January 5, 2006

Defending America

Speaking in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Auditorium at The Heritage Foundation yesterday afternoon, Vice President Dick Cheney said good policies, and not luck, have prevented terrorist attacks in the United States since September, 2001.

The USA Patriot Act, he said, “removed the artificial barrier that used to exist between law enforcement and intelligence” and so allowed broader targeting of terrorists within America's borders. The bill “gave federal officials the ability to pursue terrorists with the tools they already use against drug traffickers and other kinds of criminals,” he added.

In his half-hour address, the Vice President went on to say that wiretapping of communications between terrorist suspects abroad and individuals within the United States is also “important to the safety of the United States.” He said the top-secret National Security Agency program is constitutional, legal and necessary for national security. Most importantly, he emphasized, “the civil liberties of the American people are unimpeded.”

During Wednesday’s speech, he highlighted his recent trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, where he met with American troops and witnessed firsthand the evolution of new democracies there. When our troops leave should be determined by continued success, he insisted, “not by artificial timelines set by politicians here in Washington, DC.”

This was Vice President Cheney’s second major address from Heritage’s headquarters in Washington, DC. In October 2003, he spoke about national security issues to another “small group of conservatives” (as The Washington Post characterized Wednesday’s crowd of more than 230 packed into in the Allison Auditorium).

• Read MyHeritage.org’s full report on Vice President Cheney’s visit
• Watch the Vice President’s address (Real Player required)
• Read the Vice President’s remarks

Make the cuts permanent!

A new analysis by Heritage’s Center for Data Analysis simply confirms what we knew already: the 2003 tax cuts are a good policy that must not be allowed to die.

According to the CDA, continuing the tax cuts in 2008 and 2009 will:

• Account for 285,000 jobs per year, not including other economic growth
• Result in an additional $70 billion in economic output and an additional $110 billion in disposable income for households

It just gets better the longer the rates remain at reasonable levels. By 2011,

• Total employment will rise by 1,087,000 jobs per year, on average
• Annual GDP will be over $111 billion higher, after inflation
• Personal savings will grow by $163 billion per year, on average, after inflation
• After-tax household income will grow by an annual average of $274 billion per year, after inflation

The alternative is substantially higher income and investment taxes, the return of the death tax and the resurrection of the marriage penalty—and none of the benefits of lower taxes.

If you want to ensure prosperity over the long run and not allow Congress to squander the future, get active with the MyHeritage.org Activist toolkit.

America: A bit freer this year

The Heritage Foundation has released the latest edition of the Index of Economic Freedom, a collaboration with The Wall Street Journal that ranks countries based on government interference in the economy.

The good news is that the United States has jumped back into the top ten freest economies through marginal improvements in its ranking, and now occupies the number nine spot alongside Australia and New Zealand. Last year, the United States fell out of the top ten for the first time ever.

Even better news is that some very common-sense reforms can improve America’s economic freedom even further.

Whither the Tories?

Britain’s Conservatives recently elected a new leader, David Cameron, who now polls above Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, Blair’s apparent successor.

But while the Tories’ rising fortune is gratifying, Nile Gardiner and John Hulsman of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom remind us to remain cautious. Particularly in international affairs, they say, “Cameron’s ideas remain an enigma.”

Cameron “has said little about long-term British policy with regard to Iraq or the threat to Western security posed by rogue regimes such as Iran and Syria,” Gardiner and Hulsman write. “Nor has he outlined a coherent conservative strategy for waging the war against al Qaeda. Perhaps most significantly, the new Tory leader has had very little to say about relations with Britain’s closest ally, the United States.”

With new leadership, now is “excellent opportunity for a fresh start in relations between British and American conservatives,” they say.

Meanwhile, Helle Dale warns the Tories to apply “consistent conservative principles, and avoid becoming “Labour light.” By campaigning as “liberal conservatives” to appeal to a broader constituency, she says, the party may lose its focus.

In other news

• Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to serve on the Supreme Court received another boost yesterday when the American Bar Association granted him its “well qualified” ranking.
• Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a severe stroke yesterday, causing widespread bleeding in his brain. He remains hospitalized, and a deputy has taken his executive powers.
• Former secretaries of state and defense visited with President Bush today at the White House to review strategies for the war in Iraq. The meeting is part of a broader public relations strategy to restore broad support for the war.

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