Author: Heritage

On 03.11.10 10:24 AM posted by Conn Carroll

</p>After President Barack Obama nominated Eric Holder to be Attorney General, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent Holder a questionnaire that required him to provide copies of any briefs he had filed with the Supreme Court. Holder told the Senate he had participated in a total of <ahref="http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/11/holder-failed-to-alert-senate-to-old-brief/">five such briefs and that none of them dealt with terrorism-related issues. But as <ahref="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OTI5OWJhYjU1ZDc4ZTk4M2M0YmMyOTliYWRlZTA0N2I=">N ational Review Online has now confirmed, that was false. Specifically, Holder signed his name to an <ahref="http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69NewsDocumentOrder/FileUpload500/240/AmiciCuriae_janetReno.pdf">amicus brief arguing that President Bush lacked the authority to indefinitely detain Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant. That <ahref="http://www.jenner.com/files/tbl_s69NewsDocumentOrder/FileUpload500/240/AmiciCuriae_janetReno.pdf">brief asserts:

[We] recognize that these limitations might impede the investigation of a terrorist offense in some circumstances. It is conceivable that, in some hypothetical situation, despite the array of powers described above, the government might be unable to detain a dangerous terrorist or to interrogate him or her effectively. But this is an inherent consequence of the limitation of Executive power. No doubt many other steps could be taken that would increase our security, and could enable us to prevent terrorist attacks that might otherwise occur. But our Nation has always been prepared to accept some risk as the price of guaranteeing that the Executive does not have arbitrary power to imprison citizens.

<spanid="more-28589"></span>Former press secretary to President Bush Dana Perino and former federal prosecutor Bill Burck comment in <ahref="http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OTI5OWJhYjU1ZDc4ZTk4M2M0YmMyOTliYWRlZTA0N2I=">N RO:

The authors do cite an academic study purporting to show that two-thirds of suspects provide incriminating information after being read their rights — but this suggests, of course, that one-third did not. Maybe that’s okay for criminals, but the prospect of one out of three suspected terrorists not cooperating is far from reassuring.

Whatever the numbers are, the brief leaves no doubt that Holder views the loss of intelligence information as sometimes an acceptable tradeoff because, to quote from the brief again, “as a Nation we have chosen to place some limits on Executive authority in order to protect individual authority.” Pre-Obama Holder well appreciated that under some circumstances, treating terrorists like criminal defendants may be less protective of national security than treating them like enemies of the United States. But he was willing to take the risk to reduce what he perceived as possible abuses of power by the executive branch.
…
The brief does not specifically quantify what level of risk the nation should be willing to accept. Perhaps it is 33 percent, reflecting the one-third of people who don’t cooperate after being Mirandized. Or maybe it’s something like the 20 percent of detainees released from Guantanamo who return to the fight, which, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan said, “isn’t that bad” compared to the 50 percent recidivism rate of criminals.

Attorney General Eric Holder may be our nation’s top law enforcement officer, but he is also a political appointee subject to Senate confirmation. The United States Senate should have been informed about what Holder views as ‘acceptable’ and ‘unacceptable’ risks to national security. Holder, the Department of Justice, and the White House all owe the American people a believable explanation as to why Holder failed to disclose these views.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…to-the-senate/

On 03.11.10 11:30 AM posted by Olivia Killeen

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/china-stock-market-1001251.jpg"></p>Discussion of Chinese investment in the United States usually focuses on U.S. government bonds held by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE). While SAFE directs the majority of Chinese investment in the United States, including all China’s bond purchases, it plays very little role in non-bond investment. The China Investment Corporation (CIC) is the sovereign wealth fund responsible <atitle="http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/02/24/china-sets-out-on-a-new-shopping-spree/" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/02/24/china-sets-out-on-a-new-shopping-spree/">for allocating a portion of China’s foreign exchange reserves through non-bond investments. Indeed, CIC activities have accounted for more than 80% of Chinese non-bond investment in the U.S. since it was established in 2007.<spanid="more-28609"></span>

As a sovereign wealth fund, CIC is a tool of the state and Americans have reason to be wary that its motives are not entirely commercial. CIC officers often attempt to discredit such claims. Last October, <atitle="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aeyawIJ8FKoQ" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aeyawIJ8FKoQ">chairman Lou Jiwei dismissed the notion that CIC is pursuing anything beyond good returns. “What national strategy?” he asked. “Our strategy is long-term risk-adjusted returns.” <atitle="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1468702/000095012310009135/c95690e13fvhr.txt" href="http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1468702/000095012310009135/c95690e13fvhr.txt">Judging from the 13F form that CIC disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission in February and the <atitle="blocked::Heritage Foundation%E2%80%99s China Global Investment Tracker" href="Heritage%20Foundation%25E2%2580%2599s%20Chin a%20Global%20Investment%20Tracker">Heritage Foundation’s China Global Investment Tracker, it appears that neither side is entirely correct. CIC certainly is a political as well as commercial instrument, but it does not aim to acquire strategic American assets nor gain substantial corporate influence in the U.S.

While CIC does own stock in iconic American companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, and Motorola, its shares in each are insignificant, worth less than $10 million. CIC has only made two first-time investments over $100 million in American companies since 2007: $100 million in Visa’s IPO and $1.58 billion in power company AES. All the rest of CIC’s large investments in the U.S. have gone into financial products, like $3.2 billion in a J.C. Flowers Fund in April, 2008 and two $600 million investments in distressed asset funds through Oaktree Capital and Goldman Sachs in September, 2009.

CIC is a prolific investor in Chinese companies, usually through Hong Kong-listed companies of mainland origin. Until recently, all of CIC’s large investments outside China and Hong Kong occurred in the U.S. and most were in the financial services sector. Since June, CIC has begun diversifying geographically. Of its 14 investments over $100 million in 2009, seven were made outside the U.S.. Most notably it paid $1.5 billion for a 17% stake in Teck Resources, a Canadian mining and minerals company.

Fears about China using CIC to achieve political goals in the U.S. seem unfounded. CIC bolstered the American financial sector when fresh capital was in short supply. And it has become a fairly conservative investor, choosing low-risk investments and diversifying into multiple sectors and countries. As Andrew Peaple put it in <atitle="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703630404575052793709101252.html?m od=WSJ_Markets_MIDDLETopNews" href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703630404575052793709101252.html?m od=WSJ_Markets_MIDDLETopNews">a recent Wall Street Journal article: “So much for the big bad wolf…. China Investment Corp. has revealed itself to be more like Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother.”

Olivia Killeen* is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm">http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…n-perspective/

On 03.11.10 11:55 AM posted by Ray Walser

<imgsrc="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/uribe_081021.jpg" alt="Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe at the White House, Sept. 20, 2008" /></p>No greater dilemma faced the Colombian political system in recent months than the issue of presidential re-election.* Should a constitutional referendum be held to allow a popular, extremely effective leader to run, and likely win, a third term as president? For many Colombians, President Alvaro Uribe had become the indispensable leader.

Yet, across the political spectrum, many friends of Colombia worried about the impact of such <ahref="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/03/04/uribe_checks_out">concentrated power on the congress and judiciary.* A third term for Uribe would damage <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803294.html?hpid=opinionsbox1">democratic belief in the alterability of executive power and resemble what* authoritarian populist Hugo Chavez is doing to destroy democracy in Venezuela.

On February 27, the <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/world/americas/27colombia.html">Colombian Supreme Court rejected the holding of a referendum.<spanid="more-28624"></span>

History will record that President Uribe [2002-2010] was a transformative president and a strategic visionary who save his nation from collapse, restored national confidence and pride, and blazed a path linking security with democracy.* In the fight against drugs and terrorism, the U.S. found in Uribe a responsible and effective partner.

While the Bush Administration recognized <ahref="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2009/01/20090113-7.html">Uribe’s achievements, the Obama Administration and Congress have maintained a distant posture. While advancing security cooperation with Colombia, the Democrats have failed to deliver on the <ahref="http://www.ustr.gov/trade-agreements/free-trade-agreements/colombia-fta">Free Trade Agreement signed in 2006.* More than three years of inaction has cost the U.S. jobs and market share.

The Obama Administration warmly applauded Uribe in a <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/08/AR2010030803294.html?hpid=opinionsbox1">recent letter .* It can take the next step by recognizing the maturity of Colombia’s democracy and pushing for congressional passage of the trade agreement. *This action would be a fitting tribute to Colombia’s democratic progress, foremost, and a final, well-earned tribute to President Uribe.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…system-worked/

On 03.11.10 01:00 PM posted by Sarah Torre

President Barack Obama <ahref="http://www.c-span.org/Watch/Media/2010/03/01/HP/A/30143/Pres+Obama+Remarks+at+Americas+Promise+Alliance+Ed ucation+Event.aspx">announced Monday that $900 million in federal grants in the proposed FY 2011 budget would be available to school districts and administrators who work to transform roughly 5,000 failing school across the nation. While the proposal encourages transformation of the few thousand schools that produce half of America’s yearly 1.2 million high school dropouts, the reliance on federal government resources and direction to rescue America’s educational system falls short of true reform.

The President’s proposal, detailed in a subsequent <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-steps-reduce-dropout-rate-and-prepare-students-college-an">press release, encourages early intervention programs for students at risk of dropping out and an emphasis on college readiness programs like advanced placement courses and dual enrollment. Specific accountability measures include replacing the management and half the teaching staff of a low-performing school, closing the school, restarting a school under a charter’s management, or transforming a school through increased teacher training and support. The President went on to emphasize the role of government in reforming failing schools, while noting the part parents, teachers, and the community can play in education America’s students. He stated:<spanid="more-28630"></span>

Government has a responsibility. Government can help educate students to succeed in college and in a career. Government can help provide the resources to engage dropouts and those at risk of dropping out and, when necessary, the government has to be critically involved in turning around the lowest performing schools. …Education is not and cannot be the task of government alone. It’s going to take non-profits and businesses doing their part through alliances like America’s Promise. It will take parent’s getting involved in their child’s education consistently. Going to parent-teacher conferences, helping their children with their homework.

While the plan announced by President Obama expressed a laudable motivation to reform failing schools and lower dropout rates, the continual dependence on federal aid and discretion for salvation from poorly performing high schools misses the heart of effective reform found most often in greater competition and parental choice. Rather than spend almost $1 billion of additional federal grants, states and school districts can encourage and implement meaningful reforms that expand access to good teachers and increase parental involvement in students’ education.

An expansion of effective virtual schools and the use of online classrooms may address many of the concerns outlined by the President at a reduced cost to taxpayers.* <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2356.cfm ">Virtual schools not only increase students’ access to high quality and advanced classes and educators, they also foster the innovation that President Obama sees as integral to keeping students engaged in academics and on track to graduation.

As the President noted, increased parental involvement in students’ education will dictate the success of any school reform effort. But rather than relegate a parent’s role to conference attendee and homework helper, why not empower families with a meaningful choice in their child’s education through school voucher programs? As demonstrated in the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, providing parents the ability to choose a safe and effective school for their children means better performing students. The use of voucher programs and other school choice initiatives also increases competition among schools, which may lead to a natural reformation or closure of failing schools.

President Obama concluded his remarks by saying:

The stakes are too high – for our children, for our economy, for our country. It’s time for all of us to come together – parents and students, principals and teachers, business leaders and elected officials – to end America’s dropout crisis.

Agreed. All of those parties, from students to principals to representatives, should work together for effective reform that keeps money in the wallets of taxpayers and educational choice in the hands of parents and students.

Sarah Torre is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm">http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…-into-schools/

On 03.11.10 01:21 PM posted by Brian Riedl

After enacting 93,000 <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/features/BudgetChartBook/FY2009-High-Number-of-Earmarks-Despite-Change-in-Congressional-Leadership.aspx">earmarks at a cost of $200 billion over the past decade, lawmakers are finally taking the first steps to rein them in. First, House Democrats hinted they may announce a moratorium on earmarks to for-profit companies (while retaining them for non-profit organizations and state and local governments).

Then, not be outdone, the House Republican conference today <ahref="http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/11/gop.earmarks/index.html?hpt=T2">announced that they will not seek any earmarks in this year’s budget.

This is a strong positive development. Earmarks distribute government grants by <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2318.cfm">politics rather than by merit. Instead of submitting a strong application to a federal agency, grant-seekers are often forced to hire lobbyists and make campaign donations. This <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm2793.cfm">corrupting process has resulted in multiple federal investigations, one of which concluded with a Member of Congress going to prison.

Reducing earmarks will not directly reduce the amount of money available for grantees. Instead, it will empower federal agencies to select grantees through a merit-based application process. For other programs, it means more funding will instead be distributed to state and local governments, who can better decide where to repair a road or how to revitalize a neighborhood than politicians in Washington D.C.<spanid="more-28644"></span>

However, more work must be done. House Democrats still must agree on their earmark plan. Their plan should also be expanded to include non-profit organizations (who would also benefit from a system that distributes grants by merit rather than politics) as well as state and local governments (who should be able to receive their federal funds without the micromanagement of earmark instructions). The Senate should follow suit with a moratorium as well.

In addition, President Obama should sign an Executive Order banning all “phone-marks.” Phone-marking occurs when a lawmakers tries to circumvent an earmark ban by directly calling federal agencies and demanding that certain favored groups receive federal grants. Because they leave no paper trail, phone-marks are even less accountable than earmarks.

House Republicans and Democrats should be commended for moving away from earmarks. Its time for the rest of Congress and the White House to follow their lead.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…sals-in-house/

On 03.11.10 02:00 PM posted by Jessica Zuckerman

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/DHS2.png"></p>Knowing what we know now, would the U.S. be able to stop another attack like that of Christmas Day 2009? This is certainly the question on the minds of many Americans today.* It is also one that Jamie McIntyre, veteran journalist and blogger for Military.com, had the opportunity to ask of Rand Beers, Under Secretary for National Protection and Programs Directorate from DHS, at a Heritage Foundation National Security Bloggers Luncheon.

Mr. Beers’ response can be seen here at <atitle="http://www.lineofdeparture.com/" href="http://www.lineofdeparture.com/">LineOfDeparture.com thanks to a video posted by Jamie on his blog. However, to summarize the answer, Mr. Beer’s explains that while “Murphy’s law is alive and well…. the probability is considerably higher.”<spanid="more-28637"></span>

To make sure that Mr. Beer’s is right, however, the Administration still has work to do.* <atitle="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/wm2743.cfm" href="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/wm2743.cfm">As Heritage expert James Carafano outlined, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security must seek to enhance visa coordination between DHS and the Department of State; place more air marshals on passenger flights; accelerate the Secure Flight Program, Real ID, and the Visa Waiver Program; and, also, end the 100 percent interview requirement on visa applications.

Indeed, Mr. Beer’s will never be able to say that he is 100 percent certain that the U.S. is able to thwart the next terrorist attack, but actions by the Administration can at least ensure that he is right to say that the probability for success is higher.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…more-prepared/

On 03.11.10 02:22 PM posted by Nick Loris

Toyota has seen better months than February when the automaker recalled millions of vehicles amidst a sticky pedal and unintended acceleration problem that led to<ahref="http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/toyotas-february-sales-suffer-over-safety-concerns/19380072/"> sales decline of 8.7 percent. To win back the consumer, Toyota offered incentives including extended warrantees, auto maintenance plans and zero percent financing, and it appears to be working as Toyota sales in the United States <ahref="http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1123519620100311?type=marketsNews">are up 47 percent for the first 8 days of March compared to last year.

David Strickland, administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), <ahref="http://www.freep.com/article/20100311/BUSINESS01/100311037/1319/Auto-safety-chief-defends-agency-over-Toyota-recalls">spoke in front of Congress today and told the Energy and Commerce subcommittee his agency did its job in handling the recall: “I don’t see Toyota as an indicative example of failure. I see it as NHTSA doing its job. I think Toyota and the wide-ranging recalls that it’s executed, that’s the kind of response I would want as an administrator.”

Strickland also told Members that his agency would look more thoroughly into electronic throttle technologies as some lawmakers are calling for <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/business/12toyota.html">federal standards for data recorders on automobiles – similar to a black box on an airplane. But just how dangerous was it to drive around in a recalled Toyota? Statistically speaking, not very says Carnegie Mellon Professor and risk expert Paul Fischbeck. He calculated the unintended acceleration increased <ahref="http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2010/February/feb25_toyotarisk.shtml">the risk of driving only 2 percent. To put this in perspective Fischbeck <ahref="http://www.cmu.edu/news/archive/2010/February/feb25_toyotarisk.shtml">said,

<spanid="more-28650"></span>

“Walking a mile is 19 times or 1,900 percent more dangerous than driving a mile in a recalled Toyota. Driving while using a cell phone would increase risk much more than the chance of having a stuck accelerator. The stuck accelerator problem does make driving riskier and needs to be fixed. But at the same time, the increased risk is very small.”

So when Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood responded to the Toyota recalls by saying, “stop driving it”, hopefully he didn’t mean to walk instead.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…ving-a-toyota/

On 03.11.10 02:38 PM posted by Brett Schaefer

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/sarkozy-1001151.jpg"></p>In a startlingly blunt manner, French President Nicolas Sarkozy today <ahref="http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hpJ429DaMsuFNYAvFf9QmDSDoktw">demanded that the United Nations be reformed and argued that key international issues could not be resolved by negotiations among 192 U.N. member countries. According to the AFP account, Sarkozy announced that “The UN is absolutely indispensable and yet at the same time, it’s not working … I am certain that we need to reform the United Nations, otherwise the United Nations will end up in an impasse.”

He went on to criticize the practice of negotiating agreements among all member states simultaneously – the default process at the U.N. – wondering “who can believe that this can work?” He concluded that a better strategy would be for a “representative” group of countries to do the essential haggling. This makes eminent sense if the “representative” group of countries is composed of those that are going to be expected to bear the burden of whatever is being negotiated. The fundamental flaw of including all countries in U.N. negotiations is the tendency of a majority of countries to seek agreements that garner benefits to themselves and shift the lion’s share of costs to a relative few countries. All too often the U.S. is among the few.

<spanid="more-28652"></span>As Sarkozy observes, this dynamic crippled the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this past fall. But it also applies to a broad range of activities and responsibilities on the U.N. docket. As stated in the conclusion of <ahref="http://www.amazon.com/ConUNdrum-Limits-United-Nations-Alternatives/dp/1442200065/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1247762605&sr=8-1">ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives :

No compelling reason dictates that multilateral action to advance human rights should be the exclusive purview of the United Nations… Moreover, some purportedly global problems are clearly not global or may in practice be better addressed through selective participation. Including nations with little at stake or minimal ability to effect a solution to a problem—which is the default process in the U.N.—can impede international action. Such was clearly the case with the Kyoto Protocol. Why should land-locked nations be considered essential parties to the Law of the Sea Treaty? Or nations with no outer space capabilities strongly influence deliberations of the U.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space by constituting an overwhelming majority of its sixty-nine members?

…. The United States must be flexible in its approaches to international cooperation. If the United States and other nations operate only through the U.N., they hand the spoilers the means to frustrate their efforts. Multilateralism is a tool, not an end in itself. The United States should be open to working through the U.N. and other international organizations to address joint concerns, but the United States must not allow solutions to be held hostage by an irrational adherence to past practice or theoretical jurisdictions.

Although it must be said that Sarkozy’s proposed solutions (like expanding the U.N. Security Council) are not well thought out and would <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg1876.cfm">probably make the problem even worse, it is edifying that even France recognizes the fatuousness of the U.N. obsession of seeking a “consensus” solution to all problems and the need to explore alternatives.

Contrast this to the strange reluctance of the Obama Administration to press for reform of the U.N. Instead of demanding increased transparency, accountability, and oversight at the U.N. and calling for budgetary restraint, the U.S. has gone along with <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/bg2368.cfm">U.N. budget increases and allowed the U.N. member states to <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternationalOrganizations/wm2747.cfm">charge U.S. taxpayers even more to support the organization. Even other U.N. member states and U.N. officials have quietly expressed puzzlement over U.S. silence on U.N. reform issues that have characterized U.S. policy for decades.

America’s experience over the years shows how hard it is for any one nation to impose reform on the U.N. It would seem that another country may finally be fed up with the status quo at the U.N. It’s a shame that just as France is stepping up; the Obama Administration and Congress are stepping down.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…-n-than-obama/

On 03.11.10 06:31 AM posted by Conn Carroll

The final details of the financial regulatory reform bill being negotiated by Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Bob Corker (R-TN) are still being hammered out, but the underlying contours are clear: more government bureaucracy layered on top of our existing impenetrable and unaccountable financial regulatory system. Specifically, the Dodd/Corker plan reportedly still contains these elements:

The Consumer Financial Protection Agency – There is still debate over whether this new entity will be a stand alone agency, housed in the Department of Treasury, or housed in the Federal Reserve. Wherever the new entity ends up, the bottom line will be the same: a massive new bureaucracy afforded ambiguous grants of almost unlimited power. Although intended to help consumers, the net result of such a move would be to stifle the innovations that would bring them improved, lower-cost financial products.

Permanent TARP – Details are sketchy here, too, but reports are that federal bureaucrats, possibly the FDIC, will be given new “resolution authority” powers backed by a permanent $50 billion slush “resolution fund.” If this new power is given to the FDIC, it would be the first time the FDIC’s authority was extended beyond the banks that it directly insures. But more importantly, these provisions would establish a permanent TARP – the radioactively unpopular $700 billion Wall Street bail out slush fund.

The Agency for Financial Stability – Sold as purely a monitoring and information gathering entity, without the proper limiting language, a new systemic risk agency could essentially draft any financial firm into the federal financial regulatory system and subject it to a wide variety of restrictions that could include compelling large financial firms to sell off portions of themselves, drop lines of business, break up, or otherwise reduce the “risk” that the regulators believe they may impose on the financial system.

Instead of allowing for risky behavior to be properly priced by the marketplace, taken together these new bureaucracies would almost guarantee more big bank bailouts costing taxpayers untold billions of dollars. The new regulators could declare any problem with a major financial institution to be a potential systemic risk and tap into the fund to bail it out.

There is a better solution. Heritage fellow David John explains:

A better approach to preventing another crisis is to modify U.S. bankruptcy law to accommodate the special problems of resolving huge financial firms and to allow the courts to appoint receivers with the specialized knowledge necessary to best deal with their failure. By creating an open process controlled by an impartial judiciary guided by established statutory rules, financial firms, investors, taxpayers, and others would have the advance knowledge that large financial firms that were once known as “too big to fail” can now be closed if necessary without risking disaster. In addition, requiring all larger financial services firms to hold significant amounts of capital to cover losses would greatly reduce the systemic risk that they could pose to the financial system.

Higher capital levels would enable many firms that would fail under today’s capital levels to survive a crisis, saving shareholders and bondholders their investments, employees their jobs, and taxpayers billions of dollars in federal bailouts. Congress and the Administration need to learn and heed the lessons of 2008, or a repeat crisis will just be a matter of time.

Quick Hits:

• An outside review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will not reexamine their latest report’s errors or recheck that report’s conclusions.
• According to the most recent Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who now say reports of global warming are generally exaggerated, 48%, is by a significant margin the highest such reading in the 13-year history of asking the question.
• Due to pressure from environmental groups, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is poised to pass a roughly 5 percent rate increase to pay for solar panels.
• Due to pressure form environmental groups, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was forced to abandon the Green Path North Transmission Line because it would have crossed wilderness preserves and scenic ridgelines.
• Unemployment rose in 30 states in January, including a record high 12.5% unemployment in California.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…ment-problems/

On 03.11.10 07:00 AM posted by David Clark and Michael Waddoups

Since our “modest proposal” essay was published in the Washington Post on Feb. 19, we have heard mostly support, but some criticism. The critics tend to question Utah’s ability to assume complete responsibility for education, transportation and Medicaid, and manage these important functions of government properly.

We assert that not only can we run these programs adequately without federal oversight and interference, but we can operate them more effectively, more efficiently, and serve citizens better.

It seems that many in Congress maintain an elitist attitude about government: The bigger the better, the more centralized the better, and all public policy sophistication and intelligence emanates from the federal level and is sprinkled like pixie dust on state and local governments through federal oversight and mandates.

If those assertions were true, then why is the national level of government overwhelmed in debt, mired in gridlock and partisanship, and wholly unable to resolve the biggest problems that face our nation?

Most state and local governments, while certainly facing plenty of challenges of their own, are models of good governance compared to the federal government.* In general, state governments are better managed, have better fiscal controls, are more innovative, and reflect the will of the people far more than the federal government.

In Utah, for example, we have sophisticated financial controls in place. We have been named the country’s best-managed state for several years. We balance our state and local budgets every year, no matter how hard it is. We enjoy an AAA bond rating. Like many states, our public employee pension fund has taken a significant hit thanks to the drooping economy. But in our current legislative session we are forthrightly fixing it, despite strong protests from public employee unions.

We bond for some large infrastructure projects, but our repayment schedules are very short. We obviously don’t borrow money for on-going operations (as does the federal government). We don’t hide money or play shell games with various accounts. We follow solid accounting and management principles. We have strong auditing.

We hardly need to recite the litany of irresponsible and disastrous fiscal practices at the federal level—the overwhelming debt being increased every second of every day that will be dumped on our children and grandchildren, the trillions in entitlement programs promised to essentially every American that are unfunded and unsustainable, the borrowed billions used for daily operations of government.

The president and Congress are in such a dire predicament, wholly incapable of controlling themselves, that they now want to appoint an independent super-commission to impose the discipline that they lack to restrain deficit spending and control entitlements. They admit they are addicted, can’t stop themselves, and need outside intervention.

So why should the American people trust these admitted spending addicts in faraway Washington to manage their schools, highways and health care, rather than their own governors, state legislators, mayors, city council members, and county officials?

Well, the reality is, they don’t.

A recent statewide poll in Utah, conducted by Dan Jones & Associates, asked 600 registered voters two questions that reveal the low esteem in which our citizens hold the federal government.

“Which level of government do you trust most to spend your tax dollars wisely?” Only a tiny 4% said they most trust the federal government. Some 27% chose state government; 18%, county governments; and 34%, city governments.

A second question produced similar results: “Which level of government do you think best understands the public needs and should make decisions about raising and lowering taxes?” Only 6% chose the federal government; 39%, state government; 22%, county governments; 25%, city governments.

Even among Democrats and liberals, the number choosing the federal government was extremely low. Citizens overwhelmingly trust government close to home over the federal government.

It might be news to federal officials, but our public administrators at the state level are just as smart, skilled, and proficient as they are. Our professionals attend the same public administration schools, go to many of the same conferences, read the same professional journals, as do their federal counterparts. Our administrators belong to professional organizations where they meet with their peers, learn the latest management techniques, and exchange information about best practices.

Our focus is not just inward. We work collaboratively with other states on uniform state laws and we participate fully with the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments, and other state-based associations that provide valuable training, networking and collaboration.

Our highway officials manage multi-billion-dollar programs using sophisticated project management techniques and technology, and they bring in projects on time and under budget. We now, for example, replace gigantic freeway bridges literally overnight instead of in months or years, because we construct them at “bridge farms” and roll them into place.

We complete projects using only state dollars faster and more efficiently than projects with federal money involved, due to federal red tape. Our Transportation Commission estimates that a federal transportation dollar is only worth 85 cents compared to a state transportation dollar.

In a recent large highway construction procurement, Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) used a “fixed-price, best-design” bid procedure, setting a defined price that fostered competition among design-build teams to propose innovative ways to provide the most length and greatest number of improvements for the price. This method resulted in the project extending from* the expected 14.8 miles with eight interchanges, to a 24-mile long project with 11 interchanges.

UDOT is a national leader in using efficient ways to tackle transportation challenges. Safety has improved with traffic fatalities at a 35-year low, despite dramatically more highway miles traveled.

We don’t need federal red tape and interference to run a great transportation system. We would be better off keeping at home the federal transportation tax dollars we now send to Washington.

The same is true in health care and education. We face many challenges in education. But despite having the largest families and highest number of children, on a percentage basis, in the country, we are fully capable of providing excellent education for our children, including special needs and disadvantaged children, without federal programs and intervention. We spend the lowest amount per pupil in the country, have among the largest class sizes, and yet our test scores are above average in almost every category.

We are innovating with a robust charter school program, online learning, parent participation programs, and statewide accountability.

In health care, we have strong legislative and executive support for one of the nation’s most aggressive and advanced market-based reform programs. We are far ahead of federal health care reform, although federal regulations are interfering with our efforts. Utah currently has the lowest health care costs in the country. We are implementing a state insurance exchange program and a health information exchange allowing health care providers to access basic medical information about their patients anywhere, any time. We will become the first state in the country to be able to analyze episodes of care derived from statewide health insurance claims.

We love our country and we are loyal and patriotic citizens of the United States of America. We support a strong federal government in the areas where it rightly should have primacy. But we believe the federal government has centralized authority and expanded its role far beyond its ability perform well, resulting the current sad state of affairs at the federal level.

In a country as big and diverse as America, all the principles of good governance, good management and plain old common sense tell us that government close to home should be responsible for basic, everyday services to citizens.

David Clark is speaker of the Utah House of Representatives. Michael Waddoups is president of the Utah Senate. The views expressed by guest bloggers on the Foundry do not necessarily reflect the views of the Heritage Foundation.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…on-federalism/

On 03.11.10 08:14 AM posted by Helle Dale

A top priority of the Obama presidency has been to restore the image of the United States in the world; in image allegedly left in tatters by the Bush administration. Unfortunately for the president, however, Americans by a wide margin now believe that that the United States standing in the world has not improved, but actually declined since President Obama took office.

According to a poll conducted in late February and released this week by Democracy Corps-Third Way, Americans by a 10-point margin think that the standing of the United States has dropped under Obama — by a whopping 51 percent to 41 percent. On the question of national security, Democrats now trail Republicans by 17 percent, and on the “right-track, wrong track,” question just 31 feel the country is headed in the right directions, with a massive 62 percent registering discontent.

Reported in The Washington Times, though not much in evidence in other “mainstream media,” the poll is far from the product of a hopeful conservative imagination. Democracy Corps-Third Way is a Democratic polling group headed by former Clinton adviser James Carville and Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg. Their purpose is to warn Democrats of the electoral turbulence ahead. “We would not want the election to be held today, with this poll, Greenberg told the newspaper. “If the election were held today, this would be a ‘change election.’”

The authors of the survey expressed surprise over the decline among Americans of their view of America’s international clout, given such international recognition as the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. But it should not come as a surprise.

Though resembling Jimmy Carter to some degree in this regard, Barack Obama has set an all-time record for almost instinctively disparaging the United States on foreign soil. In a list of Obama’s apologies, the Heritage Foundation’s Nile Gardiner and Morgan Roach include: “America has shown arrogance,” France, April 2009;* “We have not been perfect,” interview with Al Arabiya January 2009; “At times we sought to dictate our own terms,” Trinidad and Tobago, April 2009; “We went off course,” Washington DC, May, 2009, “Our own darker periods in our history,” Washington D.C., May, 2009, and on and on. This approach may be popular with foreign audiences, but it is not so with Americans, whose sons and daughters today are fighting on foreign soil to advance freedom and stability for other nations.

In addition, the White House lack of protocol when it comes to handling foreign leaders has been characterized by a lack of understanding of the basics of diplomacy, which makes the U.S. government seem hopelessly clumsy at best, and arrogant and insensitive at worst. Recently the White House added a gift of cuff links given to the Dalai Lama (a man who wears only robes) to its list of the world’s worst symbolic presents. This list already included of course the president’s gifts of an iPod with his own speeches to the Queen of England and a set of non-workable videos to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown – and of course Hillary Clinton’s famously mistranslated “reset” button given to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In addition the president has insulted the king of Norway, the president of France and the prime minister of the Czech Republic by declining invitations to break bread with them during official visits.

Americans overall are very patriotic, and especially at a time of war, they do not appreciate their country being humiliated on the world stage and talked down over and over again – by no less than their own president.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/11/…end-for-obama/

On 03.10.10 10:00 AM posted by Jeff Witt

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/unemployedCA.jpg"></p>The state of California likes to sell itself as a leader in the transition to a green economy. The only problem is, <ahref="http://cei.org/study/2008/04/01/californias-energy-policy">their policies are making that transition harder—and they’re not producing the job boom that politicians have been promising.

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) recently reviewed the impact of the state’s 2006 climate change legislation, which mandated a cut in GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. *A letter from the LAO to the state senator that requested the analysis stated that <ahref="http://cssrc.us/web/14/pubs/100308_AB32JobsImpact.pdf">the aggregate net jobs impact of the 2006 legislation in the near term “is likely to be negative.” Don’t let the tepid language here fool you; this is seriously bad news for California.* With so much of its economic future staked on green jobs, green tech, and the viability of green energy—and given that the state currently is suffering with unemployment 20 percent higher than the national average and that it has for months been <ahref="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/15/california-budget-impasse-state-nears-insolvency/">teetering on fiscal insolvency—news that green policies are hampering the state’s overall economy stultifies lawmakers’ vision for a green-economy-driven future.<spanid="more-28446"></span>

And yet, it should come as no shock that legislation mandating the use of more expensive energy sources would result in aggregate losses to an economy.* As Heritage senior policy analyst Ben Lieberman <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2795.cfm">has explained before:

Mandates … kill jobs by raising energy costs.* The only reason these alternative energy sources need to be mandated in the first place is that they are too expensive to compete otherwise.* Thus, in addition to forcibly supplanting traditional energy jobs, renewable energy mandates raise energy costs and thus destroy jobs.

So, for every dollar of capital that is funneled to green projects due to government mandate, there is a dollar less to be capitalized on by more efficient economic agents.* The net result, of course, is a sub-optimal economic outcome, and California is not the first economy to make this simple economic logic manifest.* Spain has likewise invested hugely in green energy, and <ahref="http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf">a recent study shows the net effect on the country’s economy has been hugely negative.* For every green job created in the Spanish economy, the study found, 2.2 private-sector jobs were destroyed.

An adage in politics says that, “As California goes, so goes the nation.”* When it comes to climate policy, however, federal lawmakers would be wise take the nation in the opposite direction of woebegone California.

Jeff Witt* is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm">http://www.heritage.org/about/departments/ylp.cfm

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…green-economy/

On 03.10.10 11:00 AM posted by Kathryn Nix

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Pelosi-100310.jpg"></p>While Congressional leaders are feverishly plotting to jam the hugely unpopular Senate health bill through the House of Representatives the moment Speaker Pelosi thinks she has the votes, House liberals are also tinkering around with the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). This is the program that covers federal workers and retirees; it is a consumer-driven program of competing private health plans. Through more regulation, Congressional liberals would like to make it look a lot more like Obamacare.

Historically, the success of the FEHBP as a consumer-driven and competitive system of private health plans has been largely attributable to its wide range of personal choice, relatively light regulation, and the hands-off approach the Office of Personnel Management(OPM) in its administration. That can change, of course, depending upon who is running the White House.

<spanid="more-28488"></span><ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2364.cfm">As we have said before, the powers of OPM are neither limited nor restricted to those which it actively exercises. OPM does not interfere with the health plans offered in the FEHBP by micromanaging the program or imposing price controls—but that is not to say this must be the case. In fact, as <ahref="http://www.rollcall.com/news/43716-1.html?type=printer_friendly">Walton Francis outlines in Roll Call, new legislation (H.R.4489) would replace the way in which health plans contract for drugs, significantly altering an important part of the FEHBP’s successful machinery.

This measure is based on the false assumption that FEHBP health plans—all of which are private plans, by the way—spend too much on prescription drugs because they contract with Pharmaceutical Benefits Management firms. The truth is, though, that up until now, FEHBP has done as good as or better of a job than any other federal program at containing costs. Francis has written extensively on the fact that FEHBP outperforms original Medicare—a program generating fiscally disastrous debt—and has done for several decades, proving that a consumer-driven market for private health insurance is effective at containing costs and securing consumer satisfaction.

But the proposed legislation would be disastrous for the free-market approach of the FEHBP, undermining both market competition and consumer choice. <ahref="http://www.rollcall.com/news/43716-1.html?type=printer_friendly">Says Francis:

The net effect of these restrictions would be to reduce competition (many PBMs would not or could not bid on FEHBP plan contracts), to raise manufacturer prices to all purchasers including the VA, and in these and other ways to raise prescription drug costs in the FEHBP. OPM, an agency without any competence or expertise in wholesale or retail prescription drug management or in administering national price controls, would administer all these functions.

This attempt to alter the FEHBP, based on false premises, exemplifies the left’s desire to destroy or reduce coverage under private insurance companies, who, ironically, have been much more successful at containing costs than the federal government, which simply shifts costs of health care to private companies through price controls and accumulates trillions of dollars of longterm debt( as in the case of Medicare). It is not federal employees and retirees alone who should worry about the impact of this legislation on the FEHBP. The giant Senate health bill would allow OPM to sponsor select health plans to compete nationwide against private health plans in the newly-created, federally-designed health insurance exchanges. These government-sponsored plans and their implied new role for OPM would be very different—as would the health insurance market—<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2364.cfm">instead experiencing the yet-unleashed powers of the OPM. Given the policies embodied in H.R.4489, the FEHBP would be saddled with a new layer of government regulation, an ominous harbinger for the avalanche of federal rule making that would be unleashed under the giant Senate health bill.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…-up-the-fehbp/

On 03.10.10 11:05 AM posted by Nick Loris

Chris Horner from the Competitive Enterprise Institute is at it again, doing his best Sherlock Holmes imitation. After a Spanish study warned that renewable energy policies destroy more jobs than they aim to create, the Department of Energy released a strong rebuttal, claiming the report lacked rigor. A <ahref="http://washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/09/covering-up-the-wind-energy-failure/">CEI-submitted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request shows how the DOE’s critique of the foreign study came to fruition.

What transpired is difficult to discern with precision, as DOE continues to withhold numerous responsive documents. But it is clear that senior staff in Ms. Zoi’s office, and another under her authority, were told by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) of its concern over the foreign economic analysis because of the media and policymaker attention it was receiving.

The questions raised about green jobs also threatened the vast increase in Department of Energy spending to pursue green jobs. The Obama administration has poured cash into renewable-energy efficiency and renewable energy with abandon. One such program at the department has grown from a budget of $1.7 billion in 2008 to $18 billion in 2009.

What is clear is that the Department of Energy then worked with Center for American Progress and the industry lobby AWEA to produce an attack that would serve all their interests.”

<spanid="more-28513"></span>

More on the timeline of these events can be found on Horner’s <ahref="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-anti-lobbyist-obama-administration-recruited-left-wing-lobbyists-to-sell-bogus-green-jobs/">blog post at PajamasMedia. One would be foolish to think that President Obama could do away with special interest politicking in Congress. Founding Father Ben Franklin said, “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” As lobbyists work with government to maker America’s energy decisions, more money will be available for handouts and preferential treatment. It is clear this government is committed to transitioning to a “clean energy economy” whether the economics stands behind it or not.

Meanwhile the administration is dragging its feet on something the public and the economics support: offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Despite the fact that <ahref="http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/offshore_drilling/68_favor_offshore_oil_drilling">nearly 70 percent of Americans are in favor of <ahref="http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/84781-salazar-eyes-sequential-offshore-drilling-plans">offshore drilling, “Interior Secretary Ken Salazar dropped some hints Wednesday about his long-awaited policy on offshore oil-and-gas drilling in federal waters, which he hopes to announce later this month. Salazar said Interior’s next five-year offshore leasing plan will run from 2012-2017, rather than upending the current 2007-2012 program.”

President Obama said in his State of the Union address that the government needs to make “ tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.” Offshore exploration and drilling increases energy supply, creates jobs and bring in federal and state revenue. The tough part must be convincing the American people why we’re delaying these activities.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…gas-as-losers/

On 03.10.10 11:30 AM posted by Hans Von Spakovsky

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/doctor_bill0906235.gif"></p>When President Obama held his health care summit at the White House, Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) pointed out that a key part of containing medical costs was completely missing from the debate: medical malpractice legal reform. The cost of defensive medicine alone (without taking into account the direct costs of such claims) “could be as high as $239 billion” according to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers cited by Camp.

So what was President Obama’s response? He basically interrupted Camp and told him to “finish up.” On March 3, when Obama gave his speech in the East Room on health care reform, his only mention of this issue was about “funding state grants on medical malpractice reform.” Of course, he has said that before – in his address to Congress on health care last fall. Then he offered to fund “pilot” projects even though states like Texas and Mississippi have instituted such reform and we already know what works.<spanid="more-28479"></span>

The House bill actually tries to kill effective malpractice remedies such as caps on noneconomic damages. It provides incentive payments to states that provide “an alternative medical liability law” that prompts the “fair resolution” of disputes – but no such incentive will be paid to any state that limits “attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.”

Now according to a source, Rep. Cuellar (D-TX) is trying to convince his fellow legislators that this problem can be solved through an amendment to H.R. 3590. His proposed amendment states that “[t]he development, recognition, or implementation of any guideline or other standard under any provision of this Act shall not be construed to establish the standard of care or duty of care owed by health care providers to their patients in any medical malpractice action or claim.” The amendment also says that nothing in the federal law will “modify or impair State law governing legal standards or procedures used in medical malpractice cases.”

However, arguably this provision may be worse than useless from the standpoint of protecting medical providers from medical malpractice claims because it may give medical providers a false sense of security. Even if defendants will be able to argue that federal guidelines do not automatically establish a standard of care, plaintiffs’ lawyers will compare the doctor’s conduct to that federal guideline whenever the doctor’s actions deviate from it. So, the doctor will still be at risk. Second, this amendment will not preclude a plaintiff’s lawyer from arguing that a doctor should have done more than the minimum federal guideline, turning it into the equivalent of a standard. Third, only a state legislature can stop state courts from adopting the federal guideline as the state’s standard of care for medical treatment. Finally, this provision gives the states no reason or incentive to implement specific reforms that are known to work like capping damages for noneconomic damages (like “pain and suffering”).

The bottom line is that so far in this extended debate over healthcare, there is absolutely nothing substantive in the president’s proposals or the House or Senate bills that would implement any real medical malpractice reforms.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…actice-reform/

On 03.10.10 12:00 PM posted by Kiki Bradley

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/pat-murray-d-wa100310.jpg"></p>Yesterday the Senate beat back an amendment offered by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) to the tax extenders bill that would have continued for another six months a policy aimed at undoing welfare reform.

The policy was originally created as part of last year’s infamous Stimulus package in the form of the TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) Emergency Fund.* It was supposed to be a “temporary” measure, however, the President in his 2011 budget and now Congress are actively looking for ways to extend it. This anti-reform fund pays states “bonus” money for increasing the size of their welfare caseloads without any incentives to place people into jobs and off of the dole. *This fund, if continued, will <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/wm2819.cfm">undermine the great successes of the 1996 welfare reform.<spanid="more-28487"></span>

<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Family/wm2819.cfm">The 1996 welfare reform law fundamentally changed how welfare worked.* The old system known as Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) was an open-ended entitlement that reimbursed states on a per case basis.* Welfare reform ended this practice and instead put in place a fixed block grant through which states received the same amount of funding year to year without regard to the actual size of their caseload.* In addition, states were required to have at least 50 percent of their caseload engaged in some kind of work or work preparedness activity or else face a fiscal penalty.

<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/wm1183.cfm">Because of this reform, millions of families moved out of inter-generational poverty and into self-sufficiency and employment.* Between 1996 and 2009 over 2.8 million families left the welfare rolls.* In addition, the child poverty rate dropped and in particular the black child poverty rate hit historic lows.* Employment for never-married mothers rose rapidly.

<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/wm1183.cfm">Unfortunately, since taking office, President Obama has sought to curb this success in the name of “stimulus.”* His 2011 budget requests to continue this program for another year costing $2.5 billion.* Fortunately, Senator Murray’s amendment that would have extended the program for another 6 months was defeated yesterday.* But beware, there are sure to be more attempts in the near future to attach this measure to other legislative vehicles.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…elfare-reform/

On 03.10.10 12:30 PM posted by Marguerite Higgins

</p>You might have seen this week <ahref="http://www.breitbart.tv/nancy-pelosi-we-need-to-pass-health-care-bill-to-find-out-whats-in-it/">a stunning demonstration of political condescension on the health care front. In remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

This revealing comment reinforces a patriarchal (or in Pelosi’s case matriarchal) attitude Congress has taken with the American public: What lurks within the House and Senate health care bills will be revealed in the fullness of time, and it’s really good for us if we only knew better.<spanid="more-28508"></span>

Ordinary Americans have had a common-sense resistance to Washington’s feverish attempt to overhaul one-sixth of the U.S. economy. But Congressional leadership has ignored the public’s concerns and instead clung to the idea that if they simply ram the bill through the legislative process — using <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/health/policy/10health.html?ref=politics">unprecedented tactical maneuvers that may not even pass the parliamentarian’s smell test—Americans will finally understand and embrace ObamaCare.

When it’s law, then Americans can finally grasp the “goodness” of what’s in the <ahref="http://fixhealthcarepolicy.com/key-documents/the-house-and-senate-bills/">2,700-plus-page Senate bill, which is the most likely legislative vehicle that Congress will push to President Barack Obama’s desk. The problem for Pelosi and congressional Democrats is that Americans have been reading these bills, and they don’t like what they’re reading.

The more the public learns about <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/bg2350.cfm">the taxes, <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/cda1002.cfm">individual mandates, <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/01/14/more-taxpayer-funding-of-abortion-in-the-senate-health-bill/">taxpayer-funded abortion coverage, and <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2774.cfm">the potential breakdown of the private health insurance market, the less jazzed they are about ObamaCare. But politicians have blithely waved away little details <ahref="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/print/51610">like reading the actual bill and instead said “trust us”—at a time when public trust for Congress is at <ahref="http://dailycaller.com/2010/03/10/ap-gfk-poll-obama-more-popular-than-congress/">an all-time low during Obama’s presidency.

This whole dynamic helps explain why Obama and congressional leadership are insistent on <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/09/deja-vu-all-over-again/">another artificial deadline of March 18 for final passage of ObamaCare. They know that members of Congress, particularly those in the House, could see another wave of townhall protests when they go on a two-week recess starting March 26. That’s because the American people do know what’s in these bills. Popular discussion and debate—that “fog of controversy”—has helped to enlighten them.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…what-is-in-it/

On 03.10.10 01:00 PM posted by Audrey Jones

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/alicewonderland-100310.jpg"></p>These are times straight out of Alice in Wonderland, as everything becomes an “un-birthday” and definitions are turned on their head. Climate change scientists, according to <ahref="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/">The Washington Times this last weekend, are turning to PR, rather than data, to defend their work. Then there’s Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, who yesterday continued to make patently false job-creation claims to sell the administration’s radical environmental agenda. His timing was unerringly bad, as his statements came on heels of further evidence that two front-runners—California and Europe—are discovering that their “green” policies are producing more red (ink) and less green(backs).

It is not very often that scientists need to resort to crisis communications, but we’ll take it as further confirmation that the whole world of global warming has hit a crisis point. Among the strategies being considered figure taking out a back-page ad in the <ahref="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/">New York Times. What is of more than passing interest is the defensiveness with which these scientists have met criticism. One of them groused to the Times that climate scientists were facing nothing less than “<ahref="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/">well-funded, merciless enemies who play by entirely different rules.”

<spanid="more-28523"></span>The scientific method, like its close kin the Socratic dialogue, is supposed to rest, however, on the ability of posited theories to meet and survive constant challenges. And yet it is this type of gentle jousting that the climate scientists who are championing the theory of global warming appear often to try to avoid. To seek victory at all costs is more like politics, at least as it practiced in this day and age. It is paradoxical that climate scientists at the National Academy of Sciences actually complained that they were the victims of politicking, complaining to the Times they were “<ahref="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/mar/05/scientists-plot-to-hit-back-at-critics/">tired of being treated like political pawns.”

Then there’s Secretary Chu. According to the <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/03/09/09greenwire-doe-chief-urges-energy-leaders-to-accept-curbs-on-64.html">New York Times, he repeated on Tuesday the Obama administration narrative that there will not be jobs lost by enacting CO2 regulations and that by not enacting them, we prevent the U.S. from entering the global green economy.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, should we see these policies implemented, we could see <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/cda0904.cfm">GDP losses in the trillions. And the money for the green job subsidies, upon which Chu depends for his plan? That would come from money <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2795.cfm">taken away from hard working families and businesses in the form of taxes. It would be allocated by the government to less-efficient uses, causing even greater unemployment than the <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/05/morning-bell-so-hows-that-pivot-to-jobs-going/">9.7 % figure we are seeing now. A lesson <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/26/obama%e2%80%99s-green-jobs-plan-losing-jobs-through-efficiency-and-inefficiency/">Spain has learned the hard way.

As <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/02/a-european-jobs-strategy-that-isnt-even-hopeful/">Europe abandons its green jobs subsidies in light of daunting unemployment levels nearly double ours, <ahref="http://uk.news.yahoo.com/22/20100309/tpl-environment-us-climate-california-20b2d2f.html">just yesterday, the climate-conscientious state of California was brought face-to-face itself with the fact that its C02 emissions limiting laws would not bring the promised green jobs, but instead would shove the state further down the rabbit hole of unemployment, hitting recent-record levels.

In a <ahref="http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=12886">meeting in Menlo Park, CA last summer, Secretary Chu said, “At no other time in the history of science have we been able to say what the future will be 100 years from now.” This was prior <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/01/morning-bell-the-edifice-falls-2/">to flaws in global warming science being exposed nearly daily. One might expect a more modest tone and approach now but those who would create havoc with our economy in the name of stopping global warming press onward with their radical and economically debilitating mission.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…en-pr-machine/

On 03.10.10 01:30 PM posted by Conn Carroll

</p>There is no entity with closer ties to the Obama administration than the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). According to the <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/disclosures/visitor-records">White House visitor logs SEIU President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger visited the White House 58 times in 2009 alone, including 11 meetings with Obama and another with Vice President Biden.

The SEIU is popular in the White House because no other union is as politically active as the SEIU. Stern told the <ahref="http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/10/stern-unplugged-seiu-chief-labor-movement-and-card/">Las Vegas Sun, “We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama — $60.7 million to be exact — and we’re proud of it.” Indeed, right after the SEIU spent a fortune of their members’ money to elect Obama; they promptly fired 75 of their national field staff and organizers and redirected that money to <ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/18/AR2009031800709.html">“lobbying and communications in Washington to take advantage of Democrats’ ascendance.”<spanid="more-28477"></span>

But as the video above shows, while Stern and his lobbyists meet with Obama and other Washington leftists, they are losing ground in the rest of the country. <ahref="http://laborpains.org/2010/03/04/beating-the-competition-seiu-colors-cameramans-eye-purple/">In California, National Union of Healthcare Workers has been successfully beating the SEIU in elections and the SEIU is not happy about.

So the next time you hear some leftist rhetoric about how the <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm2764.cfm">Employee Free Choice Act is necessary to protect workers’ rights, ask yourself if you’d want this woman standing over you demanding you sign a card in support of joining a union, or whether you’d* prefer* express your opinion with the safety of a secret ballot.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…e-of-the-seiu/

On 03.10.10 01:31 PM posted by Nick Loris

Dale Klein, Commissioner and former chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) challenged the premise on which President Obama based his move to withdraw the application to permit the geologic repository at Yucca Mountain. At a conference in Bethesda, Maryland yesterday Commissioner Klein emphasized that it was politics, not science, which led to this decision. Klein said,

Frankly, I would have preferred the White House to plainly say that it was implementing a policy change. The president has the right and responsibility to set policy, and clearly, an issue of national importance and complexity such as this needs to be periodically revisited. However, in my opinion, the administration’s stated rationale for changing course does not seem to rest on factual findings and thus does not bolster the credibility of our government to handle this matter competently.”

Those who would distort the science of Yucca Mountain for political purposes should be reminded that it was a year ago today that the president issued his memorandum on scientific integrity, in which he stated that ‘The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions.’

I honestly cannot say if Yucca Mountain could ever meet the stringent tests that would allow it to be licensed. But I do know that, under the law, that licensing determination — and the technical evaluation of the science — is the NRC’s responsibility.”

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In a testimony last week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu asserted, “As these things go on, you are beginning to think, ‘Are you pouring good money after bad?

That may be the case but we’ll never know if the NRC is unable to fill its obligations to determine Yucca’s viability. No scientific or technological justification was given for pulling Yucca off the table as a possible solution. In fact, a 2006 U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works <ahref="http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:mqaHJu2KP8UJ:epw.senate.gov/repwhitepapers/YuccaMountainEPWReport.pdf+Yucca+and+the+most+stud ied+piece+of+earth+and+Inhofe&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&s rcid=ADGEESgddzo-SDS7KrLLB9p2Pv3WLUy13JF9lMMznIHpyQlcHgz48_wSu8Mf-D4G7ajBVA2moTqCQFZuJs7qi3phpOpn3-Os-e8CyrlKavpIUhuz1-Sy89QKu31Snd15IVUGVHibdySS&sig=AHIEtbTllZw_QQb1Oyg tnQIdpHW6Hwnbwg">report argues just the opposite: the repository is safe and technologically sound. Secretary Chu’s Blue Ribbon Commission to answer the question of what to do with America’s waste <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm2382.cfm">should not exclude Yucca Mountain as a potential solution.

It’s certainly possible Yucca Mountain is not the answer, but that decision should be left to the NRC, not President Obama and the Department of Energy. Research Fellow Jack Spencer <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2811.cfm">points out that “Nothing in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act authorizes the President or the Secretary of Energy to stop this process. Besides, given that a geologic repository will eventually be needed, the application process will provide the NRC, DOE, and the nuclear industry valuable information to inform future decision-making.”

President Obama’s decision on Yucca Mountain could have long-standing implications for the future of nuclear energy in the United States. Commissioner Klein should be applauded for stated what many believe to be true. Those who like to portray themselves as pro-nuclear should follow his lead and demand that the Administration allow the NRC to continue its review of the Yucca application so that the science can be settled once and for all.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/03/10/…ucca-decision/