Author: Heritage

On 02.02.10 12:00 PM posted by Kathryn Nix

Fiscal reform has become a hot topic in Washington as spending hits all-time highs and Congress and the President continue to push several new high-ticket items closer to law.* Lawmakers and concerned citizens alike are shifting focus to the looming fiscal crisis that will be caused by from entitlement spending on the Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs.* But for Social Security, that red ink isn’t so far off in the future—in fact, it’s scheduled to arrive in 2010.

<ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020103345_pf.html">In the Washington Post, business columnist Allan Sloan highlights a report from the Congressional Budge Office (CBO) which confirms that in 2010, Social Security outlays will exceed revenue for the first time in 25 years.* The CBO report shows that Social Security will earn $120 billion in interest on its trust fund, which would seem to cover its $92 billion surplus.* Not so.* As Sloan explains, the interest does not constitute funds with which to pay benefits.* It is nothing more than IOUs from the Treasury.

The CBO report shows decreased deficits for 2011 and 2012, with Social Security breaking even thereafter.* But as <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/wm2632.cfm">The Heritage Foundation has warned, by 2016 Social Security will begin running permanent deficits.<spanid="more-25410"></span>

This latest twist on Social Security’s financial shortcomings is attributable to the recent economic downturn.* Revenues dwindled as Americans lost their jobs, reducing tax collections.* This effect is compounded by the greater number of Americans forced into early retirement and newly dependent on the Social Security program.

Social Security benefits will not be reduced in response to the deficit.* Rather, taxpayers will make up the difference, via aid from the Treasury, in order to keep benefits checks from bouncing.* The early arrival of the need for a Social Security bailout should serve as a severe reminder to the Obama Administration that entitlement reform is needed now to ensure a sustainable economic future for the country.* And yet, the President’s recently published 2011 Budget does nothing to address this growing problem.* <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html?hp">Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue to eat up a major portion of federal funds with no serious reform efforts in sight.

<ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/SocialSecurity/wm2632.cfm">According to Heritage expert David C. John, there are ways in which Congress and the President could provide short-term solutions to fix Social Security.* These include reducing benefits, increasing retirement savings, and raising taxes.* The first two solutions are the most promising, but would not immediately produce reversals in spending as such changes would have to be phased in, since it would be infeasible to change benefit structure for current retirees or those close to retirement.* As for the last idea, politicians should steer clear of raising taxes to cover short-term Social Security deficits, as this merely delays more substantial change and is an insufficient long-term solution.

<ahref="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020103345_pf.html">As Sloan writes, “Until this year, Social Security was a problem for the future.* Now it’s a problem for the present.”* Hopefully the President gets the message and pursues the necessary measures to properly address this event.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…begin-in-2010/

On 02.02.10 01:00 PM posted by Dan Lips

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Child-Care100126.jpg"><imgsrc="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/Child-Care100126.jpg" alt="" title="Child-Care100126" width="300" height="350" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-24666" /></p>Credit the Pittsburgh Tribune Review for being one of the nation’s first newspapers to editorialize about <ahref="http://wwwheritage.org/Research/Education/bg2363.cfm http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2363.cfm">last month’s national Head Start evaluation, which found that the program provided children with zero lasting benefits.

They editors <ahref="http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_664746.html#">write: “That it took the feds more than 40 years for a proper analysis suggests it’s the spending that matters, not results. And yet Congress is moving ahead to increase early childhood education programs with $8 billion in new spending. Mr. Obama has said, repeatedly, that federal programs without benefit should be dumped. Well, Mr. President, here’s one.”

Yet most national media outlets continue to ignore this story. The evaluation—the most rigorous evaluation of one of the nation’s largest and long-standing “war on poverty” education programs which has received $167 billion since 1965—has still not been covered by the USA Today, The Washington Post, The New York Times, or The Wall Street Journal.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…ng-evaluation/

On 02.02.10 06:17 AM posted by Brandon Stewart

The Washington Post reports that the Virginia Senate passed a measure yesterday that that would prohibit the imposition of the individual mandate — a feature of both the current House and Senate health care bills. Besides being the first state to adopt such a measure, it is especially remarkable coming out of the Virginia Senate, where Democrats hold the majority. As The Post reports, the measure came “less than a week after President Obama implored Democrats in Washington not to abandon their health-care efforts” during the State of the Union.

According to another story in the*Associated Press, an increasing number of state legislatures have begun considering such legislation. The individual mandate — which would force all U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance — has outraged many Americans and has led to a public backlash against the proposal.

According to the AP:

Lawmakers in 35 states have filed or proposed amendments to their state constitutions*or statutes rejecting health insurance mandates, according to the*American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit group that promotes limited government that is helping coordinate the efforts. Many of those proposals are targeted for the November ballot, assuring that health care remains a hot topic as hundreds of federal and state lawmakers face re-election.

…

Supporters of the state measures portray them as a way of defending individual rights and state sovereignty, asserting that the federal government has no authority to tell states and their citizens to buy health insurance.

“I think the alarm bell has been rung,” said*Clint Bolick, the constitutional litigation director at the*Goldwater Institute*in Phoenix, which helped craft an Arizona amendment on this November’s ballot that has been used as a model in other states.

“These amendments are a way to manifest grass roots opposition” to*federal health insurance*mandates, Bolick said. “They kind of have a life of their own at this point. So while some of the pressure may be off, I think that this movement has legs.”

There is some discussion as to whether these measures, even if adopted, will have much effect if Congress manages to pass a health care bill with an individual mandate.

“They are merely symbolic gestures,” said Michael Dorf, a*constitutional law professor*at Cornell University. “If this Congress were to pass an individual mandate, and if it is constitutional — which I believe it is — the express rule under the*supremacy clause*(of the*U.S. Constitution) is that the federal law prevails.”

However, as Professor Dorf points out, whether these measures are symbolic or not hinges on whether a federal mandate is Constitutional, something about which Heritage has serious doubts. Regardless of whether these measures turn out to have teeth or not, they are yet another sign of the anger many Americans have towards Obamacare. A sign that the President and Congressional leaders would be wise not to ignore.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…idual-mandate/

On 02.02.10 06:25 AM posted by Conn Carroll

Last Friday, President Barack Obama accepted an invitation from House Republicans to speak and answer questions at the Republican House Issues Conference. During the Q&A period, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)*pressed the President: The spending bills that you’ve signed into law, the domestic discretionary spending has been increased by 84 percent. You now want to freeze spending at this elevated level beginning next year. … So my question is, why not start freezing spending now?”

President Obama replied: “The fact of the matter is, is that most of the increases in this year’s budget, this past year’s budget, were not as a consequence of policies that we initiated but instead were built in as a consequence of the automatic stabilizers that kick in because of this enormous recession. So the increase in the budget for this past year was actually predicted before I was even sworn into office and had initiated any policies. … Now, the reason that I’m not proposing the discretionary freeze take into effect this year — we prepared a budget for 2010, it’s now going forward — is, again, I am just listening to the consensus among people who know the economy best. And what they will say is that if you either increase taxes or significantly lowered spending when the economy remains somewhat fragile, that that would have a de-stimulative effect and potentially you’d see a lot of folks losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs. That would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off.”

First of all, note that the President never contradicted Rep. Ryan’s factual claim that discretionary spending under President Obama has increased 84%. But more importantly, notice how eagerly the President attempts to make it seem like he had no choice in the matter by shifting the blame for our nation’s deficits to other administrations. Earlier in that same Q&A, the President said he did not want “to re-litigate the past.“*Fair enough. Our focus should be on our future policies, and the budget the Obama administration released yesterday is a great place to start. Heritage Foundation fellow Brian Riedl has completed a quick analysis of the budget released yesterday, and this is what President Obama’s policies would do:

• Permanently expand the federal government by nearly 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) over 2007 pre-recession levels;
• Raise taxes on all Americans by more than $2 trillion over the next decade (counting health care reform and cap and trade);
• Raise taxes for 3.2 million small businesses and upper-income taxpayers by an average of $300,000 over the next decade;
• Leave permanent deficits that top $1 trillion in as late as 2020; and
• Double the publicly held national debt to over $18 trillion.

Riedl adds: “Before the recession, federal spending totaled $24,000 per U.S. household. President Obama would hike it to $36,000 per household by 2020 — an inflation-adjusted $12,000-per-household expansion of government.” The deficit reduction measures proposed in the President’s budget are all more rhetoric than action. The Pay-as-You-Go provisions and spending freeze cover such tiny fractions of the budget and are so filled with loopholes that they are destined to be ineffectual. The President’s Deficit Reduction Commission is compromised by a lack of legislative “fast track” protections, a deadline that sends recommendations to a lame duck Congress, and a complete lack of any public hearings that allow for Americans’ input.

Commenting on the President Obama’s budget, Rep. Ryan tells National Review Online: “This budget presents a choice of two futures. … This budget is about more than specific programs or policies. It is really about the American idea, and whether we want to move towards a European-style welfare state.” Or as then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan put it in a slightly different context over 40 years ago: “This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.”

Quick Hits:

• Under the Obama administration,*the number of government employees will grow to 2.15 million this year, topping 2 million for the first time since President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over.”
• Despite record growth in generating capacity, the wind industry is creating few new jobs.
• Twelve Democratic Senators spent last weekend in Miami Beach raising money from top lobbyists for oil, drug and other corporate interests.
• Virginia’s Democratic-controlled state Senate passed measures Monday that would make it illegal to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a direct challenge to the party’s efforts in Washington to reform health care.
• According to a new study published by the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, sex education classes that focus on encouraging children to remain abstinent can persuade a significant proportion to delay sexual activity.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…welfare-state/

On 02.02.10 07:03 AM posted by Anthony B. Kim

High corporate tax rates are undermining U.S. international competitiveness. The global economy continues to demand that companies be flexible and swift in order to remain competitive. High tax rates deprive companies of both the means and the incentive to take advantage of new market opportunities or technological changes that can improve productivity.

Most advanced countries in the world have responded to new global economic realities by slashing corporate tax rates. The U.S. stands almost alone in having resisted such cuts, and its corporate tax rates are now among the highest in the world. Future U.S. prosperity depends on the willingness of our political leaders to resist populist anti-corporate dogma and make the necessary adjustments to keep the U.S. economy competitive.

America’s strength and economic success are based on economic freedom, which fosters the virtuous cycle of entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth. Our economic freedom has sustained economic opportunity and prosperity, as well as the creativity that leads to new products and new jobs. Clearly, U.S. inaction in improving fiscal freedom through more competitive tax rates undermines our economy’s innovative pulse; America stands still while its competitors are moving forward. As the 2010 Index reveals, since July 2008, more than 30 countries have introduced reforms in direct taxes or have implemented tax cuts as previously planned, despite the challenging economic and political environment caused by the global economic slowdown.

America’s inaction is particularly damaging in a time of economic slowdown and ongoing recovery. A long-term policy plan that strengthens economic fundamentals would calm fears among entrepreneurs and restore confidence in the U.S. economy.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…te-tax-burden/

On 02.02.10 07:45 AM posted by Kathryn Nix

To understand the dangers of a government takeover of health care, America should study Britain’s system, which exemplifies the shortcomings of heavily regulated, nationalized health care. A recent report by Robin Harris of the Heritage Foundation outlines the deterioration of Britain’s health care system due to years of liberal health policy marked by heavy concentration of power, higher taxes and the proliferation of rules and restrictions by the National Health Service (NHS).

The NHS is Britain’s government-run health care system. It acts as a single-payer system which originated with the nationalization of thousands of Britain’s hospitals. According to Harris, this “centralized, single-payer health service, free at the point of consumption, was an ideal prescription for waste, rationing by queues, and inordinate public expenditure.”

The woes caused by the NHS are multitudinous. As a result of the long waits to receive care, patients have instead begun to purchase treatment themselves, even going abroad to receive care. Access and quality of care are low, and rationing of services has led to discrimination against the elderly. As with any government-run system, more wealthy citizens have a higher level of mobility within the system, and are more able to obtain a higher quality of care than others. It is thus that the NHS has led to increased inequality in care received by Britons.

Since 1997, Prime Ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown both significantly increased NHS spending. However, according to Harris, health care has not significantly improved due to the spending splurge, and Britain remains well behind other European nations in measures of quality of care. Clearly, the NHS is a failing institution that has sacrificed the health and the quality of care received by the people it serves.

The British health care system should serve as a bleak warning for lawmakers pursuing health care reform. Though congressional Democrats’ proposed legislation would not impose the same structure of government-run health care as the NHS, the concentration of control over health benefits and regulatory restrictions on the kinds of insurance Americans could have would put America on a glide path to a system of national health insurance, with many of the characteristics of the NHS. A public option, whether explicit or not, would create an unlevel playing field for insurers which could ultimately put private insurers out of business. Even without a public option, government regulation of premiums, insurers’ medical loss ratios, and detailed health benefits packages would give Washington the ability to manipulate the private insurance industry as it desired. Increased federal power would put decision-making into the hands of politicians, rather than the patients and doctors with whom it belongs.

Government control of health care can be avoided with true reform. Without true reform, and the progressive growth of government control will entail longterm costs. Market inefficiencies ensue, resulting in less innovation, a decreased focus on increasing value, fewer consumer choices and control over health providers, waste, and even political manipulation of the system. European Parliament member Daniel Hannan remarked that the “US would be making a bad mistake if it adopted the failed model of the U.K. National Health Service.” Policymakers should heed his advice.

Co-authored by Rick Sherwood.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…in-washington/

On 02.02.10 08:30 AM posted by Dan Lips

Who was it who said that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

According to the Department of Education, the Obama administration’s budget proposes: “$173 billion in loans, grants, tax credits and work-study programs to help students go to college.” But experience has shown that simply increasing federal subsidies for higher education hasn’t solved the college affordability problem. After all, federal spending on student aid has doubled over the past decade, but college tuition costs are higher than ever. Since 1982, the cost of attending college has increased by 439 percent (or four times faster than the rate of inflation!).

Rather than continuing to increase subsidies, policymakers should be looking for ways to solve the college affordability problem by lowering costs and improving efficiency. We offered some ideas for new strategies to do that in our new paper: “Ways to Make Higher Education More Affordable.”

For example, states university systems could follow the trend of innovative schools like MIT that have placed most of their course content online and made it available to the public for free. They could also use online learning and the growing body of free online content to streamline the efficiency of their college system’s course offerings. Moreover, state higher education institutions could follow schools that are offering credit-by-examination options, giving students a path toward earning a college degree without taking out huge loans or depending on big government subsidies.

Given our ballooning federal and state budget deficits, taxpayers can’t afford to continue dumping mountains of dollars into student aid programs that only allow colleges to continue increasing their already-high tuition prices. The time has come to solve the college affordability problem by lowering costs.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…ility-problem/

On 02.02.10 09:00 AM posted by Baker Spring

The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) announced on January 31, 2010, that a test of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system for countering long-range missiles that took place over the Pacific Ocean that day failed to destroy the target missile. The initial review suggests that the failure occurred because a new Sea-Based X-Ban radar that was tracking the target missile failed to work as expected. A more detailed review of why the GMD system failed to intercept and destroy the target has been initiated.

It is to be expected that critics of the missile defense program will now call for the program to be terminated. Accordingly, it is appropriate to note that many of these critics oppose the missile defense program for the reason that they view missile defense as complicating the arms control and disarmament agenda they support. For them, this test failure has nothing to do with their opposition to the program. Indeed, they would likely see a successful test as a stronger reason for terminating the program than a failed one.

Regarding the technology, even curtailing, let alone terminating, the GMD program would be shortsighted. Failures in a test program for technology as advanced as the GMD system should be expected. For example, the Navy’s Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) program suffered numerous test failures in the 1950s. Polaris, however, laid the foundation for the deployment of an SLBM force that was the backbone of the strategic nuclear force that deterred a Soviet nuclear attack for much of the Cold War. Furthermore, it is frequently the case that the scientists, engineers and contractors working on an advanced technology program will learn more from failed tests than successful ones. The proper response to a failed test, like the one on January 31st, is to maintain a robust program that applies the lessons from the failure to advance the program in the future. The alternative is to believe that any advanced technology weapons program can succeed under a circumstance where it is always just one test failure away from termination. If anything, the testing program for the GMD system has been too timid because of concern about negative political reaction to any such failure and inadequate testing budgets. Under this timid approach, the opportunities for dramatic advances in technology are very limited.

Finally, this test was designed to mimic the sort of long-range missile attack on the United States that Iran is likely to be able to mount in the future. The GMD system is the only one currently available to protect U.S. territory against long-range missile attack. If this program is canceled, the U.S. will again become vulnerable to attacks with long-range ballistic missiles. It is intolerable that the American people would remain so vulnerable. The GMD program needs to continue and companion sea-based ballistic missile defense systems should be advanced to give them the capability to counter long-range missiles for the defense of U.S. territory. Currently, the sea-based systems are capable of countering only short- and intermediate-range missiles. Finally, the U.S. could revive a program pursued during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations to develop and field space-based ballistic missile defense interceptors. All three steps are necessary if the federal government is going to meet its obligation to provide for the defense of the American people.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…must-continue/

On 02.02.10 09:21 AM posted by Nick Loris

The cold weather is creating a number of unintended consequences for new energy designs. First, snow accumulating on LED traffic light bulbs wouldn’t melt because the lights failed to heat up resulting in car accidents, and in some instances, death. In Minnesota, the weather resulted in wind turbines freezing and thus not turning even if it is windy. This local news story has the details:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But that’s not the only problem with wind power. It’s not the economic savior the government thought it would be. The stimulus money is failing to create the clean energy jobs the White House said it would:

America’s wind energy industry enjoyed a banner year in 2009, thanks largely to tax credits and other incentives packed into the $787-billion economic stimulus bill. But even though a record 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity came on line, few jobs were created overall and wind power manufacturing employment, in particular, fell — a setback for President Obama’s pledge to create millions of green jobs. In the wind industry, the bill saved about 40,000 factory, installation and maintenance jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Assn. The industry had gained as many as 2,000 installation and maintenance jobs in producing the record megawatts of new capacity, but wind power manufacturing lost just as many jobs, the trade group said.

Clean-energy leaders and many outside analysts added that green companies won’t begin hiring in large numbers until the federal government mandates renewable power consumption nationwide and dramatically upgrades the nation’s electric grid.”

The fact that tax credits and handouts in the stimulus, along with other handouts in previous energy bills, still can’t produce a viable wind industry should be a telling sign that it is not economically viable. If a federal mandate that says we have to include renewable energy in our electricity consumption is the only way to trigger companies to build wind power, maybe it’s time to take a second look.

Yet Senior Advisor at the Department of Energy Matt Rogers says, “We are not in the business of picking winners” but instead “creating competition among innovative approaches in the marketplace.” But when certain energy sources enjoy preferential treatment, it comes at the expense of others. By including some energy sources in a renewable electricity mandate but not others is explicitly picking winners and losers. A renewable electricity standard itself picks winners and losers. There’s no other way around it.

And the reason the government has to pick winners is because the losers (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) supply electricity at a much cheaper rate. So not only do Americans have to fund the construction of windmills as taxpayers, they’ll also have to pay as energy consumers for pricier electricity. This is not creating competition; it’s market distortion. Selling it any other way is spinning the story, which is much more spinning than the wind turbines in Minnesota are doing.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…creating-jobs/

On 02.02.10 09:27 AM posted by Bob Moffit

Media reports that Obamacare is near death are premature. And, if the past is any guide, flat out wrong. It is possible for the Administration to lose politically in pushing its federal takeover of health care, and yet win the policy battle.

Consider the fate of Clintoncare bill of the 1990s. This similarity is not at all a good thing for conservatives. In fact, President Clinton, on an incremental basis, quietly and effectively beat the tar out of hapless congressional Republicans on health care. Unnoticed by a public hostile to the Clinton bill, and possibly even many members of Congress who should have known better, several provisions of President Bill Clinton’s health care reform package were passed by a Republican Congress. It was proof that on health policy Congressional Republicans often did not know what they were doing in the years following the collapse of the Clinton health bill on the floor of the Senate in the fall of 1994. Likewise, Obamacare policies could still become law through this same incremental approach, buried in different bills or legislative vehicles.

A Heritage Foundation paper(pdf) written by Carrie Gavora, a very perceptive analyst, in 1998 outlined the several ways in which Congress later moved the country closer to President Clinton’s vision of greater federal control over health care:

• Federally-Mandated Benefits. The Clinton plan sought to federally mandate benefits packages and their frequency of use through a newly created National Health Board to oversee changes. Congress later mandated benefits, first in 1996 by setting requirements for maternity stay benefits and mental health parity, and then again in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 by increasing the requirements of the Medicare basic benefits package.
• Centralized Purchasing Authority. The Clinton plan would have created regional health alliances, eerily similar to the heavily federally-regulated health insurance exchanges proposed by Obama and congressional leaders today. In implementing KidCare, a program to extend insurance to low income children, the federal government provided funds to the states, rather than directly to families. Thus the states, not families, were given purchasing power of health insurance, with federal oversight. The end result was the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, SCHIP, now greatly expanded and crowding out the private health insurance coverage of children in working families. Some legacy.
• Federal Regulation of Insurance. Clintoncare would have mandated guaranteed issue (insurance companies can’t deny coverage), community rating (everyone pays the same, regardless of age or health status), and would have prohibited insurers from canceling policies under any circumstance. Many states implemented these policies after the quiet death of Clintoncare on the Senate floor in 1994. In addition, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act ( HIPAA) created guaranteed issue, guarantee renewal, and limits on pre-existing conditions for group-to-group and group-to-individual changes in coverage. The aim was to create “portability” in health insurance, but real portability only exists when persons can own and control their health insurance coverage and take it with them from job to job, like other types of insurance. That didn’t happen, of course; it was never intended to happen.
• Regulation of Doctor-Patient Relationship. Clintoncare would have solidified third party control over payment for medical services. A doctor would have been able to enter into a private contract with a patient, but the doctor would not have been able to do so as a participant in the federally created regional alliances where health insurance (mostly managed care), which effectively would cancel any private contracting possibility between doctors and patients. With the enactment of Section 4507 of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, however, the Clinton Administration won a major policy victory, after threatening to veto the entire bill if it did not get its way on Medicare private contracting. The new law provided that a doctor could contract privately with a Medicare patient if and only if the doctor gave up the rest of his Medicare practice for two years, signing an affidavit to that effect and sending it to the Secretary of HHS. It was the first time in American history that Congress imposed a statutory obstacle on the doctor-patient relationship. It happened only because of Republican congressional cooperation, and the surrender of the Republican congressional leadership to the veto threats of the Clinton Administration.
• Federal Data Collection. Clintoncare would have allowed federal agencies to collect and use health records, from clinical encounters to financial transactions, for a broad array of usages. Republicans in Congress strongly opposed such provisions at the time of the debate on the Clinton Plan. But, with the enactment of HIPAA in 1966, Congress gave the federal government the ability to set standards for health information transactions and the use of personally identifiable health care information.
• Expansion of Federal Audits and Investigations of Doctors and Hospitals. Clintoncare would have increased federal oversight and control of medical practices by expanding the range of auditing and federal investigations of health programs and doctors and hospitals. As a general matter, the Clinton bill was a vehicle for federal coercion, and chock full of fines, penalties and jail terms for persons who would not comply with its provisions. But, once again, the provisions enacted through HIPAA with regards to this were practically identical to those in the Clinton bill. HIPAA, of course, created a fraud and abuse control program and established new fines and penalties for doctors.
• Federal Regulation of Quality and Consumer Protections. Clintoncare would have created a new federal program to evaluate quality and effectiveness of health care plans and services. During the late nineties, several types of programs were proposed by lawmakers to set federal health plan quality standards. The most ambitious was the ill fated Patients Bill of Rights bills, which went well beyond rectifying abuses of managed care and became vehicles to centralize federal control over the insurance markets

Clintoncare was a political failure, but incrementally it became a policy success. Even though President Clinton was politically defeated in the first midterm elections, he still controlled the policy agenda over health care. During the 1990s, the Congressional Republicans continued to cede the health policy initiative to the Administration that they had soundly defeated in the 1994 elections.

American taxpayers should understand that President Obama has already secured much more of his health policy agenda than President Clinton achieved in 1994 during the early stage of the first national health care debate. Obama’s major expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program(SCHIP) was enacted almost immediately last year. And his proposals for major Medicaid expansion, a federal council for comparative research effectiveness and a federal infrastructure for health information technology were also embodied in last year’s big Stimulus bill. That’s lightning speed by conventional Washington standards.

The lesson is simple. If conservatives do not frame the debate and seize the offensive, outlining a compelling and consequential health policy agenda, they can and will reap the result: a repeat of the incremental policy losses of the 1990s, which have contributed to the situation America finds itself in today. The fact that Obamacare, in its House and Senate versions, is hugely unpopular is satisfying, but it is not enough. Political power abhors a vacuum. As Gavora writes, “The acid test for any proposal…should be whether it would allow individuals and families—not government or employers—to make their own health care decisions. Health care policies that strengthen the power of government…create new levels of bureaucratic control and help accomplish the visions of the original Clinton health plan.”* Congress must start over again. It should take a step by step approach on the road to expanding personal freedom, choice and real competition in the health care sector of the economy. Stopping and waiting for an incremental federal takeover of health care is not an option.

Co-authored by Kathryn Nix.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/02/…are-premature/

On 02.01.10 12:30 PM posted by Baker Spring

<imgsrc="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/pentagon_081204.jpg" alt="Pentagon (Photo by Newscom)" /></p>The Obama Administration has been quick to point out that it has exempted the defense budget from its proposed freeze on other elements of discretionary spending in its budget. While the Administration has announced in the budget that it is requesting a $33 billion supplemental appropriation for defense in the current fiscal year and is providing modest real growth in the overall defense budget in fiscal 2011 over its new fiscal 2010 baseline, the five-year defense budget is well below “freeze” levels.

This is because it proposes to reduce the defense budget by about $92 billion from fiscal 2011 levels in fiscal 2012. This is a roughly 12 percent current dollar reduction in a single year. The overall defense budget would then see modest real growth annually for the remainder of the five-year program (through fiscal 2015), but only from the levels set by the draconian cut proposed for fiscal 2012. Defense increases following defense cuts cannot reasonably be considered increases.<spanid="more-25256"></span>

Expressed as share of the economy or gross domestic product (GDP), the overall defense budget will decline rapidly from a new estimate of roughly 4.9 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year to 3.6 percent of GDP in fiscal 2015.

The Obama Administration is going to point out that the core defense program for the Department of Defense (DOD) will see real growth in fiscal 2011 compared to fiscal 2010. Modest real growth will continue in the Department’s core budget thereafter, based on a placeholder $50 billion annual expenditure for overseas contingency operations (OCO). The massive decline in the projected funds for OCO, however, makes it all but certain that these operations will increasingly be funded at the expense of the core defense budget. Indeed, DOD’s core program will fall from about 3.9 percent of GDP in the current fiscal year to just 3.2 percent of GDP in fiscal 2015.

The defense budget that the Obama Administration has proposed is too small. In the coming years, this will require some combination of the following steps:

1) reducing military manpower levels;
2) reducing force structure;
3) reducing operational capacity;
4) scaling back modernization plans; and
5) reducing military compensation.

Based on past experience, it appears that the Administration is most committed to cutting back modernization. This is the same area that suffered from the “procurement holiday” of the 1990s. The option the Administration is least likely to pursue is restructuring military compensation. Regardless of which combination of steps the Obama Administration takes, this defense budget means that the security commitments of the U.S., both to itself and its allies, ultimately will have to be scaled back. If it refuses to admit that at least some key U.S. security commitments will be withdrawn under this budget, the Obama Administration will be making the nation’s security policy a form of bluff.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…than-a-freeze/

On 02.01.10 12:40 PM posted by James Gattuso

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/car-mountain-road100201.jpg"></p>In an unusually <ahref="http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports/congress/2010/January2010_Quarterly_Report_to_Congress.pdf">hars h report released yesterday, the government’s Special Inspector General for TARP blasted the bailout program, charging that it has not only failed to meet its goals, but that — absent change — it may have made things worse.

Among other things, Inspector General Neil Barofsky concluded that because of the bailouts, the market is “more convinced than ever that the Government will step in as necessary to save significantly significant institutions.” This, he says, creates a moral hazard, through what he calls a “heads I win; tails, the Government bails me out,” mentality. The recent extension of TARP for another year only reinforced that moral hazard, by “permitting Treasury to maintain a war chest of potential rescue funding…”<spanid="more-25257"></span>

The IG also expressed concern about the housing market, stating that the “Federal Government’s concerted efforts to support home prices,” in part funded by TARP, “risks re-inflating” the housing bubble.

In other words, the report concludes: “…even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform [which the report does not define], we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car.”

The answer, however, isn’t more regulation and protection of “too big to fail” institutions, as proposed by President Obama. Instead, policymakers should make failure a more feasible option for all institutions, reducing pressure for bailouts and forcing them to bear the cost of their own actions. In doing that, a good place to start would be a revised <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/research/regulation/bg2343.cfm">bankruptcy procedure.

Mountain roads are always dangerous. But by taking dangerous cars off the road, rather than paying for their repair bills, the highway can be made safer for everyone.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…ad-faster-car/

On 02.01.10 01:00 PM posted by Dan Lips

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/preschool-houston100201.jpg"></p>While the federal government already spends as least $25 billion on the existing 69 preschool and child care programs, the Obama administration is calling for #70—proposing $9.3 billion for a new “Early Learning Challenge Grant”. As <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/wm2643.cfm">we wrote last year, the Early Learning Challenge Grant fund would push states to spend more on preschool programs, when evidence is mounting that preschool programs aren’t delivering the benefits their proponents promise.<spanid="more-25263"></span>

Given the recent national evaluation showing that the nation’s <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2363.cfm">45 year and $167 billion experiment with Head Start has been a failure, shouldn’t the Obama administration be living up to their programs of “funding what works” by reforming rather than expanding federal spending on preschool?

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…chool-program/

On 02.01.10 01:16 PM posted by Nick Loris

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/dept-energy-100201.jpg"></p>President Obama released his fiscal year 2011 budget this morning; his budget provides $28.4 billion for the Department of Energy (DOE) and $10 billion for Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Both <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_energy/">sections in the budget reflect the president’s message in the State of the Union address delivered last week: a government attempt to facilitate America’s transition to a clean energy economy.

Highlights of the <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_energy/">DOE budget include:

$36 billion for Nuclear Loan Guarantees: Many are writing that nuclear is one of the big winners this year because of the $36 billion in new loan guarantees, but $18.5 billion in authorized loan guarantees already exists to provide predictability after years of erratic regulatory hurdles. Extending the loan guarantee program is not only unnecessary but will also crowd out technological development within and across the nuclear industry by artificially reducing the capital cost for large, lightwater reactors. In reality, a loan guarantee extention could prevent a dynamic, robust nuclear industry by reducing the need to innovate and creat private sector solutions to financing.

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$4.7 billion for Clean Energy: Obama’s budget calls for a five percent increase for the energy efficiency and renewable energy section which includes funding for solar, biofuels, advanced vehicle technologies and energy efficiency improvements in buildings. Research and development may be a plausible role for the government, but much of this money is being spent on private sector responsibilities. The reason the private sector isn’t investing in these technologies (without help from the government) is a telling sign that these energy sources aren’t economical. One project that is still many years away from commercialization is carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). The clean energy section also includes $545 million for clean coal technologies, most notably carbon CCS. Even after the extraordinary technological and economic hurdles have been cleared, the political and environmental obstacles to storing tens or hundreds of millions of gallons of liquid CO2 each day must be overcome.

Elimination of Tax Credits for Coal, Oil and Natural Gas: The budget also plans to reduce the <ahref="http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100201-710195.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLEHeadlinesAsia">def icit by eliminating $36.5 billion in tax breaks to the oil and natural gas industry. Without removing tax breaks and subsidies to other sources of energy, this is <ahref="http://blog.energytomorrow.org/2010/02/2011-budget-no-new-taxes-on-oil-and-gas.html">essentially a tax increase on our proven sources of energy. Removing government support isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it should be done across the board.

Highlights of the <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_epa/">EPA budget include:

Revenue Neutral Cap and Trade: Last year, President Obama’s Budget said a cap and trade system would generate $646 billion in revenue from 2012 to 2019 from higher energy taxes. This year, a footnote in the President’s budget says that cap and trade will be deficit neutral since “proceeds from emissions allowances will be used to compensate vulnerable families, communities, and businesses during the transition to a clean-energy economy.” The reason a cap and trade bill is revenue neutral is because most of the energy tax revenue was handed out to big businesses lobbying for a slice of the pie. The Heritage Foundation’s analysis of the Boxer-Kerry Senate cap and trade bill found that the government <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/bg2365.cfm">will collect $4.6 trillion in higher energy taxes from 2012-2035. While all this would likely be given away, a cap and trade bill would actually increase a family’s share of the debt because an energy tax will lower Americans’ incomes. Lower incomes generate lower tax revenues and have a real impact on government expenditures and debt levels. Heritage analysis found a family of four’s share of the <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/bg2365.cfm">national debt would actually rise by an additional $27,000.

Mitigating Climate Change: The EPA’s <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/factsheet_department_epa/">section of the budget also includes $21 million to implement a Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Rule and “$56 million – including $43 million in new funding – for the EPA and states to address climate change effectively through regulatory initiatives to control greenhouse gas emissions.” With the EPA set to move forward with its backdoor global warming policy, beginning with new regulations for vehicle tailpipe emissions, it appears the administration is willing to provide the funding. <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/wm2768.cfm">Congress should amend the Clean Air Act in order to prevent unelected government bureaucrats from bankrupting the nation.

In his opening message in the budget President Obama <ahref="http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/budget/03_Presidents_Message.pdf">said, “Because we know the nation that leads in clean energy will be the nation that leads the world.” There are a few countries <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/20/green-jobs-we%E2%80%99ll-pass-on-that-showcase/">that have gone down this road and would beg to differ.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…-trade-system/

On 02.01.10 01:30 PM posted by Matt Mayer

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/golden-gate-bridge.jpg"></p>In the February 1, 2010 edition of StateNet Capitol Journal, Lou Cannon <ahref="http://www.noozhawk.com/lou_cannon/article/013110_lou_cannon">notes that “only 12% of Californians with homeowners insurance also have quake insurance” as offered by the California Earthquake Authority. Cannon cites premiums costing “several hundred dollars a year and the deductible is 15 percent of the home’s insured value” as the reason that 88% of Californians don’t buy quake insurance. To protect California’s already bankrupt budget, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) have introduced legislation that would provide a federal guarantee for any bonds sold to reimburse losses after a major earthquake. The bill in the Senate is co-sponsored by Florida’s two senators who are trying to federalize hurricane insurance.

We <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/HomelandSecurity/bg2256.cfm and http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2568.cfm">predicted this event would occur as part of a grand deal between the Gulf Coast congressional delegation and the California delegation in two papers last year. The goal of those two delegations is to pass on the costs of insuring their high risk locations to the other 40 plus state. As we stated in our paper, this approach is simply wrong. Those individuals and businesses that derive the benefit of living along the coast or in sunny California should also bear the risk of living in known high risk locations. Before passing on costs to Ohioans and Minnesotans, those high risk states should remove rate caps, charge homeowners the true costs of living in those locations, and require catastrophic coverage as part of obtaining a mortgage.

The continued <ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/2009/10/14/the-politicization-of-fema-continues/">federalization of disasters is a good deal for a minority of Americans, but a terrible deal for a majority of us.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…nshine-states/

On 02.01.10 02:15 PM posted by Chuck Donovan

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/gavel-justice-100107.jpg"></p>Last week, the evidentiary phase of the <ahref="https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cand/09cv2292/">trial in Perry v. Schwarzenegger came to an end. Perry is the federal court lawsuit in California that claims, in effect, that the U.S. Constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage.

Specifically, the lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November 2008 amendment to the California constitution that effectively reversed a California high court decision redefining marriage to include homosexual unions.

If the claims asserted in this lawsuit prevail, the 45 states that recognize marriage as the union of husband and wife could be forced to make marriage genderless. Even <ahref="http://www.domawatch.org/index.php">the 30 states that have taken the extraordinary democratic measure of amending their constitutions to protect marriage – all of them since 1998 – could be forced to make marriage genderless.

The phase of the case that ended last week included testimony from witnesses called in support of or opposition to Proposition 8. Attorneys from the Alliance Defense Fund, a public interest legal association that has played a key role in defending Prop 8, have <ahref="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3618">posted updates on each day of the trial. The “Day 12” update by ADF Senior Legal Counsel Austin R. Nimocks explains what will happen next in the case:

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While the testimonial phase of the trial is finished, the proceedings in San Francisco are not yet complete. Judge [Vaughn] Walker plans to take about a month to review, on his own, the thousands of pages of documents and exhibits that were introduced into evidence during these last two weeks. Then, by Feb. 26, the parties will remit papers which seek to highlight the evidence that they believe support the proposed judgments that they remitted to the court before the trial began. <ahref="http://www.adfmedia.org/News/PRDetail/3618">After that, Judge Walker will seek to schedule a time for formal closing arguments.

Although the case likely will not be decided for several months, several serious issues already have emerged from pre-trial briefs filed by the parties and from the examination and cross-examination of the witnesses proffered by each side. One of the most significant issues concerns the argument made by opponents of Prop 8 that proof of moral or religious support for Prop 8 would make the measure constitutionally suspect or invalid. Certain aspects of this issue have been discussed by Ed Whelan in posts to National Review’s Bench Memos blog <ahref="http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzIyMWYxMTg2NGFkYjA2YzY1YmRmZmQ5MTU0YzAzM2Y=">h ere, <ahref="http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTAzYmE3NzVjMTEzNjczYjAyMDEwOThlMzBiZjFlYmM=">h ere, <ahref="http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Mjc4ZjcxMzA2OWRkNmUxODE5NjZhNWI2ZmFmZTI4NGQ=">h ere and <ahref="http://bench.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OWM4YzEyMTJiYzI1MWY5OGQ0NTU4NDVjYjFhMzM1Mzc=">h ere.

The issue of the proper role of religion and morality in the same-sex marriage debate bears additional analysis. But for now, it can safely*be asserted that, no matter what side of the issue one takes, the question of how to define marriage involves an unavoidable moral aspect. Certain law professors who support same-sex marriage have openly admitted this point. More strikingly, some national GLBT activist organizations have now begun to appeal openly to religion in support of judicial and political measures designed to institute same-sex marriage. The Human Rights Campaign, for example, has a “Religion and Faith Program” and reported last summer that Harry Knox, the director of that program, had visited California <ahref="http://hrc.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=2461.0">“to flesh out a plan with California Faith for Equality to mobilize clergy and people of faith for marriage equality.”

Indeed, one need look no further than the official <ahref="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_43_cfa_20070831_142039_sen_floor.html">legislat ive history of the California same-sex marriage legislation vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger to learn that <ahref="http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/ab_43_cfa_20070712_105123_sen_comm.html">“[m]any religious-affiliated groups” have already demonstrated a willingness to get involved in politics when it comes to redefining marriage. Evidence of this sort, which exists in abundance, affirms the understanding, articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court many years ago, that marriage has “more to do with the morals and civilization of a people than any other institution.”

It would be hypocritical for advocates of same-sex marriage to marshal religion in support of judicial and political measures designed to institute same-sex marriage while at the same time arguing that religious or moral support for marriage as the union of husband and wife is somehow improper, unprincipled, or illegal. Parties on both sides of the marriage debate should fully support the principle that voters are <ahref="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/opinion/11meese.html">“very much within their rights, when casting their ballots, to consider their own moral and religious views about marriage — or any other subject.”

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…ious-argument/

On 02.01.10 02:45 PM posted by James Carafano

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/mexico-us-border100201.jpg"></p>In another affirmation of the truism, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” President Obama’s base has noticed that his promise to push through an amnesty bill looks pretty hollow. “Thirty-seven words,” writes Ruben Navarrette Jr for CNN, “In this week’s State of the Union address — which was more than 7,000 words long and lasted longer than an hour — all President Obama devoted to the issue of immigration reform was 37 measly words.”

Ruben is right. Something is afoot.

The White House commitment to amnesty is anemic.

Loss of appetite for amnesty does not end with Obama. The President expects the Congress to lead. Speaker Pelosi has already said the House won’t take up the bill unless the Senate passes it. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY has so little confidence in his bill that he would not bring it to the floor before Christmas out fear members would be savaged over the proposed legislation during the holiday break. The best guess is that they will throw something on the floor this spring, watch it die a quick death, and then claim: they tried.

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Apparently, not everyone on the left thinks that is a good idea. Topping the list is Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos. He wrote a commentary for The Hill arguing the best way for the progressive cause to regain momentum is to push through a massive amnesty bill. He is dead wrong.

There are three reasons amnesty is not likely to happen—reasons that explain why Obama should rightly have a limited appetite for anything related to immigration reform.

1. The bill is a really bad idea. An amnesty bill won’t solve the problem of illegal immigration. It will just make it worse. We know that for a fact. That is exactly what happened in 1986.

2. The notion that this is a winnable issue for the Congress is, pardon me, laughable. Pelosi can get any bill she wants passed in the House. All she needs is 218 votes. The Democrats control 256. She won’t move on immigration because she knows members will get hammered by the American people for endorsing amnesty.

3. It is wrong to frame immigration reform as a left-right issue and assert that liberals want to solve the problem and conservatives do not. The Heritage Foundation, for example, has been a strong proponent of honest and sensible reforms.

No, Obama will walk away from amnesty because politically it’s a loser for him.

Sadly, the issue will only get solved when the White House quits playing politics with immigration and adopts the security, enforcement, citizenship, and workplace reforms needed to get employers the workers they need; protect US sovereignty and security; respect the rule of law; and address the issue of those unlawfully here in a rationale and compassionate manner.

Massive amnesty is not practical, rationale, compassionate, or fair. It’s a bad place to start.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…se-from-grave/

On 02.01.10 03:30 PM posted by Lindsey Burke

<ahref="http://blog.heritage.org/wp-content/uploads/obama-duncan100201.jpg"></p>The President’s FY2011 budget request calls for significant increases in education spending and, as promised, the Department of Education is exempt from Obama’s so-called spending freeze.

At a briefing today at the Department of Education, words such as “historic” and “bold” were used to describe the President’s budget. Secretary Duncan stated that the FY2011 budget represents “one of the largest increases” in education spending, which the president “sees as the key to our economic future”.

But is more spending on education the key to economic prosperity? For that matter, is it even the key to raising academic achievement?

<spanid="more-25312"></span>Since 1985, inflation-adjusted federal spending on K-12 education has increased 138 percent. Yet, indicators of educational improvement such as increases in academic achievement and graduation rates <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/bg2179.cfm">have remained flat.

Despite the evidence that more spending is not the answer to increasing academic achievement, Assistant Secretary for Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development Carmel Martin noted during the briefing that discretionary funding for the Department of Education will increase 10 percent under the president’s proposed budget, raising total discretionary spending to $50.7 billion.

Included in this “historic” spending increase is $3 billion for ESEA programs, $173 billion in college loans and grants, and $9.3 billion for a <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/wm2643.cfm">new preschool program created in the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which has passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate.

The budget increase also includes a $1 billion reserve fund for the Department of Education, contingent upon successful reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). But those of us who’ve taught in the classroom know that you don’t give students extra credit for simply doing their assignments. That’s why the administration’s proposed $1 billion incentive for Congress to complete a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is puzzling. After all, it’s Congress’s job to complete legislative assignments such as ESEA, which has been due for reauthorization since 2008. It’s also a little strange for the White House to be proposing an extra $1 billion as an incentive, since the Congress holds the power of the purse and could choose to increase funding for ESEA itself.

Perhaps the president feels that this is the increase that will finally solve the problems facing American education. When it’s all said and done, the president’s Fy2011 budget for the Department of Education tops $77 billion. This includes $50 billion in discretionary spending, $1 billion for successful ESEA reauthorization, and $35 billion for Pell grants, which became mandatory in 2010. The budget increase comes on top of last year’s $100 billion infusion of “stimulus” cash into the Department of Education’s coffer. Unfortunately, the sacred cow of education spending has been spared of the spending freeze.

Rather than calling for “historic” increases in federal spending or gimmicks like this $1 billion ESEA reauthorization incentive, Congress and the administration should focus on streamlining and reforming federal education programs in 2010 to better serve students and taxpayers.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…ng-skyrockets/

On 02.01.10 05:01 PM posted by Christine Kim

A new study concludes that abstinence-only education had a significant and long-term effect in reducing teen sexual activity. *“The abstinence-only intervention reduced sexual initiation,” reports the study, which is featured in the most recent issue of the medical journal Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, published by the American Medical Association.

The study found that a short eight-hour abstinence program reduced sexual activity among youth by a third.* Despite the brevity of the abstinence training the effects lasted a full two years after students left the classroom.* Moreover, if students who took the abstinence course did become sexually active they were not less likely to use contraception.

In contrast, study found that alternative types of sex ed failed.* “Safe sex” programs (which promote contraception only) and “comprehensive sex ed” programs (which teach both abstinence and contraceptive use), had no effect on teen sexual behavior. *These programs neither reduced teen sex nor did they increase contraceptive use among teens, which is their major emphasis.<spanid="more-25308"></span>

These findings are based on a randomized controlled experiment, the gold standard in program evaluation and designed to produce unbiased results.* The study analyzed 662 African-American 6th and 7th grade students in four public middle schools serving low-income communities in a northeastern U.S. city.* They were randomly assigned to participate in an eight-hour abstinence-only program, an eight-hour “safe sex” program, an eight- or twelve-hour comprehensive sex education program, or a general health-only, non-sex ed program, which represented the control group in the experiment.

Bolstered by its rigorous randomized controlled design, this study provides important new findings.* It strengthens the existing body of empirical evidence on the effectiveness of abstinence education.* A <ahref="http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/bg2126.cfm">2008 Heritage study, for example, reviewed 15 studies of authentic abstinence programs and found that 11 of the 15 studies reported positive behavioral changes among teens.

These new findings—that abstinence education reduced teen sex, without causing any adverse decline in contraception use, while “safe sex” and comprehensive sex ed programs failed to reduce teen sex or increase contraceptive use—seriously counter the ineffectiveness claim made by opponents of abstinence education.

Opponents of abstinence are often motivated by ideology than by social science research.

In recent weeks, abstinence foes launched yet another attack, attributing the rise in teen pregnancy and birth rates, after more than a decade of dramatic decline, to federally-funded abstinence programs.* However, a <ahref="http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/08/AbstinenceEducation/index.shtml">funding analysis by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that, in the fiscal year 2008, for every dollar the department spent on abstinence education, it spent $4 on comprehensive sex education and family planning services targeting teens.* In FY2008, the department spent $176.5 million on abstinence education. By contrast,* pregnancy and STD prevention programs and family planning services for teens received $609.3 million .

Sadly, despite the social science evidence, the Obama administration and Congress have eliminated all federal spending on abstinence education and, instead, have created additional funding for comprehensive sex education.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…ve-sex-ed-not/

On 02.01.10 06:42 AM posted by Conn Carroll

President Barack Obama will submit a $3.8 trillion budget proposal for fiscal 2011 to Congress today. One might hope that given last year’s $1.4 trillion budget deficit was an all-time high and the President promised a spending “freeze” in last week’s State of the Union, this budget might signal a change in direction from the White House. No such luck. President Obama’s new budget is full of billions of dollars in new spending for failed government programs, higher taxes on American families and businesses, and deficit spending for as far as the eye can see.

At the very least, the budget document President Obama is submitting today exposes his spending “freeze” promise for the fraud that it is. As outlined last week, the administration would halt spending increases for only a $447 billion sliver of our total budget, with a total of $15 billion to be*saved. That is less than half a percent off of last year’s spending. Worse, this isn’t even an across-the-board spending freeze; it is an aggregate one. So “spending cuts” in parts of the budget are immediately channeled to others. For example, even though the federal government does not need any money for the Census next year, President Obama counts the $5 billion spent this year as a “spending cut” that can be immediately spent on other government programs, such as a 16% increase in Department of Education funding, a 6.8% increase in Department of Energy funding, and increases for ineffective Health and Human Services programs like Head Start and sex education.

Given the best case scenario, the most the White House hopes to save from this supposed spending “freeze” is $15 billion. And that is easily dwarfed by just the $100 billion President Obama wants for his Economic Stimulus II plan. Then there are the tax hikes, including higher taxes on families earning more than $250,000 and a brand new tax on financial institutions to pay for the failed automobile union bailout.

And what is the end result of all of President Obama’s new taxes and spending? A record national debt. According to the White House Office of Management and Budget,*the United States will post a $1.556 trillion deficit in fiscal 2010, which the Obama administration claims will be reduced to $1.267 trillion in fiscal 2011, thanks to their budget. Given this administration’s budget forecasting record, however, expect that final deficit number to go up. The Obama administration now forecasts $5.08 trillion in debt over the next five years; that is 35% more debt than they forecast just 12 months ago.

A common sense budget would move our country in a much different direction. For starters, the remaining TARP and stimulus funds should both be rescinded. Next, instead of the President’s fungible “aggregate” spending freeze, tough hard spending caps should be enacted. Finally, Congress should disclose the massive unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; put those programs on long-term budgets; and enact the necessary entitlement and programmatic reforms that can keep government within those limits.

Quick Hits:

• Defending the secret negotiations and special interest deals used to advance President Obama’s health care plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told journalists: “The American people don’t care about process.”
• According to Rasmussen Reports, 76% of voters generally trust the American people more than political leaders on important national issues, and 70% believe that the government and big business typically work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors.
• Since some states have already spent the money on the belief that President Obama’s health care legislation would pass, the administration’s budget includes an additional $25 billion in Medicaid funding for states – an amount that was originally part of Obamacare.
• According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans dependent on government-based health insurance grew last year, while the percentage with employer-based healthcare dropped.
• The United States will deploy a missile defense shield to protect American allies from a potential Iranian strike.

http://blog.heritage.org/2010/02/01/…and-more-debt/