Round 3: Heritage memos to Barack Obama
December 19, 2008| By David Talbot
President-elect Barack Obama should strengthen border security and immigration laws, work with Pakistan to fight terrorists, hold to promises to cut the budget and uphold religious freedom. That's according to four new memos Heritage Foundation experts sent to the incoming president and his key staff members.
As a candidate, the President-elect campaigned on several issues important to conservatives, but it remains to be seen what policies he will ultimately enact. Seeking common ground, The Heritage Foundation is reaching out to him with specially designed policy memos on subjects where his words line up with our vision of how to solve the most critical issues facing America.
Here are the four most recent memos in the "Change We Believe In" series:
- Fixing Border Security and Immigration
by Jena Baker McNeill and James Carafano
President-elect Obama said, "And I will make it a top priority in my first year as President not only because we have an obligation to secure our borders and get control of what comes in and out of our country. And not only because we have to crack down on employers who are abusing undocumented immigrants instead of hiring citizens. But because we have to finally bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. Yes, they broke the law. And they should have to pay a fine, and learn English, and go to the back of the line."
Heritage experts remind the President-elect that "securing our borders is simply one step toward protecting American and fixing our broken immigration system." He needs to recognize that "over the past several decades immigration policy has become confused and unfocused" and devise "a clear, comprehensive, meaningful, and long-term policy concerning immigration, naturalization, and citizenship."
- Stiffening Pakistan's Resolve Against Terrorism
by Lisa Curtis and Walter Lohman
President-elect Obama said, "But we also have to help make the case that the biggest threat to Pakistan right now is not India. It's actually militants within their own borders. And, if we can get them to refocus on that, then that's going to be critical to our success, not just in stabilizing Pakistan, but also in finishing the job in Afghanistan."
"The United States cannot afford to see Pakistan fail," Heritage experts explain, "nor can it ignore the extremists operating in Pakistan's tribal border areas." The keys will be to "convince skeptical Pakistanis that fighting terrorism is in their own country's national security interest, increase cooperation with Pakistani security forces, and develop a more integrated regional diplomatic strategy that addresses long-standing inner-state tensions that fuel support for extremist ideologies."
- Fulfilling Your Budget Reform Promise of a Net Spending Cut
by Brian Riedl and Alison Acosta Fraser
President-elect Obama said, "I'm cutting more than I'm spending so that it will be a net spending cut," and "We are going to go through our federal budget, as I promised during the campaign, page by page, line by line, eliminating those programs we don't need and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way."
"Virtually all Presidents promise to rein in spending," Heritage remind the incoming chief executive, "but few succeed." If he means to control spending, he "must not only identify lower-priority spending, but also spend political capital" to defeat the entrenched special interests who will defend their pet spending programs.
- Protecting and Strengthening Religious Freedom
by Ryan Messmore and Thomas Messner
President-elect Obama said, "Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, William Jennings Bryan, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King--indeed, the majority of great reformers in American history--were not only motivated by faith but repeatedly used religious language to argue for their cause. To say that men and women should not inject their "personal morality" into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition."
The Constitution "rightly forbids establishing an official national church, but does not call for the separation of religion from politics," Heritage experts write. The President-elect should "resist attempts to purge religion from public life and at the same time articulate the importance of 'protecting the right of all individuals to honor their consciences and practice their religious beliefs.'"
