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'The Heritage Plan'

January 30, 2009 | By Nathaniel Ward

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) pitched his conservative "stimulus plan" to an audience at The Heritage Foundation yesterday. The plan would be an alternative to the big government spending plan President Obama and liberals in Congress are trying to ram through.

This conservative alternative – which Senator DeMint has called "the Heritage Plan" because it was modeled after Heritage recommendations – would include provisions to actually allow the economy to recover, such as freezing the capital gains tax rate at 15 percent and reducing the top marginal tax rates from 36 to 25 percent.

"Mostly because it had the Heritage stamp," DeMint explained, "Senator Mitch McConnell and several other Senators put their names on this alternative stimulus bill. Bill Beach came last week to present it. That made an impact on our Senators."

The quickest way to fix our economy is to let Americans keep the money they are earning and invest it again. The measures in the Heritage Plan address a real problem: the lack of incentives for investors and entrepreneurs to invest in new business and job creation. Right now, investors are waiting on the sidelines for the market to regain predictability before they make a move. Naturally, investors are leery because the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in 2010. After that, the capital gains tax would rise, and the economy could stumble again.

» Read the rest of the article at MyHeritage.org

—  David Talbot

Impact: John Boehner thanks Heritage

"Thanks a million for all your help over the last of couple weeks as we were putting this economic plan together." Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said in a call to The Heritage Foundation today. "You guys were a great, great big help."

On Wednesday, the House of Representatives voted 244 to 188 in favor of the "stimulus" legislation. All 177 Republicans, joined by 11 Democrats, voted against the nearly $1 trillion borrow-and-spend plan.

Heritage expert Michael Franc highlighted three things that stand out to him from Wednesday's House vote on the stimulus bill:

  1. "First, the loyal opposition was the unanimous loyal opposition."
  1. "Second, the House Republican substitute offered a clear, bright line alternative. The Republican alternative was simple to understand because it had only three moving parts — tax relief, tax relief, and tax relief. It's now readily apparent that the Republican approach to the economic crisis is to reduce the tax burden on all American taxpayers and (most) American employers, and that Democrats see more government spending as the solution to our economic ills."
  1. "Finally, the vote lifted the spirits of conservatives outside the Beltway, who now believe it's possible to influence the outcome in the Senate."

Other Heritage work of note

  • The political landscape changed after 2004 to allow Barack Obama and the Left to win last November, but these trends may not hold, conservative pundit Michael Barone explained yesterday at a Heritage Foundation event in Denver.

    In his remarks, which examined demographic shifts and changes in voter behavior, he wondered whether liberals' current dominance on the national political scene can continue. History, he told the audience at the lecture sponsored by the Colorado Committee for Heritage, suggests that President Obama's huge majorities among youth and other groups will not hold up, while little support looks likely for sweeping big-government programs that limit individual freedom. He concluded by saying that The Heritage Foundation, "a leader in the war of ideas," will be essential to conservative revival.

    Watch a recording of the event on MyHeritage.org.
  • The editors of The New York Times asked a group of experts, including Heritage Vice President Stuart Butler, "what's missing in the stimulus plan?"

    Butler's answer: "Certainly very little if you think spending as much as you can get away with on anything you can imagine will spur growth, which it won't. But there are two key things missing that are desperately needed: a tax strategy aimed at fostering growth through new business creation. And steps to prevent an explosion of permanent spending that will add to the already more than $50 trillion unfunded obligations of the federal government."

In other news

Coming up at Heritage

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Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation. David Talbot contributed to this report.