January 3, 2008 | By Nathaniel Ward

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New Year’s resolutions for lawmakers

Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner asks a good question in The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. “This is the time of year when people make resolutions: to lose 30 pounds, eat more vegetables or exercise more. So why not Congress?”

» Take our poll: On what issue should Congress and the White House focus most in 2008?

Feulner has a few recommended resolutions on economic issues:

• Fix the legislative process to ensure a federal budget is passed on time and to ensure Congressmen have enough time to actually read the legislation. The status quo “is no way to run a government.”

• Enact a small change to the tax code so that capital gains taxes are indexed for inflation. Under this plan, an investor pays taxes only on the real gain, after inflation, which could save ordinary investors a lot of money and even ease concerns about the housing market.

Along the same lines, Heritage’s Rob Bluey adds that President Bush and conservatives in Congress should pledge to “shut down the favor factory that churns out earmarks” in 2008.

And national security expert James Carafano puts forward some to-dos that would help protect the homeland. These include the following:

• Finish immigration and border security reform. “Congress must let DHS move forward with border security and internal enforcement initiatives.”

• Stop turning homeland security grants into “pork-barrel” funding.

• Repeal the requirement for 100-percent scanning of all shipping containers bound for the United States, which is both ineffective and tremendously costly to consumers. Instead, agents should seek out and inspect suspicious containers.

Heritage to Britain: Hold firm in Iraq

It would be folly for Britain to withdraw completely from Iraq, Heritage’s Nile Gardiner writes in England’s Yorkshire Post .

Things are looking up in those parts of Iraq with an American presence, argues the director of Heritage’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. For example, “the surge of 20,000 additional US troops has been an unqualified success, dramatically reducing sectarian violence in the Sunni heartlands, driving out thousands of al-Qaida terrorists, and averting the prospect of a full-blown civil war.”

But the opposite is true in British-occupied areas, especially now that left-leaning Prime Minister Gordon Brown is further drawing down the U.K.’s contingent. This withdrawal “sends all the wrong signals at a time when Iran is becoming increasingly belligerent and aggressive,” Gardiner explains.

But the consequences of Brown’s recklessness aren’t limited to southern Iraq. “The Brown government's frail approach in Iraq is already causing strains in the Anglo-American Special Relationship, and there is growing talk in Washington of mounting pressure on US forces to cover the impending British withdrawal.”

For all the latest on Iraq, visit Heritage’s Progress in Iraq page.

A conservative take on Iowa

Iowans caucus Thursday in the first election battle of the 2008 presidential elections. Heritage Foundation distinguished fellow Ernest Istook will appear on XM Satellite Radio’s POTUS ’08 (channel 130) to provide commentary and analysis of the results and their policy implications.

Other Heritage work of note

• Homeland Security. When preparing for disasters, Heritage experts James Carafano, Jennifer Marshall and Lauren Calco Hammond write, the government should “encourage states and communities to take the lead by empowering individuals to care for themselves and others.” So instead of relying on ineffective Washington bureaucrats during a catastrophe, Americans should adopt a grassroots response.

• Energy. “Just about everything Congress’ new energy bill touches will go up in price,” writes Heritage’s Ben Lieberman. The latest energy bill “may be the most anti-consumer one ever.”

• Conservative Principles. “The Thatcher Era is an extraordinary story of change, of a country saving itself in a turbulent world,” John Blundell of London’s Institute for Economic Affairs said in a recent lecture at The Heritage Foundation. In his remarks, he outlines ten lessons we all can learn from Lady Thatcher and her strong leadership.

In other news

• British authorities have admitted that sex-education programs do little to curb teen pregnancy. “Government policies aimed at dealing with the [teen pregnancy] problem have allowed girls to obtain standard contraceptive and morning-after pills at school, without the consent of their parents, while new proposals will allow them to go directly to pharmacists,” Britain’s Telegraph reports.
• Boston’s tremendously costly Big Dig construction project, which among other things involved burying much of the highway that once bisected the city, is finally over.
• Pakistan has said it will delay its parliamentary elections by a month because of violence stemming from Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.
• One of the consequences of the court-ordered imposition of same-sex “marriage”: same-sex divorce.
• The new energy bill contains a handout to light-bulb manufacturers, who stand to profit as consumers replace their banned incandescent bulbs with approved fluorescent bulbs. Consumers haven’t really taken to the costlier new-style bulbs on their own, but The Wall Street Journal’s Brian Carney points out that this is where government comes in: “Why worry about making a product so good people feel they have to have it, when you can instead get the government to tell them they have no choice?”
• Crude oil prices topped $100 for the first time yesterday. Yet in their recent energy legislation, Congress made it more difficult to secure lower energy prices by effectively blocking exploration of oil shale and refusing to allow new energy exploration in Alaska or offshore.

Coming up at Heritage

To attend these or any other events at Heritage please RSVP at Heritage’s website.  Or you can view these events live online.  All times are Eastern.

• On Tuesday, Jan. 8 at noon, a panel of experts will discuss how much progress has been made in Iraq and how sustainable these security achievements are as the level of U.S. troops gradually drops to previous levels.
• On Wednesday, Jan. 9 at noon, author Jonah Goldberg discusses his new book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

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

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