obama White House that it really, really wants to cut taxes, dang it, but conservatives won’t let them. The issue at hand is, …
First, it was 20,000 jobs the Obama Administration delayed by punting a decision to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which would bring 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada into the United States. Multiply that number by 10 and you have the amount of jobs the President is putting on hold by delaying a mineral lease sale in Ohio’s Wayne National Forest for oil and gas drilling. This decision kills jobs and denies Americans access to affordable energy. The Washington Examiner reports that Wayne National Forest already has 1,300 …
Christmas is more than a month away, but the Obama Administration just couldn’t wait to hang a shiny new ornament on every fresh Christmas tree in America: a 15-cent tax to support a new federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees. Following a public outcry, the White House changed course, not a day later. No, it’s not a joke. Heritage Vice President David Addington broke the story Tuesday night on Foundry.org, writing that in the Federal Register of November 8, it was announced that the Secretary of Agriculture …
No news is good news–except when it means that the story about America’s slow-moving economy remains the same. A new report this morning from the Department of Labor shows that despite all of President Barack Obama’s promises and policies to grow the economy, there are still 14 million unemployed Americans. Meanwhile, the President is still spinning his job creation wheels, signing executive orders and pushing for misguided and expensive policies that lack support in Congress. The word from the monthly jobs report shows that unemployment was little unchanged at 9 percent …
Air Force One winged its way to another exotic destination last night. When President Obama arrives at the posh seaside resort in Cannes, France, for the latest meeting of the G-20 today, he should ignore all the fluff put forth by French President and G-20 host Nicolas Sarkozy—a prescription of higher taxes, expanded regulation, and more statism (especially for developing countries) will not solve the EU debt crisis. As Heritage’s Nile Gardiner writes in an op-ed, and as many others have written, the U.S. and European debt crises cannot be …
