Opinion and commentary on news, politics, culture, and policy impact.
A key driver of wasteful spending in Washington is what some call “zombie” appropriations. This refers to spending on programs that either have never been authorized, or are operating under an expired authorization. According to the Congressional Budget Office, these programs accounted for nearly one-third of all discretionary spending in fiscal year 2016, receiving more…
President Donald Trump, even before hitting his 100th day as president, has begun to make good on his campaign promise to curtail overregulation. That should continue for regulations of the harshest variety: arcane rules whose violation is a federal crime. The president’s efforts began in January, when he issued his first executive order designed to…
The narrative dominating the media this week has been the success or failure of President Donald Trump’s first 100 days. But at the Federal Communications Commission, there is no question that change is afoot. On Wednesday, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai revealed his most important change yet: eliminating the spectacularly nonsensical “net neutrality” rules imposed by…
It’s sometimes hard to fully visualize a massive sum of money. Take $3.854 trillion for instance—the amount the federal government spent in 2016. That’s a lot of money, but America is a large country. It may be easier to picture if we knew how much spending each household would be responsible for if households all…
President Donald Trump’s tax plan announced on Wednesday shows that he is serious about his campaign promise to cut America’s taxes. For too long, the American economy has been held back by an outdated tax system. Trump’s promise to lower tax rates and update the tax code will benefit all Americans. Chief among the proposed…
The United States began as a nation of immigrants, and it continues to be so today. The ability to absorb people from around the globe is a hallmark of American exceptionalism. America has succeeded mostly through what The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Gonzalez has called “patriotic assimilation,” in which immigrants have not just been taught how…
Long after Donald Trump has left the White House, Justice Neil Gorsuch will likely still be at the Supreme Court. Once it didn’t look like it would happen this way. And it’s to the enormous credit of the Trump White House—and the Trump campaign, which relentlessly focused on the Supreme Court—that it did happen. Of…
As the U.S. grapples with many complex challenges to its interests in the vast region of Eurasia, one country should attract Washington’s particular attention. Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest country by land mass, sits right in the heart of Eurasia on what is best described as a convergence of global challenges and strategic opportunities for the…
We’ve heard about the alleged “wage gap” between men and women, but what about the real pay gap between private and public sector employees? An updated report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows there is a growing gap between the compensation earned by federal and private employees with the same qualifications. After accounting for…
Draining the swamp doesn’t just mean shrinking the size of federal bureaucracies. It means reducing the role of government throughout our society—including its ability to seize land. A good place to start is President Donald Trump’s executive order, which calls for a review of national monument designations—a tool long used by presidents to unilaterally restrict…
Media sources are all breathlessly reporting that the Trump administration’s proposed termination of federal funding to sanctuary cities has been enjoined by a federal judge. But that is misleading, and the media is misinterpreting the injunction order in the same way the federal judge misinterpreted President Donald Trump’s executive order. At issue in the lawsuit…
New developments on the American Health Care Act may finally break the legislative logjam on the bill and make progress toward repealing and replacing Obamacare. New Developments Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., is proposing an amendment that would allow states to apply to the secretary of health and human services for “waivers” from Obamacare’s contentious insurance…
No two campaigns for the presidency are the same, and few were as surprising or unconventional as President Donald Trump’s nomination and subsequent victory. It should come as no surprise then that Trump’s “first 100 days” in office—an archaic benchmark set during a different era—have been equally unconventional and in many important ways successful. Nowhere…
I first met Kate O’Beirne, my new colleague at the Department of Health and Human Services, in 1986. At the time she was the deputy assistant secretary for legislation, and what an impression she made. Kate, who died on Sunday at age 67, was physically striking: a tall brunette with large eyes, a big smile,…
Each year, Earth Day is accompanied by predictions of doom. Let’s take a look at past predictions to determine just how much confidence we can have in today’s environmentalists’ predictions. In 1970, when Earth Day was conceived, the late George Wald, a Nobel laureate biology professor at Harvard University, predicted, “Civilization will end within 15…
Would you give up your citizenship in order to keep your bank account? That’s a question few Americans would ever want to confront, yet many Americans living abroad are now having to answer. A little-known tax law, known as the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, has resulted in some foreign banks no longer serving Americans….
This week, Congress returns to Washington to address government funding. Unfortunately, two costly corporate welfare programs could be expanded. In the 2014 farm bill, Congress created two massive programs whose projected costs to taxpayers have nearly doubled. Originally projected to cost $18 billion over five years, the programs are now projected to cost a shocking…
France held a presidential election Sunday under the looming threat of Islamist terrorism, and winnowed the field to two candidates at opposite ends of what has become the new ideological battle line of our era: nationalism vs. globalism, for lack of better terms. One candidate, Marine Le Pen, hails from the pitchfork end of European…
Editor's note: This weekend we reach deeper into the mailbag for a smattering of your views on a bunch of different issues. Let's lead off with observations on the state of our union by Anthony Cosenza, a Defense Department veteran who teaches at Philadelphia University these days. Enjoy.—Ken McIntyre Dear Daily Signal: This is regarding your reporting on Obamacare…
In order to make the deadliest ideology of the 20th century palatable to young Americans, “Communism for Kids” is coming to a bookstore near you. This newly released book from MIT Press “proposes a different kind of communism, one that is true to its ideals and free from authoritarianism.” The death toll from communist regimes…