Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
The new arms race scrambles for bytes, not bombs. To take and hold the cyber high ground, the armed services (and just about everybody else) want more fingers on keyboards and eyes on screens. Army leaders have kicked around the idea of filling the cyber-ranks by grabbing talent off the street rather than combing through…
If you’re like most Americans, you’re enjoying the fact that it costs a lot less to fill up your car’s gas tank these days. If you’re a fan of big government, you may feel a bit ambivalent, though. Why? Because one of the biggest drivers behind the drop in gas prices is the rise in…
Face it. China is a problem. Nations across the Pacific and Asia are looking for constructive solutions. And that’s the promise of a Quad Dialogue—a forum for developing cooperative, synchronized policies among India, Australia, Japan and the United States. Start with the facts. China’s economic policies are increasingly mercantilist. It is developing military capabilities to…
President Obama has wisely abandoned his lead-filled trial balloon of taxing college savings plans. Congressional offices were deluged over the last week with indignant calls from voters on this middle-class bait-and-switch scheme and finally Democrats caved. Good riddance. But the worst Obama ideas on taxes are directed at investors, entrepreneurs and risk-takers. These Obama investment…
Newly elected Illinois governor Bruce Rauner is already trying to shake up his state: He just proposed local right-to-work laws, albeit at the local rather than state level. As the Associated Press reports: The states that are already growing don’t force unionization into their economy,” Rauner told an audience at Richland Community College in Decatur, a city…
While the prospects for tax reform in Washington are dim, as many as 20 Republican governors are moving forward with their own pro-growth tax-relief initiatives. This is on top of the 14 states, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, whose 2014 tax cuts will take effect this year. Arizona’s new Gov. Doug Ducey says his…
Suppose someone told you there were over two decades of economic data showing the secret of success for every nation in the world and that a Nobel laureate in economics inspired the methodology that was used to analyze that data. Would you sit up and listen? I hope so, because if you did, you would…
It’s a special-interest group that exercises disproportionate influence over public policy at all levels of government. Government bestows special favors on it, thereby perpetuating and strengthening its political power. It’s classic cronyism — and you are paying for it. Government unions operate in direct conflict with the interests of the public. Their initiatives drive government…
Today, the Obama Administration released its new National Security Strategy (NSS), replacing its predecessor that was issued in May 2010. As the top national-level document framing the president’s approach to national security, it must necessarily address the range of issues that affect the United States’ core interests, to include economic, foreign policy, and physical security…
Is Obama’s new federally-funded infrastructure package the key to strengthening our nation’s families? That’s the argument of W. Bradford Wilcox of the American Enterprise Institute and Robert Lehrman of the Urban Institute in their essay “How to Revive the American Dream in Blue-Collar America.” It’s a misguided policy prescription, the fruit of a commitment to…
In academe, the late Harry Jaffa of Claremont McKenna College was most famous for his groundbreaking scholarship on the Declaration of Independence and Abraham Lincoln, whom he revered. He also was well-known for his short temper and the long letters he wrote in which he eviscerated anyone who disagreed with him that the Declaration and…
As Americans begin to file their 2014 taxes, they will encounter some new forms and paper work, thanks to burdens imposed by Obamacare’s flawed policies. First, taxpayers now must report their health insurance coverage status and that of their dependents. Those who were uninsured in 2014 either must file for one of the individual mandate’s…
As far as the Bureau of Labor Statistics is concerned, the economy started 2015 with a bang. The agency’s January employment figures found strong growth throughout the labor market. Employers created more than a quarter-million jobs, labor force participation surged and wages rose. The report is long-overdue good news for workers who have suffered through…
President Obama’s new national security strategy will do little to reassure America’s allies or intimidate America’s enemies. Today, the White House unveiled a document poorly suited to the challenges faced by the world’s superpower, which are mounting in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa. At a time when American global leadership is increasingly being…
Two new reports show that Africa still has significant room for improvement in the areas of economic and democratic freedom. The Sub-Saharan Africa region improved only slightly in the 2015 edition of The Heritage Foundation/Wall Street Journal’s annual Index of Economic Freedom: Thirty-nine of the region’s economies remain “mostly unfree” or “repressed.” In the Freedom…
In the lead-up to the November elections, Senate Republicans made a promise: If elected, we would get Washington working again. In particular, we would get the Senate working again. In 2014, the Democrat leadership allowed just 15 amendment roll call votes. After years of dysfunction under Democrat control, it was time for the Senate to…
From Heritage Foundation's Romina Boccia and Michael Sargent: For the first time in his two terms in office, President Obama released his annual budget on time. This is a welcome step towards normalcy in the budget process, though one wonders why it took six years for the administration to decide it should adhere to the…
The media has made a big deal about the recent NASA/NOAA announcement proclaiming that 2014 was the hottest year on record. Googling “NASA 2014 hottest year” generates more than a million hits, and the first page has stories from all of the major news outlets. To them the “hottest year” determination confirms that global warming…
It is hard to imagine that when J.R.R. Tolkien published “The Hobbit” he expected school officials would suspend children for imaginatively recreating scenes from the book. But that is exactly what happened to Aiden Steward, a 9-year-old boy from Kermit, Texas. After watching the movie “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” one weekend with…
What happens when a federal agency must answer to over 100 different congressional committees and subcommittees? Duplication, contradiction, inefficiency—and more duplication. That has been the fate of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) since its creation in 2002 following 9/11. Congress created the DHS from 22 different agencies or parts of agencies that each had…