The ‘New Way Forward’ in Iraq
January 11, 2007 | By Nathaniel Ward
Heritage's Ed Haislmaier explains the problem with government “negotiation” of prescription drug prices to the Senate Finance Committee.
Last night, President Bush addressed the nation to outline a new strategy for Iraq. To help secure the country, hasten the return of American forces and correct what he admitted were past mistakes, he announced the deployment of 21,500 new troops to Iraq.
This is “a calculated gamble,” writes Heritage Middle East scholar Jim Phillips, one that could save American and Iraqi lives in the long run if it proves successful.
But the alternative policy advocated by many opponents of Bush’s New Way Forward is far worse: an immediate troop withdrawal that would swiftly lead to a strategic, moral, and humanitarian catastrophe not only for Iraq but for the entire region, as refugees, terrorism, political instability, and sectarian conflict spill over into surrounding countries
More important than the size of the force deployed to Iraq, explains Phillips, is “the new strategy to be executed by the additional troops and the interweaving of the military effort with a broader political strategy to reconcile Iraq’s warring factions and suffocate the insurgency.”
Click here to find out how a surge could advance American interests.
The wrong prescription for prescription drugs
Congress is considering misguided legislation that would allow the government to fix prescription drug prices for seniors. Though liberals call their plan “negotiation,” it’s nothing more than old-fashioned price controls like those placed on gasoline in the 1970s.
Fortunately, some in Congress may be moving the right direction on this issue. After Heritage health care expert Ed Haislmaier testified today before the Senate Finance Committee about the perils of “negotiation,” Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) announced that he would modify the legislation to merely allow the government to “negotiate,” instead of requiring it.
Click here to read more about why “negotiation” won’t work.
The House was wrong to hike the minimum wage
The Associated Press repeated a liberal distortion yesterday when reporting on the successful liberal efforts to ram a 38-percent hike in the minimum wage through the House of Representatives. “The Democrat-controlled House voted Wednesday to increase the federal minimum wage to $7.25 an hour,” the news agency reported, “bringing America’s lowest-paid workers a crucial step closer to their first raise in a decade.”
This is a misconception of reality. According to government numbers crunched by Heritage Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy James Sherk, “two-thirds of all minimum-wage workers earn a raise within a year of starting out.” Needless to say, these raises come without any urging from the government but instead reflect the worker’s value to their employer. In other words, low-wage jobs serve as a stepping-stone on the way to more lucrative positions: “Even for lower-skill adult workers several years out of school, minimum wage jobs are paths to advancement.”
Click here to read more about the perverse effects of a minimum wage increase.
Confronting radical Islam
Radical Islam “has youth and will, and the Western world for the most part has neither. We’re showing classic signs of civilizational exhaustion,” author Mark Steyn said yesterday at The Heritage Foundation. This contrast poses an extreme challenge to America and its allies as we continue the war on terror.
Click here to watch this event online in Windows Media format
Read more about Steyn’s talk at Heritage by clicking here
The entitlement crunch
Last weekend, Heritage’s Stuart Butler traveled to the annual Awakenings conference at Sea Island, Georgia to speak about the importance of spending restraint. The slideshow that accompanied his talk is a sobering of the urgency of reform. Click here to view the presentation (link in PDF format).
In other news
- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said this morning he would recommend increasing the size of the armed forces by 92,000 men.
- The California Coastal Commission voted yesterday to impose restrictions on the Navy’s use of sonar in training exercises. The regulators argue that the Navy’s preparations to defend America should be scrapped because some of their tools to find the enemy could be harmful to whales.
- Sen. Ted Kennedy has proposed expanding the tremendously expensive Medicare entitlement to cover all Americans. Adding expensive new entitlements and turning to ineffective government controls is a good way to actually worsen health care.
- Liberals in Congress have passed a law to use federal taxpayer dollars to fund embryonic stem-cell research—a research area that not only faces moral objections but which is so unpromising that private investors have largely avoided it.
- An American government official told news agencies today that suspected al Qaeda terrorist Fazul Abdullah Mohammed was not in fact killed in an air strike earlier this week.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Tuesday, January 16 at noon, Heritage will host a panel of experts to discuss the future of Turkmenistan after the death of dictator Saparmurad Niyazov.
- On Thursday, January 18 at noon, author Dinesh D’Souza will explain how the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector, and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.