One trillion dollars of debt
February 4, 2009 | By Nathaniel Ward
This chart posted on The Heritage Foundation's The Foundry blog shows just how big one trillion dollars of debt is.
Heritage to premiere "33 Minutes"
Next Wednesday, February 11, The Heritage Foundation premieres its first full-length documentary, 33 Minutes: Protecting America in a New Missile Defense Age. Lawmakers, experts from the missile defense community, and members of the media will see the high definition film in our own Alison Auditorium as we take our fight for missile defense to the next level.
Over the course of the year, Heritage's 10 Community Committees will host screenings across the country to spread the message of this vital national security issue. If there is no screening in your area, you can tell us you are interested in organizing a screening.
Be sure to become a fan of 33 Minutes on Facebook.
Watch the 33 Minutes trailer.
— David Talbot
A missile defense primer
The title 33 Minutes refers to the scant time it would take a ballistic missile launched from Iran or North Korea to strike one of America's major cities. The high-quality documentary features foreign policy and defense experts who argue persuasively that America urgently needs to strengthen its nascent missile defenses.
The Preamble to the Constitution calls on the government to "provide for the common defense." Since a missile defense system is the best method we have to protect our country from the very real danger of a missile attack, our government has the constitutional obligation to move forward with deployment.
Heritage vice president and former assistant Secretary of State Kim Holmes emphasizes on National Review Online that neither the threat of a nuclear ballistic missile nor our ability to shoot down a missile is "science-fiction."
Missile defense research is expensive and requires a significant budget commitment, a commitment that liberals and conservatives have been arguing over since President Reagan announced the famous Strategic Defense Initiative a quarter century ago. "Though our capabilities have come a long way," says Holmes, "they are not enough to protect all of America. It is morally wrong to suggest that the government should settle for protecting only some [Americans]."
Holmes continues:
We can't negotiate the threat away. We've tried. Bad actors like Iran want these weapons to hold the U.S. and other nations hostage. They don't want us to deploy missile defenses because that would make their weapons useless.
Ballistic missile defense is an important part of Heritage's commitment to the conservative principle of strong national defense.
In addition to this major film project, Heritage helped sponsor a comprehensive new analysis of missile defense programs. The report makes seven recommendations.
1. Make missile defense an urgent national priority against the growing missile threat from potentially hostile countries, rogue regimes, and terrorist groups.
2. Help everyone understand that this threat includes missiles launched against big cities as well as nuclear detonations above the earth, resulting in an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that would have catastrophic consequences for America.
3. Grow a wide consensus for a layered missile defense system that includes sea- and space-based intercept capabilities.
4. Reorganize the missile defense program from its current bureaucratic mold so that it can deal more effectively with the urgency of the missile threat.
5. Raise the national profile of missile defense by presidential involvement and by building greater bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress.
6. Reaffirm and strengthen the U.S. commitment to primacy in space.
7. Preserve the scientific and technological base needed for missile defense research, including the workforce necessary to assure U.S primacy in space and missile defense.
— David Talbot
Other Heritage work of note
- The New York Times' Dot Earth blog showcased ReadtheStimulus.org, a website sponsored by Heritage to help Americans understand what's in the "stimulus" legislation:
Whether or not you share the world view of the Heritage Foundation (my guess is Dot Earth readers are divided, given how the comments flow), you're likely to enjoy the ReadTheStimulus.org tool they've helped post online that allows visitors to search the Senate and House economic stimulus bills.
- Heritage's blog, The Foundry, offers four reasons why tax cuts are the best solution for the economic recession:
Personal Wealth: When Americans have more money in their pockets, they can make better decisions for their family regarding health care, education and personal investment.
Do No Harm: It is impossible for the economy to recover when Americans face the threat of a punitive tax hike, as they do now.
Better Wages: Businesses can provide better wages and benefits to their workers.
Incentives: The most effective means of helping the economy recover is to improve the incentives that drive economic activity, and that means reducing tax rates on work, saving, investment, risk taking and entrepreneurial activity.
You can use these facts to help you write a letter to the editor or to your lawmakers.
- Senator David Vitter (R-LA) proposed an amendment to the "stimulus" bill on the Senate floor last night based on research by Heritage expert James Sherk. Working from Sherk's research on how wage provisions depress the economy, Senator Vitter said:
This amendment is very simple and straightforward, but basic and important...My amendment would strike almost $35 billion of this miscellaneous cats-and-dogs spending that covers a whole spectrum of traditional Washington big-government programs. It would also take out the Davis-Bacon language and save us another $17 billion on top of the $35 billion, for a total savings of well over $50 billion.
- Thirty-nine Members of Congress will be attending Heritage's Conservative Members Retreat which kicks off Thursday.
In other news
- Nancy Killefer, President Obama's nominee for first performance chief for the federal government, withdrew her nomination because she did not pay employment taxes for her employees.
- The Obama administration is expected to impose a cap of $500,000 on compensation for top executives of banks receiving bailout funds.
- The French Prime Minister François Fillon rejected an Obama-style stimulus plan. He supports corporate and infrastructure investment, saying it would be irresponsible to "increase our country's indebtedness without having more infrastructure and increased competitiveness in the end."
- With unemployment on the rise, some state governors are considering tax breaks to woo businesses.
- Iran announced its first successful domestic satellite launch, taking them one big step closer to long-range ballistic missile capability.
- President Obama's new Secretary of Commerce, former GOP Senator from New Hampshire Judd Gregg, once called for eliminating the Commerce Department. Gregg accepted the nomination on the condition that he be replaced in the Senate by another Republican.
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 Thursday, February 5 at noon, Lewis Lehrman, author of Lincoln at Peoria, will discuss Lincoln's extraordinary antislavery speech that catapulted him into the national political debate on slavery.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. David Talbot contributed to this report.
