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Next step on Iraq: A clean funding bill

May 3, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward

Just as I sent Tuesday’s MyHeritage.org e-mail, President Bush vetoed the irresponsible supplemental war funding legislation. And yesterday, seven Democrats joined 196 Republicans in sustaining the veto. This was the right thing to do, Heritage experts write in a new paper.

The veto, President Bush’s second, came as a result of the bill’s usurpation of the President’s authority under the Constitution as commander in chief and the wasteful spending it contains, explain visiting fellow Ernest Istook, federal spending analysts Nicola Moore and Alison Fraser and defense expert Baker Spring.

For more on Iraq and what Congress should do next, click here.

Sounding the alarm on spending

With so much attention devoted to Iraq and other issues, it’s easy to forget another real crisis America faces: the looming entitlement bust. With millions of Baby Boomers set to retire in the coming years, spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will increase substantially and consume more and more of the economy.

Click here to watch a video from Heritage economist Alison Fraser about entitlement spending.

In fact, Heritage’s J.D. Foster reports, the entitlement crisis has grown worse over the past year, and he warns that higher taxes are no solution at all. It is “unreasonable to suggest that Congress can tax its way out of this problem,” Foster argues. “It is unclear why future workers should pay higher taxes, have fewer job opportunities, and receive lower pre-tax wages because today’s workers and retirees promised themselves higher benefits than they were willing to pay for.”

Click here to find out how Heritage is working to draw attention to this crisis.

Families, teens and sexual activity

Liberals like to pretend that teenage sex is a healthy activity and that parents would be hard-pressed to stop this behavior even if they wanted to. Heritage’s FamilyFacts.org, however, has reviewed the social science data and found these assertions wanting.

For example, the website reports that youths who engage in sexual activity are at an increased risk for depression. In addition, teens from intact families with involved parents are less likely to become sexually active. And teenage behavior is important in the long run too, the survey of data finds: sexually active teens are less likely to enjoy stable marriages, and the children of teenage mothers are themselves likely to become sexually active teens.

Click here to read the entire FamilyFacts.org Top Ten for May.

In other news

  • The White House said today it would veto legislation being debated in Congress that would further expand federal hate crime laws to cover crimes motivated by gender or sexual orientation. The White House rightly opposes expansion of federal law into areas where “state and local criminal laws already provide criminal penalties,” and argues that “all violent crimes are unacceptable, regardless of the victims, and should be punished firmly.”
  • An outrageous bill has been resurrected after being defeated just last year. Congress is re-considering the “Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act,” a bill to authorize the creation of a race-based government for native Hawaiians living throughout the United States. Read more on this important issue from Heritage’s experts.
  • In another indication that radical environmentalism is becoming a sort of “religion” to its followers, one California hotel has replaced the Bibles in the nightstands with copies of Vice President Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth.
  • British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he will resign in the next few weeks after ten years in office. The liberal Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, is expected to be his replacement. Meanwhile, Blair’s Labour Party is expected to fare poorly in today’s local elections.
  • Voters in France go to the polls Sunday to decide whether reformer Nicolas Sarkozy or socialist Segolene Royal will be their next President. Polls indicate that Sarkozy, who seeks much-need economic reforms and closer ties with the United States, is the favorite.
  • The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit another new high yesterday, reflecting the continued success of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which spurred economic growth and investment. Yet many prominent liberals are calling for tax increases, which would discourage this sort of investment.
  • Last week, a historic market in Washington, D.C. burnt down, and the city’s non-voting delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, immediately promised federal funds to rebuild it. Rep. John Campbell (R-CA) wonders, “why in the world should the American taxpayer be asked to help pay for the rebuilding of a local market that has no connection to the federal government, except that several members of Congress live nearby?”
  • Taxpayer dollars are being used to fund a government health care conference—at a Walt Disney World hotel in Florida.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend the following Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org.  All times are Eastern.

Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.