Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
The Republican Study Committee on Thursday released its fiscal year 2018 budget proposal, titled “Securing America’s Future Economy” (SAFE). This proposal would balance the budget in less than 10 years and begin to make meaningful reforms to Social Security and Medicare, the two biggest drivers of the federal debt. The Republican Study Committee budget builds…
Every year, The Heritage Foundation publishes a collection of data, charts, and thoughtful contextual pieces under the heading of the Index of Culture and Opportunity. Its title is a nod to something often lost in our politics these days: that culture and opportunity are linked together, that the opportunities that exist in our society and…
The latest in what has become an all too common crusade to wipe great American historical figures from places of honor and memory, the Louisiana Democratic Party has announced that it will change the name of its annual “Jefferson-Jackson” dinner to the bland and unremarkable True Blue Gala. Louisiana Democrats joined many other state parties…
Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., often decry Republican policy proposals as "unfair" or as catering exclusively to the rich. But this couldn't be further from the truth—and Americans know it. Since President Donald Trump took office, Democrats are 0-for-4 against Republicans in special elections. The American people aren’t…
This June, the Government Accountability Office published a report on the federal government’s Lifeline program, one of four programs established in the decadeslong pursuit of “universal service.” This principle that all Americans should have access to communications services has cost telecommunications companies and their customers over $100 billion over the past 20 years. The Lifeline…
Ana Swanson at The Washington Post recently reported on a letter from former chairs of the Council of Economic Advisers, warning against raising new tariffs—something President Donald Trump has mentioned as a possibility Swanson later tweeted, “It would be more convincing if [Council of Economic Advisers] chairs came back from the grave to warn Trump…
For weeks, the world has been watching in rapt attention the saga of Charlie Gard—the case involving a desperately ill child fighting for survival in the face of U.K. government efforts to block treatment. Charlie’s parents have been relentless in fighting the government and seeking help abroad. Their efforts are already bearing fruit. Most recently,…
Congress is currently deliberating the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2018. The NDAA is an important tool for Congress as it offers it an opportunity to influence defense policy, as well as indicate its wishes with regard to armed forces and defense programs. How do the two versions of the NDAA measure up…
In passing its version of the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, the House of Representatives shot down the Pentagon’s plans to make more efficient use of its resources by reassessing military bases. The legislative body decided to maintain the prohibition on conducting a new round of Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC), even though…
Too many people believe that slavery is a “peculiar institution.” That’s what Kenneth Stampp called slavery in his book, “Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South.” But slavery is by no means peculiar, odd, or unusual. It was common among ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Persians, Armenians, and many others….
Last week, I tweeted, “The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does.” To my surprise, the tweet went viral. And while there were more likes than dislikes, 99 percent of the written reactions were negative. Typical reactions were: –“F— you.” –“Move to Russia.” –“Your very full…
Obamacare is failing. It has done little to fulfill its original promise of producing more choice and lower costs, and worse, has set off a cascading set of problems that will increasingly hurt the American people. When President Donald Trump was asked Tuesday if the bill to repeal Obamacare was dead, he responded: I don’t…
Three cheers for Keith Noreika, the acting comptroller of the currency, for having the chutzpah to challenge the regulatory deceit of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and its director, Richard Cordray. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Noreika on Monday took the unusual (and commendable) step of calling for delay of the bureau’s new and…
For the second time, the Trump administration on Monday certified that Iran remains in compliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement. Administration officials stressed, however, that they remain dissatisfied with the flawed nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration and are concerned with Iran’s malign policies, which violate the spirit of the agreement. The Trump administration,…
After months of delays, the House Budget Committee has released its fiscal year 2018 budget resolution. The plan makes progress in some areas, such as prioritizing national defense, reforming Medicare, implementing mandatory reforms through reconciliation, repealing Obamacare, and beginning to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs. However, the budget falls short in others. It busts…
The House Appropriations Committee is set to mark up its interior appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018. This markup could lead to a slight revision of the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Buy America” provision. While the bill should just repeal Buy America regulations for the EPA altogether, it does take a small step in the right…
Today’s transgender movement is the latest effort to overturn what are in fact true assumptions about human life. My recent report, “Sex, Gender, and the Origin of the Culture Wars,” reveals the intellectual roots of today’s transgender movement so that citizens can defend common sense against the corruptions that this movement generates. Transgenderism literally means…
Seventy-two years after the end of World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s leadership remains a shining example of statecraft for leaders in our own day. It is this great British figure that historian and public intellectual Lewis E. Lehrman writes about in his latest book, “Churchill, Roosevelt & Company: Studies in Character and Statecraft.”…
For the second time in less than two years, Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana is expanding paternalistic restrictions and sanctions on the student body based on whom they choose to be friends with. In an email to the student body on July 12, the dean reported that the “USGSO Committee”—which handles policy on “unrecognized single-gender…
The Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of President Donald Trump’s budget request last week, and it wasn’t good news. The report paints a stark picture of the proposal compared to the administration’s findings, showing that the president’s budget would never reach balance. In the report, the CBO uses different criteria and assumptions than the…