The IRS scandals are especially troubling since that’s the agency that’s in charge of administering much of Obamacare. “The scandals coming to light over the last week perfectly make the case for why Congress must eradicate the law from the statute books,” Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint argues.

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Congress is currently debating the so-called “farm bill,” which Heritage Foundation experts Daren Bakst and Diane Katz call “a multi-billion-dollar tangle of agriculture subsidies, welfare payments, and environmental patronage.”

In fact, this legislation is really a food-stamp bill with farm programs tacked on. As Bakst and Rachel Sheffield explain, this approach allows urban and rural lawmakers to join forces to spend taxpayer money.

On top of that, the proposal is chock full of wasteful subsidies to green energy projects, as Heritage’s Nick Loris points out. These subsidies are harmful economically and often counterproductive environmentally.

Bakst and Katz recommend a new approach. Their conservative alternative

would end the perverse subsidies to profitable agricultural enterprises paid by middle-class taxpayers. It would eliminate the tariffs and quotas and price “supports” that artificially inflate food prices—and the family grocery bill. And a new approach to agriculture policy would liberate farmers whose decisions are routinely dictated by government. The benefits of reform are as abundant as America’s food supply.

Should lawmakers reconsider this irresponsible legislation?

Six-point-three trillion dollars is a staggering number, but it was calculated using very reasonable assumptions. No one knows how many illegal immigrants are in this country, but the lowest estimate (barely above the number counted by the census) is 11.5 million — the number Rector used. In other words, $6.3 trillion is the floor, not the ceiling, for amnesty’s cost.

[Heritage expert Robert] Rector’s unassailable method is the only holistic approach available to policymakers, and it would be irresponsible to ignore it in favor of approaches that consider only a few variables.

King cited Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman: “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”

Do you think American taxpayers can afford to grant amnesty to illegal immigrants?

It’s no secret American leadership in the world is growing weaker. Our decreasing influence can be traced to the Obama Doctrine.

With his goal to make the United States “an equal partner” rather than an “exceptional” nation, President Obama has sought to remake American foreign policy. For years, The Heritage Foundation has explored and tracked the Obama Doctrine. Heritage’s Helle Dale explains the four main tenets identified by authors Kim Holmes and James Carafano. They are:

1. Ratification of more treaties and reliance on international organizations more often to deal with global crises and security concerns like nuclear weapons, often before turning to our traditional friends and allies;
2. Emphasis on diplomacy and “soft power” instruments such as summits and foreign aid to promote its aims and downplay military might;
3. Adoption of a more humble attitude in state-to-state relations; and
4. Playing a more restrained role on the international stage.

Becoming weaker in the world’s eye is not advantageous for the U.S..  Dale explains:

Soft power has not advanced the cause of political reform or peace in the Middle East following the Arab uprisings. And regimes like those of Syria, North Korea, and Iran display little fear of consequences from a U.S. in global retreat.

While the Obama Doctrine has made America weaker abroad, he has pushed for a stronger and more intrusive government at home. Recent scandals aside (IRS, AP spying, Benghazi), Obamacare is a prime example of a power-grab. As Heritage president  Jim DeMint wrote in yesterday’s Morning Bell, Obamacare is a means by which President Obama can jockey for more power through the IRS: “ Obamacare grants it (IRS) massive new authority.”

Do you think President Obama needs to reevaluate his policy priorities?

Heritage Foundation experts accounted for three of the nine articles in the Journal of International Security Affairs‘ recent symposium (not yet online) on the 30th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative:

1. Baker Spring reviews the history of missile defense and explains that lawmakers opposed to such defenses have come to see its benefits
2. Rebecca Heinrichs discusses the varying sorts of threats for which missile defenses are appropriate
3. Michaela Dodge explains the logic of space-based missile defenses

Do you think missile defense can help keep America safe?

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint was named to Washington Life’s “Power List,” an annual ranking of the power-players in the nation’s political scene. Read the full list here.

On Friday the IRS admitted to targeting conservative groups for extra scrutiny in their applications for tax-exempt status. The agency claimed the practice was initiated by low-level workers and did not result from political bias.

Then over the weekend, it was revealed that the IRS targeted “groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to ‘make America a better place to live.’”

Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky says that any explanation other than political bias would be hard to believe, because “the only relevant or substantive thing these organizations have in common is that they are all conservative politically.”

In fact, it’s fully permissible for organizations to advance conservative principles, he explains in a separate post:

Whether or not you agree with the Administration’s policies or whether you criticize the expansion of government or its excessive debt are not a consideration under the Revenue Code to qualify for tax-exempt status. Apparently, the IRS finally realized that, because according to The Washington Post, it changed its tactics in May 2012 to focus on “organizations with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention.” Despite that change, dozens of conservative organizations are still waiting to receive their tax exemptions.

So why did the practice go on for so long without interference from the higher-ups? There should be a thorough investigation, von Spakovsky argues:

It’s unclear who in the IRS or elsewhere supported or condoned the wrongful conduct at issue, but it is important for the rule of law and the interests of justice that Congress aggressively pursue its oversight function to get to the bottom of this scandal and, most importantly, who instigated and authorized it.

Do you think targeting conservative groups was political?

Hilyer chatted briefly with DeMint about Heritage’s future:

“We’re not going to change the scholarly approach to research and development of policies,” he said. “That’s not going to change. But Heritage can become more of an emissary, so to speak, of those policies. We will be doing more to energize the grass roots.” Specifically, he said, Heritage would be partnering with the conservative state policy think tanks which “are really a key to our approach to turning Washington around.” He wants to help “give them the muscle… to push their initiatives.” It’s all part of what he called, during his formal speech, an emphasis on “competitive federalism,” to take policy decisions out of Washington and let states “compete for the best business environment, the best tax code, the best education system.”

In other words, yes and no. Yes, Heritage — and its sister, the more overtly political Heritage Action 501(c)(4) organization — will be more activist in terms of trying to mobilize or catalyze political action. But no, it “won’t change our core mission” of policy research.

Do you think Heritage’s approach can beat the liberals and help enact conservative solutions?

Heritage Foundation expert Hans von Spakovsky explains that in addition to costing American taxpayers, by granting funding to immigrant advocacy groups these provisions “could expose the government to costly litigation going forward.”

The legislation establishes a $50 million grant program for nonprofit organizations to assist applicants for legal residence. “These grants can be used for legal assistance and effectively commit the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to providing grants for lawsuits against itself,” von Spakovsky explains.

In addition to these grants, the proposed bill includes very broad language granting legal services to aliens:

This is a very broad standard that places almost no limits on the Attorney General’s discretion to appoint counsel in such cases at taxpayer expense, since it appropriates whatever funds “as may be necessary” from the immigration bill authorization… Providing counsel at taxpayer expense to aliens threatens to open the DOJ up to constitutional lawsuits in at least two ways, notwithstanding the provision that the Attorney General’s decisions are “unreviewable.”

These costs are in addition to the long-term costs associated amnesty, detailed in a report released last week.

Do you think our government should be giving hand-outs to lawyers and special interest-groups as part of the immigration plan?

Boehner’s reasoning for not supporting the bill? “Moving this bill where you’ve got 50 different sales tax codes, it’s a mess out there,” he said. “You’re going to make it much more difficult for online retailers to be able to comply.”

Many small business owners are already frustrated by the complexity and high costs associated with the Internet sales tax. The Heritage Foundation has put together this infographic to highlight some of their concerns:

Do you think the complexity of the sales tax codes will over-burden small business owners?