Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
When President Barack Obama made his case to the American people for Obamacare, he promised that it would both lower health insurance premiums and not add to the national debt. Neither has been true. One way Obamacare has been adding to the deficit is through illegal bailouts of insurance companies operating Obamacare plans through the…
Hillary Clinton’s newly proposed top estate tax rate of 65 percent on $1 billion estates can sound innocuous enough to the average taxpayer. Last year only a handful of estates would have been large enough to have been affected. If that was all there was to the new Clinton estate tax announced in September, most…
Since both candidates in Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate have a record when it comes to religious liberty, you can bet the topic will come up—giving you the opportunity to talk with the people in your life about a deeply important issue. Unsurprisingly, religious liberty is a tricky topic to navigate because it’s personal. People…
Millions of Americans depend on Social Security, and the government program is going broke. If Congress doesn’t take action to reform the nation’s largest entitlement program, its looming insolvency likely will lead to large benefit cuts along with large payroll tax increases. The Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Trustees each year report on long-term…
Elections are opportunities for Americans to take a serious look at their country and evaluate its current health. Looking around as the election season shifts into high gear, we find several ominous symptoms of political illness. Consider, for example, our increased ideological polarization, the repeated disregard for the Constitution by office holders, heightened racial tensions…
“We can no longer tolerate this infraction.… We will no longer tolerate this behavior!!” A government-sponsored board in Arizona has posted this message on the front page of its news column, under the heading “ATTENTION TO ALL SHOPS.” What is the intolerable crime in question? Unlicensed barbering. “Break the law and pay the fine. Work…
The Heritage Foundation was on the road in West Africa carrying the message of economic freedom. One of our stops was Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos is the largest city in Africa (its metro area population exceeds 20 million) and Nigeria has the largest population (by some estimates nearly 180 million) among the 54 countries on that…
“When you have a 50 percent graduation rate, you need to think outside the box,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared about his proposal to rehabilitate some of the poorest performing schools in the country. McCain introduced the Native American Education Opportunity Act, which recently passed out of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The proposal…
The World Trade Organization announced this week that it expects global trade to grow much slower than originally projected. WTO analysts, who projected global trade would grow by 2.8 percent this year, now expect it to grow by 1.7 percent, the lowest rate since 2009. Trade growth rates in North America contributed to the WTO’s…
As the United States Supreme Court begins its new term next Monday, one of the first cases it will hear is Salman v. United States, a significant criminal case involving insider trading, one of the murkiest areas of criminal law. In 2004, Bassam Salman, a grocery wholesaler, received valuable inside information from his brother-in-law-to-be Michael…
What are the barriers women face in the economy today? A special congressional committee is addressing this question and getting to the heart of how women can succeed in the workforce and balance other life priorities. On Sept.22, the Republican Policy Committee Working Group on Women in the 21st Century Workforce held its first hearing…
Ten days after an attack on an Indian Army base in Kashmir, New Delhi launched surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides Indian and Pakistani Kashmir to neutralize terrorist bases and prevent future attacks against India. The Indian strikes represent the first time India has crossed the LoC to conduct attacks inside…
In our Declaration of Independence, the Founders declared that everyone is endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including and especially life. Science has revealed and affirmed the notion that an unborn child is human life with unique DNA. For more and more Americans, this fact of life is becoming more clear with each…
In interim findings, a team of investigators says Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile fired from an area controlled by Russian-backed fighters in eastern Ukraine. The team, comprised of investigators from Australia, Belgium, Malaysia, the Netherlands, and Ukraine, is conducting a criminal investigation into the downing of MH17 on July 17, 2014, which killed all 298…
The world’s second-largest economy is going to make a hard landing one day, China watchers have speculated for several years. The fact is, though, the Middle Kingdom already is well on its way. Let’s first examine the “official” top-line numbers. In 2007, a year before the great global crisis, China’s real gross domestic product expanded…
North Carolina’s legislative body passed a bill mandating a statewide policy banning individuals from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex, as opposed to their opinion of their sex. The law, the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, means people must use bathrooms and other public facilities where occupants can be…
Millions of Americans will go to the polls Nov. 8 and vote. These Americans are a cross section of society; they are diverse, with many different opinions, political views, areas of interest, and sources of knowledge that inspire their choices. Such a robust civil society is part of what makes our country great. This civil…
We all knew President Barack Obama’s lame-duck presidency would be bad, but for the millions of Americans who work at family farms and businesses, it’s about to get a lot worse. As Heritage Foundation tax expert Curtis Dubay wrote at The Daily Signal, Obama is trying to sneak in a tax hike in his twilight…
Shimon Peres, the former prime minister and president of Israel, died Wednesday morning in a hospital in Tel Aviv. He was 93. His passing marks the end of an era as the last of Israel’s founding generation of statesmen, and Israel’s loss will be felt around the world. Peres had suffered a stroke Sept. 13….
Liberal lawmakers held a liberal spending bill hostage this week until the Republican-controlled Congress agreed to even more big government priorities. Here’s what happened: For the past few weeks, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked with Democrats to propose a 10-week government funding bill, commonly referred to as a continuing resolution. That bill failed…