Heritage Foundation

The Middle Eastern Time Bomb

Four years of President Obama’s foreign policy are having their full effect. After squandering time in sham “negotiations” with Iran and Palestine and abandoning Iraq to al-Qaeda, the President has made many situations more difficult—and urgent.

Solyndra Revelations Show It’s Time to Close the “Bank of Washington”

“The Bank of Washington continues to help us!” bragged Solyndra CEO Chris Gronet in emails released last week.

Has Any Administration Policy NOT Killed Jobs Lately?

Congress has headed off for its long vacation-and-campaign season, fleeing Washington as the unemployment rate rises. According to the Labor Department’s July jobs report, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent, 12.8 million Americans are out of work, and 5.2 million have been out of work for at least a half a year.

Can Conservatives Be Environmentalists?

Efforts to protect the environment in America have ignored the most powerful force for improving the environment: free people. The results of these misguided policies have been higher energy prices, lower incomes, less access to resources, and technological stagnation—often failing to produce tangible environmental benefits.

Friedman’s Legacy of Fighting for School Choice for All

On the late Milton Friedman’s 100th birthday today, his words are truer than ever: “There is no respect in which inhabitants of a low-income neighborhood are so disadvantaged as in the kind of schooling they can get for their children.”

Business Owners Battle Obamacare for Religious Freedom

Two days from now, employers across America will become vulnerable to crushing government penalties for exercising their religious freedom. This isn’t exactly what lawmakers advertised when they pushed Obamacare, but it is part of the Obama Administration’s agenda—forcing nearly all employers to pay for abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization services.

Justice Department Blocks Voter ID at Every Turn

People seemingly voting after they’ve been dead for years. Drug kingpins buying votes from poor people to sway elections. Non-citizens being bussed to the polls and coached on how to vote. Stories of voting fraud are shocking, and states have been taking action to make sure that elections are secure. But the Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, has blocked states at almost every turn.

Senate Votes to Raise Taxes on Small Businesses

Obamacare Falls Short of Promises to Uninsured

Two new reports out yesterday continue to knock down President Obama’s promises about Obamacare: his “If you like your plan, you can keep it,” and the promise to significantly shrink the ranks of the uninsured.

The Green Graveyard of Taxpayer-Funded Failures

Solar-cell manufacturer Solyndra became a household name when it collapsed, taking $627 million in American taxpayer dollars with it. It’s the poster company for the government picking winners and losers—or really, just losers—in the energy market. But there are 12 more “green energy” losers that have declared bankruptcy despite attempts to prop them up with taxpayer money—and the list is growing.

States Should Wait Before Accepting Obamacare

The Supreme Court upheld Obamacare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance, but it also struck down part of the law. That part—forcing states to expand their Medicaid programs—offers governors some much-needed relief.

Dodd-Frank Financial Regulations Strangling Economy

Has your bank raised its fees or stopped offering free checking accounts in the last couple of years? If so, you can thank the regulatory boondoggle that is the Dodd-Frank financial law.

Let’s Be Honest About Outsourcing

Both candidates in the presidential race have been accusing the other of “outsourcing.” It’s one of those words that is loaded with negative meaning, implying that the perpetrator is un-American. But does America have an outsourcing problem?

The End of Welfare Reform As We Know It

The Obama Administration made yet another end run around Congress last week—this time, to gut the successful welfare reform law of 1996. If this is allowed to stand, it will mean rewinding years of progress that lifted millions out of poverty.

Harmful U.N. Sea Treaty Stalls in Senate

A United Nations threat to U.S. sovereignty has been halted. The Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST), a pet project of Senator John Kerry (D-MA), ran aground yesterday when opposition reached critical mass.

Obama’s Imperial Presidency Guts Welfare Reform

The imperial Presidency has overturned Congress and the law again. Not content to stop at rewriting immigration policy, education policy and energy policy, yesterday, President Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare reform law of 1996. The new policy guts the federal work requirements that were the foundation of the Clinton-era reform.

Obama Fails to See “Serious Impact” of Hugo Chavez

President Obama has been stumbling on the economy, and this week he added more proof of his weakness on foreign policy. He told a popular Miami TV station that Venezuela’s aggressive President Hugo Chavez “has not had a serious national security impact on us.”

Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare

The House is scheduled to vote today on full repeal of Obamacare. Although many reports are circulating that Congress has already voted on this numerous times, this is only the second time the House will have voted to fully repeal the law.

Obama’s Tax Hike on Job Creators

“The last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession, because that would just suck up—take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.”

Transportation Secretary Wants Us to Be Like Communist China

China’s attempt at a high-speed rail network is fraught with corrupt officials, impossible costs, and deadly safety failures. But U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood wishes America would follow it as a model.