Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted to authorize Speaker John Boehner to file a lawsuit challenging President Obama’s failure to fully implement Obamacare. Specifically, the lawsuit will challenge the administration’s delay of the employer mandate—requiring many employers to provide health insurance or pay a fine—that was supposed to go into effect Jan. 1. It’s…
“I don’t need a dude… It’s 2014!” Such is the wisdom from pop star Katy Perry on motherhood in a recent Rolling Stone interview. “We are living in the future,” says Perry. “I’m not anti-men. I love men. But there is an option if someone doesn’t present himself.” The option Perry is referring to is…
“They’ve had major riots, that have not just been anti-Israeli policy, but are blatantly anti-Jewish. … They’re predominantly the immigrant Muslim populations in Germany and France, for instance, but there are significant numbers of German citizens, native German citizens and native French citizens, either from the far right or the far left, who blame Israel…
Food stamp use is on the decline. Finally. In recent years, the number of food stamp recipients has skyrocketed, growing by about 26.39 million people from 2003 to 2013, according to The Heritage Foundation’s 2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity. In 2013, about 47 million people received food stamps. But now there’s a downtick in…
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) expected ozone standard, expected to come in December, could be the most expensive regulation in U.S. history, according to a new study by NERA Economic Consulting for the National Association of Manufacturers. The EPA sets standards for six major pollutants including ground-level ozone, a primary component of smog. Every five…
Should the U.S. copy a Swedish law that bans “johns” and “pimps” but allows women to sell their bodies? Daily Signal senior contributor Genevieve Wood weighs in.
African leaders and citizens had great expectations in 2008 that the election of President Barack Obama would elevate the prominence of Africa and its concerns in U.S. government deliberations. These expectations have not been met. Shortly before the 2008 election, a senior Obama campaign Africa policy adviser outlined an agenda of (1) accelerating Africa’s integration…
The House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Select Revenue Measures held a hearing recently about the importance of dynamic scoring of tax reform. Tax reform is necessary to improve the potential of the economy and increase incomes and opportunities for American families. Earlier this year, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp…
Are Americans turning against the term “pro-choice”?
In recent years, the United States has seen a huge oil and natural gas boom fueled by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling. Now, American energy companies may have the opportunity to put their expertise into practice in a new energy market: Mexico. Mexico recently passed a series of energy reforms that ended the 75-year-long…
Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin had quite a good day on July 31 when the state supreme court upheld not only Wisconsin’s voter ID law, but also the 2011 budget legislation that severely curtailed the power of public unions to control the lives and salaries of state and municipal government employees. In Madison Teachers, Inc. v….
Is the increasing automation of our economy a threat to American wages and jobs? Should the American worker fear the rise of the robots? No, not really. Eighty years ago, John Maynard Keynes warned that society faced “a new disease” of “technological unemployment” in which the “means of economizing the use of labor [were] outrunning…
On Dec. 23, 2008, President George W. Bush signed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act into law. White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony Fratto called the bill “a priority issue for the administration in preventing the trafficking of persons around the world,” adding, “So this is a piece of legislation we’re very proud…
Like many Americans, you probably think it’s up to you to determine how healthy your diet is. Well, the Food and Drug Administration has a different idea. You see, the FDA is gunning for the trans fats in your diet. Last year, the agency tentatively decided to revoke the status of partially hydrogenated oils as…
When it comes to defending Obamacare subsidies, the Justice Department appears none too eager to take its case to the Supreme Court. Instead, the administration announced it would appeal Tuesday’s adverse ruling by a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals to… the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. President Obama, it seems,…
Most people would agree education and public safety should be among states’ top spending priorities. But few realize we actually invest more in criminals than children. New data shows nearly all states spend more on corrections than K-12 education—much more in some cases. New York, for instance, spent $60,076 per prison inmate but only $20,639…
The most successful lobbyists in the nation’s capital are masters of masquerading propaganda as fact. Repeat even outright falsehoods with a modicum of conviction, and they start to sound like truth. So be forewarned: claims about the manifold small-business benefits of the Export-Import Bank of the United States are simply fictitious. Until recently, few Americans…
Obamacare’s initial open-enrollment period ended in mid April. The big question since then has been, “What were the results?” Hard data have been lacking — until now. My colleague Drew Gonshorowski and I have just finished reviewing insurance-market data from the first quarter of 2014, and we can report that Obamacare’s results are not very…
What’s at stake in Ukraine? If the actions of Western governments speak louder than words, the short answer is “not much.” The full range of sanctions on Russia has not yet been imposed, and there is a widespread reluctance to embrace Ukraine too closely. But what if our reluctance is a mistake? We could end…