Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
On Friday night, House leaders released details of a proposal that would increase spending on doctors paid through Medicare (called the doc fix). Based on what is currently known without at official score by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the new spending would only be partially offset in both the 10-year “budget window” and over…
Why are Republicans cutting a deal with Nancy Pelosi to throw an extra $400 billion onto the national debt and calling it entitlement reform? This latest misguided venture should concern all fiscal conservatives—or anyone who likes the idea of keeping our government on a sustainable trajectory. Almost two decades ago, Congress decided to tie reimbursements…
New York had more electoral votes than any other state in every presidential election from 1812 to 1948. It has lost electoral votes in every redistricting since 1950. It stands at 29 now and has fallen behind California, Texas and soon Florida. Upstate has borne the brunt of the population loss. Washington can’t figure out…
National Geographic’s latest cover story generated lots of attention for comparing climate change skeptics to those who fear vaccinations, disbelieve NASA’s moon landing, and oppose water fluoridation. The author bemoans the fact that only 40 percent of Americans (according to Pew Research Center) “accept that human activity is the dominant cause of global warming,” asking how so…
Earlier this month, the Maryland House of Delegates took a big step forward in the push for civil asset forfeiture reform. By a margin of 81-54, the House approved H.B. 360, which proposes dramatic changes to Maryland’s forfeiture program. Though noble in intention, forfeiture laws have skewed law enforcement incentives and weighted the system too…
Here’s a question that has been puzzling Patrick Doyle, the CEO of Domino’s, for months, as he puts it: “How do we list the calorie content of our pizzas on a menu when we have 34 million different variations of pizza?” The new menu labeling law, a creation of the Affordable Care Act, could require his company…
After equality, science is the greatest authority we look up to. As such, the release of any study, no matter how mindless its methods or trivial its findings, is greeted by the press like an oracular pronouncement. Last week, for example, the magazine Science published a study which found that “Conservatives report, but liberals display,…
We’ve heard a lot about how Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion will be costly to states in the long run. Yet this hasn’t stopped some governors, who know that taking more money from the federal government makes their budgets look good (in the short term), while making themselves appear compassionate. But we haven’t heard enough about how…
One of the major trends in the U.S. workforce during the early 21st century is seniors’ expanding participation in the labor force. People who qualify for AARP membership have been retiring later and are more likely to be in the labor force now than people the same age were during the 1990s tech boom. There…
“Traitors.” That’s a strong term, obviously. It should never be used lightly. Yet there it was, flying around like confetti in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Why? Because 47 Republican senators who are understandably concerned about the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran sent a letter to that country’s leaders about the deal now being struck with the United States and…
Of the nearly 21 million victims of human trafficking worldwide, an estimated two-thirds are from Asia. Many factors contribute to the severity of the problem in Asia, but one stands out among the rest: the lack of rule of law. Poorly trained local law enforcement, inadequate legal protections, and corrupt judicial systems are at the…
Sometimes in Washington it seems as George Wallace used to grouse: “There ain’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties.” Well when it comes to the latest budgets of the two parties, the difference is closer to $2.6 trillion over the next 5 years or $7.2 trillion over the next 10 years. On…
President Obama signed Thursday an executive order to require executive agencies to improve energy efficiency and cut greenhouse gas emissions. One has to hope the order will save taxpayers money, because it won’t make a dent in global temperatures. Headlines have focused on the top line features of the plan, requiring executive branch departments and…
American families understand that adhering to a budget is relatively simple: Don’t spend more than you take in, and don’t borrow more than you can afford to. Those lessons are lost on the federal government, however, as the nation continues to pile on debt by spending billions more than it collects in taxes year after…
America’s tax code is riddled with problems. It imposes high rates on families, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs. Its double taxation of capital gains and dividends creates a bias against savings and investment—activities essential for economic growth. Its convoluted system of deductions, credits, and exemptions distorts incentives and inefficiently allocates resources, limiting wage and productivity gains….
News flash to the legal academy: No, President Obama can’t refuse to implement an (at this point purely conjectural) adverse ruling by the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell. That wouldn’t be merely “bypassing” the Supreme Court. Such an action would constitute defying the Court. Neither the Constitution nor prior court decisions would allow the…
A school in Virginia suspended an 11-year-old boy for 364 days after he brought a leaf to class that resembled marijuana. One problem: It was not marijuana, and the school knew this—but still suspended him for almost a year anyway. The sixth-grade son of Bruce and Linda Bays attended Bedford Middle School and was in…
Interested in learning more about the budget? Check out The Heritage Foundation's analyses of the Republican House and Senate budgets—and whether Republicans were willing to make the tough cuts or not: • How Does the House Budget Measure Up? • How Does the Senate Budget Measure Up?
The retiring President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard Fisher, once famously noted, [P]rotectionism is the crack cocaine of economics. It provides a temporary high but is instantly addictive and leads to certain economic death. Indeed, here comes the latest example of that: Public Citizen’s bogus job loss claims against the…
No less than three months after Tunisia concluded peaceful and successful legislative and presidential elections, the small North African country was rocked by the worst terrorist attack since the Djerba Island Synagogue attack in 2002. The March 18 shooting at the Bardo Museum in the heart of Tunis, the capital of Tunisia, killed 21 individuals,…