Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
Last week, Senate Appropriations Chair Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., signaled her chamber already has begun to lay the groundwork for an omnibus budget bill in September, CQ Roll Call reports. Instead of debating on their own merits each of the 12 spending bills that fund government agencies and programs, Congress would bundle all of them…
If you want to see people who are afraid of an honest policy debate in America today, visit a college campus. This year alone, the left’s fear of discussion was on display at Smith College, where IMF head Christine Lagarde withdrew from giving a commencement speech, Rutgers University, where Condoleezza Rice was set to speak,…
Federal lawmakers have been trying for decades to reduce the burden of paying for college. Congress has significantly expanded lending, lifted caps on borrowing, and cut interest rates on federal student loans. Parents even became eligible to take out loans to pay for children’s college in the 1980s through the Parent PLUS program. The Obama…
Things seem to go from bad to worse in the blood-soaked Middle East, Civil war still rages in Syria, even as ISIS gobbles up swaths of Iraq and Syria. After years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, many Americans are tempted to wash their hands of the region. But that would be a huge mistake….
A massive influx of unlawful immigrants from Central America has policymakers searching for quick fix. While inadequate border security and false perceptions of U.S. immigration law have undoubtedly helped fuel the problem, they are just part of the equation. A thorough understanding requires a look further south. No longer do Mexicans constitute the majority of…
If Eric Holder were a baseball player, he’d have been benched long ago — if not kicked off the team. His batting average before the Supreme Court is abysmal, losing again and again in his efforts to undermine the Constitution. This term featured four big strike downs. First was Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, in which…
The pitch of public controversy surrounding cultural issues—especially those related to women and reproduction—can give the impression that we live in an intractably divided society with incompatible differences.But the Hobby Lobby decision suggests that such a tone is overwrought. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell correctly…
Right-to-work is back in the spotlight, thanks to the recent Supreme Court decision in Harris v. Quinn. The court ruled that Illinois home care workers cannot be compelled to pay union dues to the Service Employees International Union if those workers are not union members. This was a limited victory for worker rights against coercive…
With the Supreme Court on summer recess, it’s time to review the biggest cases of the October 2013 docket. SCOTUSblog’s “Stat Pack” notes that the Court this term had a high degree of unanimity and a relative lack of 5-4 decisions. But by margins both large and small, the court issued a number of important cases….
Four weeks after D-Day, having fought fiercely for 28 consecutive days, American troops were still within eyeshot of the Normandy coast. They were already short of artillery rounds, but Gen. Omar Bradley didn’t care. The commander of U.S. ground forces was determined to send the enemy a message. And so, to mark U.S. independence on…
Much has been written about Richard M. Scaife since his death on July 4. It isn’t surprising. Dick was a man of high ideals and great accomplishment. You’ll find his name prominently displayed when you walk in the front door of The Heritage Foundation, and with good reason. Dick was an early supporter of Heritage,…
Following the revelation that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to garnish wages without a court order to collect non-tax debts (i.e. misused grant funds, unrepaid loans or “fines, penalties or fees assessed by federal agencies”), the EPA has sought to defend its proposed rules. The agency cites The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA)…
The Washington Post reports that Nebraska’s supreme court will not hear oral arguments on the Keystone XL pipeline’s route through the state until early September, making a decision from President Obama before the November elections “highly unlikely,” according to an Obama Administration official. The original application for the pipeline was submitted in September 2008. This…
You can easily follow the developments of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other terrorist groups on every major news outlet, but few Americans realize how social media savvy terrorists are. Recently, ISIS has even deployed kittens and guns to gain followers on Twitter. Over the past 15 years, terrorists have fallen…
Reportedly, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s office leaked the proposed budget of the House Select Committee to Investigate Benghazi to illustrate how extravagant the committee’s request was. Instead, it did the opposite. The Benghazi committee’s budget is quite modest compared to most standing House committees. Moreover, if the Obama administration had cooperated with any of…
New Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer made headlines yesterday for suggesting that regulators should not arbitrarily start breaking up large banks, and that’s encouraging news. In a speech to the National Bureau of Economic Research, Fischer pointed out that breaking up banks would be incredibly complex and possibly futile. But Fischer’s speech includes many…
Last month the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recommendedthat the United States “introduce a broad-based carbon tax.” In the summary of its annual report on the U.S. economy the IMF thus echoes the climate alarmism of the Obama Administration, which has been calling for carbon-cutting policies ever since taking office. The IMF report was followed by…
Instead of a big bang, the reaction to India’s first budget under Prime Minister Narendra Modi was more of a whimper. The highlight of the budget was a vow to lift economic growth to 7–8 percent within the next three years. Also, in a bid to attract new capital, the foreign ownership caps on defense…
On July 1, a prime-minister-appointed security advisory panel determined that Japan has the right to collective self-defense, a right guaranteed to all nations under the U.N. charter but previously not exercised under Japan’s pacifist constitution. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decision to implement collective self-defense will strengthen the U.S.–Japan alliance, but he faces strong opposition domestically…
A recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) consultation to the U.S. emphasized “raising productivity growth and labor force participation” as the first of five goals necessary to strengthen America’s economic recovery and improve its long-term outlook. Despite a correct diagnosis to plagued economic and labor market recovery, the IMF offers the wrong solutions. It’s true that…