Today, Heritage budget expert Brian Riedl testified before the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, more commonly known as President Obama’s “deficit commission.” The commission has been tasked to offer suggestions to reduce the federal deficit—a necessity which was proven even more serious today by the release of the …
Our newest video highlights a recent paper on welfare reform by Heritage’s Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley. In the video and this new report, we reveal some startling statistics: Welfare spending is climbing faster than spending for education, defense, and even Social Security and Medicare. After adjusting for inflation, welfare …
Despite its failure last week, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is continuing to push his tax-extenders bill. Bundled together with the many egregious pieces of this bill is a $2.5 billion Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) emergency fund. This provision ties right into the current administration’s philosophy on government welfare: …
In New York, facing a $9 billion deficit, state legislators put welfare on the chopping block to head off a government shutdown. Lawmakers in New Jersey avert their own shutdown in a ninth-hour budget deal that manages to save $22 million for adults on welfare. Meanwhile, in budget-busting California, welfare …
According to the columnist Robert J. Samuelson, the new Obama poverty measure “fails.” It flunks the test of “political neutrality,” and is based on “misleading statistics that not one American in 100,000 could possibly understand.” That’s because the new calculation would measure poverty on a sliding scale. Thus, if the …
Last week, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) launched an innovative new tool in the fight to cut spending called YouCut. It allows regular American citizens to vote to cut wasteful spending in Congress. Its purpose is to challenge the culture of spending that has dominated Congressional thinking and replace …
Government-sponsored text messaging? You got it. Welfare recipients in approximately 20 states–with more to follow– are currently eligible to receive a free cell phone with a limited number of monthly minutes. All individuals that qualify for state or federal welfare–food stamps, Medicaid, etc.–and have an income at or below 135% …
