Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, the House passed an $8-billion bailout of the Highway Trust Fund using gimmicky offsets and tax increases to finance new highway and transit spending through mid-December. Not to be outdone, the Senate released its 1,030-page, six-year highway deal, including $48 billion in offsets that make even more extensive use of tax increases and…
A video released last week by the Center for Medical Progress shocked the nation by showing an executive of Planned Parenthood sipping wine and casually talking about the going rate for the organs of aborted infants. Yesterday morning, another undercover video compounded outrage toward Planned Parenthood’s activities. It once again raises the question of whether…
It’s no secret that our corporate tax code is a mess. At 35 percent (39.1 percent when including the average rate of the states), the U.S. corporate tax rate is the highest among the world’s developed nations, well above the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 25.3 percent. These high rates discourage…
Last week many of us were disgusted to learn Planned Parenthood is harvesting and selling body parts from aborted children. As the largest provider of abortion in America, Planned Parenthood is part of the problem, on the “supply” side. But as we all learned in Econ 101, there’s both supply and demand. What’s behind the…
Contrary to the assertions of many, voter fraud is not a myth. It is a stark reality that exists nationwide, from the rural counties of Georgia to the urban centers of New York. The Heritage Foundation has documented nearly 250 cases where nefarious citizens, officials, candidates and campaign operatives conspired to commit vote fraud, compromising…
Bipartisan momentum for landmark reform to America’s criminal justice system continues to build both on and off Capitol Hill. Last week, a wide range of policy experts testifying at a congressional hearing made clear the urgency of criminal justice reform. “The time to enact meaningful criminal justice reform is now,” declared Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah,…
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and her leftist political party, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), face growing criticism as more details emerge in the Petrobras scandal, a complex scheme in which large construction companies funneled cash to the state-run oil company and then allegedly to the Rousseff re-election campaign. Corruption has long been an obstacle to economic…
Citizens of the small East African country of Burundi are at the polls today to select a president, though the outcome is virtually guaranteed. Two-term incumbent President Pierre Nkurunziza is expected to glide to a third term, particularly since the opposition has announced it will be boycotting the vote. At issue for the opposition is…
The United Nations Security Council unanimously voted Monday morning to support the Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. President Obama did so despite strong opposition from Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., chairman and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif.,…
What motivates top scientists to relocate? A recent National Bureau of Economic Research paper by Enrico Moretti and Daniel Wilson reports that the marginal tax rate on high-income people is a factor. Similarly, the authors find that state corporate income taxes occupy the minds of scientists when choosing a place to live. Moretti and Wilson…
Today a Cuban embassy will open in the United States, and an American embassy will open in Cuba. While the Obama administration fawns over its latest concession to the Castro regime, I will be honoring the legacy of a Cuban democratic martyr. On July 22, 2012, the Cuban government murdered my friend’s father, Oswaldo Payá,…
In June, Greece defaulted on a €1.73 billion payment to the International Monetary Fund. In a national referendum shortly thereafter, the Greeks strongly rejected European conditions for receiving yet another bailout. For the first time in the eurozone’s history, the exit of one of its member countries became a very real possibility. This week, Athens…
Want to judge the value of an international deal? Grade it not by measuring what it means to the United States, but what it means to the other guy. That’s the standard that ought to be applied to the recently reached Iran deal. Remember the Paris Peace Accords? They were anything but. In 1973, all…
President Reagan had a gift for proving his critics wrong. Almost none of the leading economists of the late 1970s thought that his supply-side, tax-cutting agenda, along with stable monetary policy and deregulation, could revive the U.S. economy. But the prosperity of the 1980s, with growth rates higher than 6 percent, proved the Gipper correct. An economics…
One of the most troubling elements of the Iranian nuclear deal is the financial lifeline it throws to Tehran by lifting the punitive economic sanctions slapped on it because of bad behavior on atomic affairs. While estimates vary, we’re talking about Tehran pocketing well north of $100 billion—as a start—on “implementation day,” the point at…
Some in Washington appear to be convinced that government spending can fix all the world’s ills, from underemployment to human error. Last month’s fatal Amtrak wreck in Philadelphia sparked the usual knee-jerk demands for more federal spending to prevent future tragedies. A spate of articles lamented the allegedly insufficient public “investment in transportation infrastructure” —…
A few years ago, the Obama administration caught backlash after the Department of Education released suggested lesson plans to schools in conjunction with a national back-to-school address that the president was delivering on Sept. 8, 2009. But federally directed lesson plans are so 2009. On Friday the Department of Education released a “checklist” designed to “help…
You can now add “entrepreneur” to entertainer Pat Boone’s repertoire. While most Americans know him as singer, actor and sometimes political activist, they may be surprised to know he recently landed the biggest deal in ABC’s “Shark Tank” history, with his pitch of an “air car.” Why will President Obama love it and how soon…
Once a major diplomatic agreement is inked, the world typically reacts by holding its breath, waiting to see if it will all turn out alright. Some deals, like the Munich Pact, crumble quickly. Others, like the Camp David accords, hang in there. But, rarely has there been a deal like the one reached in Vienna…
Last week, President Obama made a rare visit to the Pentagon to meet with his military advisers and discuss the strategy (or lack thereof) for defeating ISIS. In a news conference afterward, he revealed nothing new about the fight against ISIS. He did, however, offer a brief peek at the impending fight over the defense…