Author: Heritage

On 02.18.10 02:44 PM posted by Nick Loris

A $5 billion stimulus program to weatherize homes is off to a shaky start. <ahref="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/stimulus-weatherization-jobs-president-obama-congress-recovery-act/story?id=9780935">ABC News reports that at the end of 2009, only 9,100 have been weatherized to save energy through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.* $522 million of the $5 billion has been spent thus far, which equates to over $57,000 per home. That’s quite a slow for a stimulus bill that was supposed to be timely and effective; the goal of the plan was to* cover 593,000 homes from the passage of the stimulus bill through 2012. That means they’re 1.5% of the way there towards meeting the goal. Only 98.5% to go!

The Department of Energy contests that 22,000 homes have been weatherized, but that still only equates to 3.7% of the targeted goal. What’s the problem? Everything, to start, but in this instance <ahref="http://abcnews.go.com/WN/Politics/stimulus-weatherization-jobs-president-obama-congress-recovery-act/story?id=9780935">it is the government’s red tape:

[T]he Recovery Act included so-called Davis-Bacon requirements for all weatherization grants. Davis-Bacon is a Depression-era law meant to ensure equitable pay for workers on federally funded projects. Under that law, the grants may only go to projects that pay a “prevailing wage” on par with private-sector employers.

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The Department of Labor spent most of the past year trying to determine the prevailing wage for weatherization work, a determination that had to be made for each of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States, according to the GAO report.

Secondly, many homes have to go through a National Historic Preservation Trust review before work can begin. The report quoted Michigan state officials as saying that 90 percent of the homes to be weatherized must go through that review process, but the state only has two employees in its historic preservation office.”

Texas Watchdog <ahref="http://www.texaswatchdog.org/2010/01/–hed-47-homes-retrofitted-37-mill-spent-under-texas/1264958630.story">detailed their state’s problem with the weatherization program two weeks ago noting that $3.7 million in taxpayer money had been spent to weatherize 47 homes.* That’s $78,000 per home,* which beats out the per home nationwide average by $21,000.

The other lesson from this is that one way to actually create jobs and make projects driven by the private sector more efficient is to streamline* regulatory barriers that unnecessarily prohibit the shovel from hitting the ground.

The <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/energyandenvironment/wm2245.cfm">stimulus was supposed to save or create jobs. Was it also supposed to be timely or effective? Which one does this fall under?

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…ome-for-57000/

On 02.18.10 03:00 PM posted by Morgan Roach

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/hillary091022.jpg"></p>In his inaugural address, President Obama vowed to reach out and engage with the international community including those nations hostile to the United States.* However, it is clear that Obama’s engagement with Iran has been nothing short of a failure.* In her recent remarks with the Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal, Secretary Clinton admitted that Iran “has failed to reciprocate.”* Instead, Iran announced <ahref="http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2010/02/136678.htm">that it will increase its enrichment capacity and produce twenty percent uranium.* The Obama administration is now preparing to move ahead on the sanctions front in its dual-tracked approach: engagement combined with multilateral pressure.* While Secretary Clinton visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia this past weekend, her deputy secretaries are traveling around the region in hopes of enlisting countries to put pressure on Iran to abandon its pursuit of nuclear weapons. James Steinberg will be traveling to Israel the week of February 21st; Jacob Lew headed this past weekend to Egypt, Israel and Jordan.* The State Department’s Under Secretary for political affairs, William Burns is also traveling to Syria and Lebanon, hoping to loosen the links between Damascus and Tehran.* Considering Syria is Iran’s closest ally in the region and Lebanon is expected to oppose sanctions against Iran, the hopes of achieving any sort of “crippling sanctions” against Iran’s nuclear ambitions are dim.<spanid="more-26746"></span>

In addition to seeking Arab support for Iranian sanctions, Secretary Clinton also took the opportunity to focus on Iran’s government and the Revolutionary Guard’s staggering increase in power.* Iran’s clerical leadership increasingly has been eclipsed by a military dictatorship.* The 125,000 strong force has amassed considerable wealth and reports directly to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.* Infamous for brutality and oppression, the revolutionary guard has imprisoned and killed hundreds of protesters since the June 2009 elections.* To make matters even worse, Ayatollah Khamenei is increasingly dependent on the Revolutionary Guard.* <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/iran/wm2509.cfm">According to Jim Phillips, Senior Research Fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at The Heritage Foundation, when Ahmadinejad came into office, as a former member of the Guard, he placed an estimated 10,000 loyalists, including many cronies from the Revolutionary Guards in critical positions throughout the state bureaucracies and revolutionary organs of the regime. This amounts to a slow-motion coup by the Revolutionary Guards.

When confronting Iran, the United States must take the extremely ruthless governance of Iran into consideration as well as how international pressure on eliminating Iran’s nuclear weapons program might affect the volatile political situation.* If the Obama administration has learned anything from its failed engagement from Iran, it is that Iran’s rulers are not to be trusted and action bearing considerable bite is necessary.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…ran-sanctions/

On 02.18.10 03:23 PM posted by Brian Riedl

For most of a century, macroeconomists have debated the pros and cons of government “stimulus” policies. Because there is no way to determine how the economy would have performed without a stimulus, the debate comes down to dueling economic models, assumptions, and theories. With Nobel Prize-winning economists lining up on both sides of the issue, the debate has seemed destined to continue. Apparently, that is, until now.

PolitiFact – a group of reporters affiliated with the St. Petersburg Times in Florida – has declared the debate over. <ahref="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/17/barack-obama/obama-says-stimulus-responsible-millions-jobs-save/">In a “fact check” column, they have declared from on high that the last stimulus bill successfully created or saved 1 million jobs so far, and will create or save 1 million more in 2010. End of debate, right?

Typically, fact-checking is limited to checking, well, verifiable facts. Whether the budget deficit is rising, how much Washington spends on Social Security, and what provisions are in the latest health care bill are not open to interpretation. They can be verified factually. <spanid="more-26794"></span>

Whether the economy would have performed better or worse without the President’s $862 billion stimulus is an analytical and theoretical argument. It is not a “fact” to be “checked.”

PolitiFact’s analysis displays a lack of understanding of the complexities of macroeconomic analysis. They cite as a “consensus” four studies claiming that the stimulus worked – yet those studies were all essentially Keynesian economic models, so of course they will declare that a Keynesian stimulus worked.

For example, PolitiFact cites a <ahref="http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/106xx/doc10682/11-30-ARRA.pdf">Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study claiming the stimulus saved (a middle estimate of) 1.5 million jobs. Yet CBO didn’t determine this from observing recent economic trends. Instead, they “proved” the stimulus created jobs by programming their economic model to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs – a classic example of the begging-the-question fallacy.

PolitiFact included no economic models from other schools of economic thought, such as supply-side or neoclassical. Nor did they consult the <ahref="http://www.cato.org/special/stimulus09/alternate_version.html">multitude of economists who have concluded that governments cannot spend their way out of recessions.

Instead, they openly dismiss the entire population of conservative economists, saying that “With the notable exception of conservatives, the independent economists who have produced studies agree that the stimulus has saved or created upwards of 1 million jobs, and that the bill will likely create another million or so jobs in 2010.” [emphasis added]

PolitiFact does quote the Heritage Foundation’s more critical view of the stimulus – and then dismisses it simply because it conflicts with the more liberal Moody’s Economy.com.

These macroeconomic debates are complex, technical, and messy. There is no verifiable way to determine how many jobs the stimulus has saved or created. PolitiFact’s reporters are free to believe the stimulus saved or created millions of jobs, but such an analysis belongs in an opinion editorial – not a fact check.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…s-debate-over/

On 02.18.10 07:30 AM posted by Kathryn Nix

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) recently introduced the “Roadmap for America’s Future”, a plan to reduce federal spending, pay off the national debt, and ensure future American prosperity.* The Roadmap would create long-term fiscal solvency in the three federal entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security—which otherwise promise to drive the nation into bankruptcy.* Rep. Ryan’s legislation is currently the only comprehensive proposal to reverse the federal government’s budgetary woes.

The only acknowledgment Democrats have offered of Rep. Ryan’s proposal has been largely criticism.* Alternative solutions heard from the left amount to little more than a weak executive-appointed committee to explore budget reform.* This implies a preference to maintain the status quo rather than truly address America’s fiscal future, and will result in nothing short of prolonged change and protection of unsustainable federal spending.

And what exactly is the status quo?* According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), without Rep. Ryan’s proposal, entitlement spending will more than double by 2050, reaching 18.1% of Gross Domestic Product.* If current tax rates are held constant, spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will consume all federal revenue by 2052, so that all other government programs and defense spending would be paid for by staggering deficit spending.* Social Security will experience red ink this year and will run permanent deficits beginning in 2016.* Under the current trajectory, total government spending will reach 67 percent of GDP by 2082.

Attacks have mainly focused on Rep. Ryan’s changes to Medicare, claiming they reduce benefits for seniors.* This argument dismisses the fact that, as the population ages, unfunded Medicare obligations threaten to drive the program into the ground.* This would clearly be detrimental to those who expect to receive benefits in old age, but would also cripple generations to come with insurmountable new debt.* Refusing to act is thus morally bankrupt on two levels: first, it promises aging Americans benefits which may not exist; second, it does so by piling debt onto future generations.

The Roadmap directs entitlements towards long-term solvency to ensure their existence for decades to come, recognizing that runaway spending cannot be reversed by tax hikes alone.* If entitlements are left untouched, CBO predicts tax rates would double to cover the cost.* By 2080, some Americans would pay up to 88 percent of their income in taxes, and even the lowest tax bracket would pay 25 percent.* William Gale of the Brookings Institute estimates new revenue sources, such as a value-added tax of 15 to 20 percent, would be necessary to close the budgetary gap. The economic ramifications of this level of taxation would be tremendous.

If President Obama’s 2011 budget is any indicator, Democrats will not get serious about spending any time soon.* The proposed budget will put the country $2.5 trillion further into debt by 2020 than would current law, leaving annual deficits above $1 trillion. This alone is irresponsible, but criticizing a solid proposal while offering no solutions of their own marks Roadmap opponents as the foe of a sustainable and economically viable future for America.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…9cno%e2%80%9d/

On 02.18.10 07:51 AM posted by Mike Brownfield

A discussion on the Stimulus – One Year later with Reps. Eric Cantor, *Shelley Moore Capito, Scott Garrett and Tom Rooney was held at The Heritage Foundation on Thursday, February 18. Viewers on Facebook asked questions of the speakers. The archived video will be here later in the day.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…tt-and-rooney/

On 02.18.10 09:00 AM posted by Rea Hederman

Liberals are trying to take a big victory lap today over the stimulus. They proudly proclaim that the stimulus created more than two million jobs. They base these findings on models that simply multiply government spending by a multiplier to produce the net growth to jobs and GDP. Digging a hole in the ground is good for the economy as long as the government is paying for it in these models.

Yes, the labor market has stabilized. Job losses are not as big, but job creation is slow and sluggish. Liberals can blame themselves, since businesses will delay hiring as long as possible due to the heavy-handed policies being tossed around in Washington. Businesses will be subjected to more regulation and higher costs as the government expands its reach into the private sector. And it’s not just policy wonks at think tanks that are worried about this. Key policymakers are concerned about the chill that Washington has thrown over the labor market.

Businesses are unable to calculate the price of labor, because businesses do not know which proposals will pass. Health care could still pass, which would bump up labor costs for many businesses. So right now, it is impossible for a business to calculate how much a worker will cost in a few months. Businesses will not hire until they know that an additional worker will be profitable.

Narayana R. Kocherlakota, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, worried about this point in a recent speech:

I see two areas of concern. First, there is a great deal of uncertainty related to major policy initiatives under consideration in Washington. Congress is considering proposals for enormous changes in health care and in the structure of financial regulation. These proposals have generated a great deal of uncertainty, for the capricious winds of politics seem to change them on a near-daily basis. As bankers, you know that too much uncertainty in a business plan makes for a risky loan. The same is true for the economy as a whole. I see this kind of political uncertainty as problematic for the prospects of rapid recovery.

Cross-posted at The Corner.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…tainty-factor/

On 02.18.10 09:30 AM posted by Charlotte Davis

Recent reports indicate that House and Senate leaders are considering using reconciliation as a means to pass Obamacare (again).* The reconciliation process is a fast-track way to bypass the normal legislative process and to speed up consideration (and passage) of such a bill.* And The Hill reports that there are political reasons to go with reconciliation: “reconciliation is enormously appealing to Democratic lawmakers and the White House because it would let them finish up health care reform by a simple majority in the upper chamber, where passing major bills usually requires 60 votes.”* Clearly the liberals want to use reconciliation because it is the easiest way to get a bill to the President’s desk before Easter.* But if they use it on Obamacare, then they will completely toss aside the letter and spirit of reconciliation rules.

Reconciliation is the last step in the annual budgeting process and is optional.* It was originally designed in the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 to affect permanent spending and revenue programs in order to promote deficit reduction.* Reconciliation instructions call for reduced spending or increased revenues, and in 1985 and 1986 these instructions were further clarified with the Byrd Rule, which allows Senators to raise a point of order against extraneous matter that is included in the reconciliation bill.* This new rule includes 6 criteria to determine if legislative language is “extraneous” or not, and they all serve to further protect the purpose of reconciliation: to reduce the deficit.

In order to enact the Byrd Rule, the following the process has to happen:
1)** *A Senator is recognized by the Presiding Officer and raises a point of order against extraneous matter in the reconciliation bill according to the Byrd Rule.
2)** *Then, the Presiding Officer, generally acting in accordance with the Parliamentarian’s ruling, either acknowledges the point of order and strikes the legislative language as extraneous, or denies the point of order, and allows the language to stay in.* Both motions can be done without debate.

Now let’s apply this process to Obamacare.* According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), “federal outlays for health care would increase during the 2010–2019 period, as would the federal budgetary commitment to health care” in the Senate and House bills.* The bills both commit the federal government to over $2 trillion in spending.* Clearly, adding Obamacare to a reconciliation process would be quite contrary to the spirit of reconciliation (to reduce the deficit).

Normally rulings such as whether a point of order stands is done by the Senate parliamentarian, and enforced by the Senator acting as Presiding Officer.* But there is no rule against bucking the parliamentarian, assuming the parliamentarian follows the letter of the rule.* In fact, because the Vice President is the President of the Senate, he can reside as Presiding Officer himself and rule the legislative provisions of Obamacare in order, and leave the only recourse for Republicans to be to appeal the ruling of the chair.

Reconciliation was not intended to be the procedure of last resort when other means fail, and to do so would be a complete abuse of reconciliation rules.** Some may bring up other examples of massive legislation passed through reconciliation bills as proof that using reconciliation bills to explode government spending is okay, but past instances of wrongdoing does not make it acceptable to add $2 trillion dollars worth of health care spending acceptable for a bill that is supposed to reduce the deficit.* In this time of trillion dollar deficits, is nothing sacred?* Even the one bill that is tasked with decreasing the deficit?

But there is hope for conservatives.* The aforementioned Hill article quotes former Senate Parliamentarian Bob Dove on a recent Galen Institute conference call where Dove argued that health care reform and reconciliation are a bad mix. Dove explained that the reconciliation “process is not designed to do a lot of policy making and it would be very difficult to achieve a number of things that people want to achieve” in the health care reform legislation.* He points out that the reconciliation process does not limit amendments, leaving an opportunity for conservatives to delay passage by offering slews of amendments.* So, while the majority party may be able to control what language is allowed in the bill or amendments, the minority may still have a chance to delay passage with a strategic amendment strategy.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…-mix%e2%80%9d/

On 02.18.10 10:00 AM posted by Brandon Stewart

Just last week Congress revived PAYGO legislation which is supposed to force legislators to offset any new spending with spending cuts elsewhere in the budget. While this won’t come as a shock to most Foundry readers, The Hill reports that “the ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda.”

The problem with PAYGO is not its intent–serious efforts to reduce the deficit should be met with genuine interest by all conservatives–the problem is its inevitable implementation. PAYGO has unfortunately always been a gimmick. Heritage analyst Brian Reidl explained the main problems this summer when the President first announced his intention to revive PAYGO:

1) PAYGO has never been enforced

• During the 1991-2002 round of statutory PAYGO, Congress and the President still added more than $700 billion to the budget deficit and simply cancelled every single sequestration that would have enforced PAYGO. Even if Congress had wanted to enforce PAYGO during that period, they had already exempted 97% of all entitlement spending from sequestration cuts. It was basically designed to fail.
• Since the 2007 creation of the PAYGO rule, Congress has waived it numerous times in order to add*$600 billion to the deficit. In fact, the entire “stimulus” bill violated PAYGO; Congress simply ignored the rule.

2) PAYGO’s design is flawed

• PAYGO exempts all discretionary spending, and would also allow all current entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to continue growing on autopilot. It affects only new entitlements or tax cuts that may be created in the future.
• Even if PAYGO were fully enforced, entitlement spending would still grow 6 percent annually, and discretionary spending could grow without limit.

In addition to the exemptions for discretionary and most entitlement spending that Brian mentions above, there are also exemptions for anything deemed to be “emergency” spending. Indeed, last year’s “stimulus” bill was so labeled and was exempted from being offset by spending cuts. In short, those who claim, as President Obama has, that PAYGO means that “Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere” are kidding themselves.

This is perhaps the worst feature of PAYGO: it gives cover to politicians who can claim to be addressing our government’s addiction to spending, while exempting seemingly every new spending bill from these requirements.As Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, has put it, it’s like “quitting drinking, but making an exception for beer and hard liquor.”After so much reckless spending, only real efforts at fiscal discipline—which has to include tackling our growing deficits and entitlement programs—will signal to the American public that our representatives are serious about this issue.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…ak-paygo-rule/

On 02.18.10 11:00 AM posted by Sally McNamara

The EU’s appointment of João Vale de Almeida as the new EU Ambassador to Washington confirms European Commission president José Manuel Barroso’s tightening grip on Brussels’ foreign policy levers.

Virtually-unknown on the international stage, Vale de Almeida has been Barroso’s head of cabinet for the past five years, and intimately associated with the creation of the EU’s new diplomatic corps, the European External Action Service (EEAS). The fact that someone so closely associated with the set-up of this new diplomatic corps should land such a plum role in it, would be considered a conflict of interest by any other organization, save the EU.

Vale de Almeida has all the essential qualifications that Brussels requires: he is a quintessential EU bureaucrat, whose advancement of ever-closer-union is unquestionable. And his loyalty to the unelected and unaccountable European Commission, especially Barroso, is certain.

However, foreign policymaking should now be the purview of the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Catherine Ashton, who should answer directly to the member states through the European Council. The British Government repeatedly claimed that the Lisbon Treaty was nothing more than a tidying-up exercise, and that foreign policy would not be supranationalized.

In less than three months, the Lisbon Treaty has made a farce of the claim that foreign policy remains the responsibility of member states. Ashton herself is a Vice-President of the European Commission and has chosen to base herself in the Commission’s Berlaymont building. Her less than stellar resume and awkward performance before the European Parliamentary confirmation hearings has left her completely reliant on Commission bureaucrats to guide the development of the EEAS and the Common Foreign and Security Policy, ensuring that power goes further toward Brussels, and further away from member states. And with Vale de Almeida’s appointment, there is little doubt that arch-federalist Barroso will tighten his stealthy control over the EU’s foreign policy making machine.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…oreign-policy/

On 02.18.10 11:30 AM posted by Thomas DeCaro

According to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her biggest nightmare is if al-Qaeda or regimes like Iran get their hands on a weapon of mass destruction and use it against us.* She is not alone. Military experts like the former head of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lt. Gen. Henry “Trey” Obering, say that it would take, at most, only about 33 minutes for a missile fired anywhere in the world to hit our country, and life in America would change forever.

So what are we doing to prevent this nightmare?* Thankfully, the military is continuing to test missile defenses, even though the Obama administration cut back on some of the programs that would best protect us.* Locally, law enforcement agencies like the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department are taking on initiatives such as sending explosive experts to screen incoming ships and using helicopters to scan for weapons of mass destruction materials.

Cargo screening is helpful, but not enough. As Heritage Foundation analysts Jena Baker McNeil and Jessica Zuckerman explain, the 100 percent cargo screening mandate from Congress should be scrapped.* It’s excessively costly, provides a false sense of security, and is harming America’s relationship with its international trading partners and allies.

Instead, the federal government should expand efforts like the Container Security Initiative and the Proliferation Security Initiative.* These programs that target high-risk cargo, encourage private sector involvement, and urge other nations to partner with us to prevent terrorists from smuggling chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons materials into the United States.

This strategy is urgent, as recent reports by the congressionally mandated Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack have made clear.

Effective homeland security initiatives, alongside a robust comprehensive missile defense program, are vital for our security, and needed soon if leaders like Secretary Clinton hope to get a good night’s sleep.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…sile-defenses/

On 02.18.10 11:30 AM posted by Audrey Jones

Despite claims that the theory of global warming is “irrefutable,” the science behind this theory is now being called into question.* Al Gore and all the others who wanted the world to take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) report as untouchable science now have a problem as reports of flaws in both the methods and the data keep on coming.

The Washington Post laid out yesterday multiple flaws in the IPCC report. *These include everything from misreporting critical dates, sloppy sourcing—including the use of anecdotal evidence from*mountain climbers and a student’s dissertation – to the erroneous assertion that 55% of the Netherlands is below sea levels, when only 26% of the country is.* Among the many travesties is that the Environmental Protection Agency used the IPCC to justify its*recent ruling on CO2 emissions posing a danger.

And on that same day, the very scientist at the center of the “Climategate” affair,*Phil Jones admitted to the UK’s Daily Mail that he has lost track of his data and that his lack of organization has made him reluctant to share his data with critics.* So much for the scientific method.

Oh, and Jones also admitted that in the past 15 years there has not been any “statistically significant” global warming.* This is the irrefutable evidence of global warming?

As Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK) and John Barrasso (R-WY) have pointed out, these errors are all the more reason to re-examine the evidence and block the mandatory CO2 limits the White House is pushing in the American people.* While errors do not disprove a theory, neither does sloppy research buttress a hypothesis, especially when the results could cost our economy millions of lost jobs,* our families thousands in disposable income, and our competitive standing in the world.

More than just the integrity of the world’s scientific community is at stake. So is our freedom and economic survival.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…o-irrefutable/

On 02.18.10 12:00 PM posted by Ray Walser

Efforts by the Obama Administration to work with Russia on Iran, nuclear arms control, and the fight against terrorism do not prevent Moscow from periodically reasserting its presence in the Western Hemisphere.

Between February 10 and 16, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov conducted a New World tour seeking deeper ties with the region, underscoring Russia’s readiness to talk trade, sell arms, and compete for influence with the U.S.

In Cuba, Lavrov and his Communist hosts fondly celebrated the memory of the Havana-Moscow alliance ["five decades of brotherhood"] stretching from before the Cuban Missile Crisis to end of the Soviet Union.* The Russians and Cubans promised joint actions on energy, transportation, engineering, and bio-pharmaceuticals and a revival.* Russia views Cuba as a convenient launching pad for further forays into the Americas, particularly for stronger ties with the left-leaning, anti-American Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) forged by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Lavrov’s visit to Nicaragua was certainly a thank-you to President Daniel Ortega for his rogue recognition of the faux “independence” of breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia. These secessionist territories are integral parts of Georgia, Russia’s democratic neighbor.* Lavrov played upon ties dating back to days when Ortega’s Marxist-Leninist Sandinista Party was a major Soviet client.

While normally off the track of Russian diplomacy and for decades a fierce bastion of anti-communism, Guatemala — beset by a host of woes ranging from drought to drug cartels – seeks help from virtually any quarter.

Finally in Mexico, the last stop on Lavrov’s Latin American tour, discussions touched on a wide range of issues from trade and financial links between G-20 members to potential arms sales to Mexico for the anti-drug cartel fight.

The Kremlin senses that the Obama Administration is neglecting its neighbors to the South and nostalgically remembers the Soviet imperialist policies in the Western hemisphere. While Russia is a shadow of its former self militarily, it still is capable of making mischief with the like of Hugo Chavez and his “Bolivarian” allies. Lavrov may have characterized his visits as reflections of pragmatic, commercially- oriented policy, but Russia’s top diplomat made it clear his nation intends to be a strategic player in the Americas.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…-the-americas/

On 02.18.10 12:30 PM posted by Andrew Odell

Continuing the wide-ranging assault on the Supreme Court’s First Amendment decision in the Citizens United case, The Washington Post claims that a poll the newspaper conducted in conjunction with ABC News shows that “Americans of both parties overwhelmingly oppose” the outcome. Cataloging the so-called “strong reservoir of bipartisan support,” the story suggests that already-promised legislative proposals aimed at curtailing the decision will be met with public accolades. But the Washington Post, and indeed virtually all of the critics of Citizens United, continue to recycle the same tired talking points, none of which withstand any rational scrutiny of the facts. Congress should be wary of this so-called “bipartisan support” for congressional action, as it is based on false reporting of the Supreme Court’s ruling, which restored First Amendment rights to engage in political speech and political association.

The Washington Post erroneously asked respondents if they supported or opposed “the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that says corporations and unions can spend as much money as they want to help political candidates win elections.” Eighty percent responded that they were strongly opposed to that mythical decision, one that does not even exist. As Hans von Spakovsky, Senior Legal Fellow at The Heritage Foundation Heritage and a former commissioner on the Federal Elections Commission, has pointed out, the Supreme Court “did not touch the ban on direct [corporate] contributions to federal candidates,” which “remains in force today.”

The Citizens United decision merely removed the ban on independent political advocacy by corporations and other similar entities, including a provision of federal law that banned merely mentioning a federal candidate’s name in a broadcast advertisement during a certain time period—even if the ad was solely about an issue before Congress, and not intended to affect an election. A corporation desiring to contribute directly to political candidates cannot do so except through a political action committee that is funded by voluntary contributions from corporate management in compliance with an extensive regulatory scheme that the Court left untouched. Thus, the highly self-interested Washington Post finds overwhelming opposition on the basis of a misleading question that misrepresents the core of the Court’s decision in Citizens United. How difficult would it have been for the newspaper to use an accurate question, such as asking whether respondents agreed with “the recent ruling by the Supreme Court that says corporations and unions can spend money on independent political advocacy, but cannot contribute directly to political candidates?”

The poll also found that 72% of respondents strongly supported the “[reinstatement of] limits on corporate and union spending on election campaigns.” But this poll question is also tainted by the assumption that the Court allowed unlimited direct contributions to political campaigns. Thus, “overwhelming popular support” turns out to have been generated by another misleading question that does not distinguish between direct contributions to candidates and independent spending for advocacy. The Washington Post’s motives for such deception should be obvious. Under current campaign finance law, media outlets owned by corporations are granted an exemption from the ban on corporate political speech. The Washington Post must find “bipartisan support” for restrictions on corporate political speech to maintain its own monopoly on corporate political speech.

Some of the proposals being formulated also present serious constitutional issues, as explained in new research authored by von Spakovsky. Congress should be wary of allowing skewed data from biased and self-interested polls to unduly influence their position on legislative proposals that would roll back this decision. Accordingly, Congress should resist the temptation to replace careful consideration and deliberation with a blind acceptance of so-called popular opinion. And whether the polls are accurate or not, Congress should not interfere with the right to engage in political speech and to freely associate, two of the most basic and fundamental rights we enjoy under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/18/…ited-decision/

On 02.17.10 08:33 AM posted by Derek Scissors, Ph.D.

The headlines should read: World Didn’t End! Sub-head: We didn’t know what we were talking about.

The data for official Chinese purchases of Treasury bonds in 2009 were published yesterday. Verdict: the PRC bought practically nothing. In 2008, official Chinese purchases of US Treasury bonds were equal in size to half our federal budget deficit. Last year they were equal to 2%. That’s not a typo, that’s a ‘2′.

According to the “China is our banker!” hysteria, our interest rates should be soaring. Of course, they aren’t.

The whole idea of China’s financial grip over us is a fiction, and has been from the beginning.

Yes, there is a huge issue here. But it’s us, not China. We’re mortgaging our future because the President and Congress want a government hand in every aspect of business. We can finance our huge deficit without too much trouble, and in 10 years we’ll be very sorry that we could.

China’s purchases of our bonds are not important and never have been. What matters is our elected officials are acting to ruin the economy. Fix our problems first and worry about China second.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…ies-who-cares/

On 02.17.10 09:00 AM posted by Jena McNeill

The Department of Homeland Security recently published a report on the total population of illegal immigrants in the U.S. *The conclusion: the overall illegal immigrant population decreased from 11.6 million to 10.8 million in 2008, down further from 11.8 million in 2007.

As both the DHS report and an earlier report by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) indicate, this decline in illegal immigrant numbers within the U.S. coincides directly with the recent economic downturn and increased enforcement measures to encourage illegal immigrants to go home in 2005-2008.* *Facing economic challenges and decreased incentives to stay in the U.S., illegal immigrants have seemingly self-deported, indicating that lessening the economic incentives to illegal immigration presents one avenue for solving America’s immigration problem. In fact, according to the same CIS report, the number of illegal immigrants voluntarily returning home has more than doubled since 2007, compared to earlier in the decade.

The Obama Administration is likely to say that the U.S. needs to act quickly to monopolize on the decreased numbers of illegal immigrants living in the U.S.* Their solution, however, would be an amnesty for the 10.8 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.* This approach, however, is costly and simply encourages more folks to come to the United States illegally—the entirely wrong result. The right reform package would be one that that safeguards the southern border, promotes economic development and good governance in Latin America, enhances legal worker programs, reforms U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), and enforces immigration and workplace laws.

The Obama Administration is right—the time to act is now. *When employment picks up again, illegal immigration is likely to begin to increase once more.* Now is the time to develop and implement sound steps in countering illegal immigration and protecting our nation’s borders—not developing amnesty proposals which would simply make the problem worse.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…ration-reform/

On 02.17.10 09:14 AM posted by Nick Loris

If the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change credibility has been taking hit after hit as several flaws were recently revealed in its 2007 report – the same report our politicians use to justify urgent action on climate change. The IPCC’s statement of principles reads, “IPCC reports should be neutral with respect to policy, but its claims that the Himalayan glaciers would be melted by 2035 were admittedly based on political action. Dr Murari Lal, the lead author on the IPCC report’s chapter on Asia, said,

We thought that if we can highlight it, it will impact policy-makers and politicians and encourage them to take some concrete action.”

But the problems go way beyond the IPCC report. In a new documentary, “Global Warming: The Other Side,” Weather Channel founder John Coleman not only debunks some of the common myths of global warming but also exposes more of the deception behind the manipulation of weather data.

In part 4 of the documentary, Coleman interviews computer programmer E. Michael Smith and Certified Consulting Meteorologist Joseph D’Aleo and discusses how the National Climatic Data Center dropped thousands of data points from its climate data set – data points that were in cooler regions around the globe. The NCDC compares a baseline of 6,000 data points from 1950-1980 to about 1,500 points by 1990. Russians blamed the scandal-laden Climate Research Unit (CRU) for doing the same. But corporations and politicians have become so entrenched in this debate it might not matter says George Mason economist Walter Williams:

Vested economic and political interests have emerged where trillions of dollars and social control are at stake. Therefore, many people who recognize the scientific fraud underlying global warming claims are likely to defend it anyway. Automobile companies have invested billions in research and investment in producing “green cars.” General Electric and Phillips have spent millions lobbying Congress to outlaw incandescent bulbs so that they can force us to buy costly compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL). Farmers and ethanol manufacturers have gotten Congress to enact laws mandating greater use of their product, not to mention massive subsidies. Thousands of major corporations around the world have taken steps to reduce carbon emissions including giants like IBM, Nike, Coca-Cola and BP, the oil giant. Companies like Google, Yahoo and Dell have vowed to become “carbon neutral.”

Then there’s Chicago Climate Futures Exchange that plans to trade in billions of dollars of greenhouse gas emission allowances. Corporate America and labor unions, as well as their international counterparts have a huge multi-trillion dollar financial stake in the perpetuation of the global warming fraud. Federal, state and local agencies have spent billions of dollars and created millions of jobs to deal with one aspect or another of global warming. It’s deeper than just money. Schoolteachers have created polar-bear-dying lectures to frighten and indoctrinate our children when in fact there are more polar bears now than in 1950. They’ve taught children about melting glaciers.”

Now it seems large corporations are jumping ship. BP, ConocoPhillips and Caterpillar all left the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (US CAP), a coalition of business and environmentalists that support legislation to reduce greenhouse gases such as cap and trade. With trillions of dollars on the table and up for grabs, corporations worked hard for a seat at that table in search of corporate welfare at the expense of the consumer. It’s no surprise 2009 was a record year for lobbying on energy issues.

Heritage Senior Policy Analyst David Kreutzer has a solution that would benefit business and its consumers, “Stricter rules on lobbying can change the form the lobbying takes (indeed the numbers above only reflect official use of registered lobbyists), but reducing government control of the economy reduces the root cause of the lobbying and is the one solution to controlling the growth of rent-seekers and their mouthpieces on K Street.”

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…to-do-with-it/

On 02.17.10 10:00 AM posted by Brian Riedl

President Obama says he wants to reduce America’s record trillion-dollar deficits. Too bad he hasn’t even correctly diagnosed their cause.

During his State of the Union Address, the president asserted: “At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription-drug program.”

In other words, it’s President George W. Bush’s fault.

This can’t be true. Mr. Bush implemented the three policies mentioned by Mr. Obama in the early 2000s. Yet by 2007 — the last year before the recession — the budget deficit stood at only $161 billion. So how could those policies cause trillion-dollar deficits from 2009 through 2020?

Let’s unpack Mr. Obama’s claim.

His methodology measures the combined cost of the three policies against a “budget baseline” — a snapshot of what the budget would look like for the next decade if today’s tax and spending policies are maintained. Think of the budget baseline as the do-nothing default option.

The first problem is the president’s baseline deficit of “$8 trillion over the next decade.” This likely refers to the 10-year, $8.9 trillion deficit in the White House’s budget baseline last year.

Yet this baseline contained numerous questionable assumptions. It assumed that spending in Iraq and Afghanistan would continue growing forever, while spending on regular discretionary programs (which has doubled over the past decade) would slow to approximately 2 percent annual growth for most of the decade.

The baseline also incorporated provisions of Mr. Obama’s own stimulus bill that had already been enacted — deficit spending that he obviously didn’t inherit from his predecessor. Thus, the $8 trillion baseline deficit figure is not credible.

And that’s not all. By writing a baseline that assumes spending in Iraq and Afghanistan would continue growing forever (which was never U.S. policy), the president overstates the “inherited cost” of these wars over the next decade by $1 trillion. In reality, troop pullouts will drastically reduce the impact of Iraq and Afghanistan on future budget deficits.

Overall, the president’s data contains too many dubious assumptions to be useful.

So how much of the deficit is really caused by the tax cuts, war spending and Medicare prescription-drug entitlement?
One easy method is to begin with a more realistic budget baseline, using data from the more neutral Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Maintaining today’s tax and spending policies (and assuming a gradual troop drawdown in Iraq and Afghanistan) would, using CBO data, bring $13 trillion in deficits over the next decade.

Compare that to the 10-year cost of the tax cuts ($3 trillion), Medicare prescription-drug entitlement ($1 trillion) and Iraq and Afghanistan spending (approximately $600 billion, again assuming a gradual troop drawdown). This adds up to $4.6 trillion, or just over one-third of the $13 trillion in baseline deficits.

This contradicts the president’s claim that most of the deficits result from those three policies.

Even this methodology does not tell the whole story. After all, if Washington collects $3 trillion in taxes and spends $4 trillion, who’s to say which of the spending programs “caused” the resulting $1 trillion deficit? One could pinpoint any $1 trillion group of spending programs and blame them for the budget deficit.

A better way to diagnose the cause of long-term deficits is to measure taxes and spending against their historical averages. This more comprehensive methodology shows that long-term deficits are overwhelmingly driven by runaway entitlement spending.

By 2020, the CBO-based budget baseline projects that federal spending will reach 26.0 percent of the economy (5.3 percent of the economy above the 40-year spending average). Revenues will settle at 17.7 percent of the economy (just 0.6 percent of the economy below the revenue average) — and even that assumes all tax cuts are extended.

So as deficits expand by 5.9 percent of the economy, nearly 90 percent of the growth will come from higher-than-average spending, and just over 10 percent from lower-than-average revenues.

Virtually all of this new spending will come from surging Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs (driven primarily by 77 million retiring baby boomers), as well as net interest on the national debt. These four expenditures will cost $26 trillion over the next decade — surging from $1.6 trillion this year to $3.6 trillion in 2020. That is causing the massive budget deficits over the next decade — and must be the focus of any serious effort to reduce the budget deficit.

Finally, there is some hypocrisy at work. Mr. Obama criticizes Mr. Bush for “not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription-drug program.” Yet he would extend $3.9 trillion of these policies (while repealing $700 billion in tax cuts) without paying for them, either. By his own logic, he’s almost as irresponsible as Mr. Bush.

Cross-posted from The Washington Times

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…e-of-deficits/

On 02.17.10 11:14 AM posted by Brandon Stewart

Following the lead of a handful of other states, the Virginia House yesterday passed a bill by an 82–13 margin that would require all state agencies, public contractors and Virginia-based employers with 15 or more employees to ensure that any potential hires are eligible to work in the United States.

The bill would require employers to use the Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify system, a joint project between DHS and the Social Security Administration. The online system allows employers to check information from a new hire’s I-9 form against the government’s records. The program removes the major incentive for illegal immigration—the prospect of employment—while rewarding legal workers. As we reported this fall, the costs per search are typically low and roughly 97% of all workers are approved instantly.

Heritage has supported the use of verification systems, like E-Verify, that allow employers to enforce immigration law with an easy, inexpensive, and real-time solution. It is likely that other states will adopt similar laws as word of the program’s success spreads.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…n-in-virginia/

On 02.17.10 12:29 PM posted by Conn Carroll

Today at 2:30 PM at the Collingwood Library and Museum portion of George Washington’s original Mount Vernon estate, a Who’s Who of the conservative movement’s leaders unveiled and signed The Mount Vernon Statement: a document defining the movement’s principles, beliefs and values in light of the challenges facing the country. The full statement is below, and you can add your name in support here.

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The selfevident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.
A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.
A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

• It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
• It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
• It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in market solutions.
• It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
• It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose.

We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

February 17, 2010

Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation

Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council

Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy

Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center

Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator

David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union

David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society

T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan

Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform

William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government

Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness

Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com

Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority

Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…non-statement/

On 02.17.10 01:00 PM posted by Matt Mayer

On February 2nd, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Congress that the military needs no additional C-17 aircraft and that the production line should be shut down in 2011.* His testimony drew bipartisan criticism from several senators, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).* Senator McCaskill protested “we keep hearing…this is something that the military doesn’t want.… Then I go over there [to Afghanistan and Iraq], and that’s not their attitude at all.” *Sen. Inhofe added that he believes America’s airlift capacity is in “dire straits,” and that it is a travesty America’s airmen are still flying old C-130E models, despite persistent engine troubles.

Congress has so far resisted this Administration’s and previous attempts to terminate the C-17 program, arguing rightly that it is a vital platform with much-needed capabilities relevant to both today’s battlefields and humanitarian crisis response operations. *The aircraft is designed to deliver heavy cargo onto short and or semi-prepared runways.* This unique capability is crucial to current humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti, where airports have been severely damaged by the recent earthquake.* The lift capabilities of this aircraft have also added value in Afghanistan, which lacks sophisticated infrastructure.

In Haiti, the Air Force has chosen, in the words of Senator McCaskill, to fly “the reliable, easy-to-land on short runways, load-’em-up, get-’em-out, cheaper-to-fly C-17” rather than the older C-5 plane.* Since the earthquake, over 40 C-17s have flown airport equipment, communications infrastructure, and humanitarian relief to the country. *It was the Air Force’s platform of choice in an environment with overcrowded and damaged runways where tactical as well as strategic capabilities were required. *Terminating the country’s only remaining wide-bodied cargo aircraft production line that supplies the carrier the Air Force trusts most in hazardous environments is imprudent and unwise.

Secretary Gates stated during the same hearing that of 204,000 landings for strategic lift since 1997, only 4 percent have been at airfields that a C-5 could not access, and half of those were in Iraq. *Four percent may sound low, but it equates to over 8,000 landings that required the C-17 aircraft, or over 4,000 in Iraq alone. Senator McCaskill cautioned in response that just as many airstrips in Iraq were more suitable for landing the C-17. *The escalating situation in Afghanistan—which has even less developed infrastructure than Iraq does—may similarly be more suitable for C-17 landings, and the Air Force should be adequately resourced to respond to the nation’s demands with ease.

Secretary Gates acknowledged that the time is approaching to retire the oldest C-5s. *If given the opportunity by Congress, the Pentagon will eagerly do so. *But without the ability to purchase more C-17 aircraft, the Air Force may face a dilemma: an increasing need for strategic airlift capabilities in precarious and constraining environments, and a decreasing number of ways to meet ongoing requirements.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/17/…-c-17-program/