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. Continue Reading »
Photo: NASA
Admiral Samuel Locklear, the commander of American forces in the Pacific, told the Boston Globe earlier this month that climate change is the biggest security threat America faces in the Pacific.
It’s possible that Locklear could “simply be reading from the national-security gospel according to Team Obama, which has highlighted climate change as an emerging security threat,” Heritage Foundation scholar Peter Brookes writes in the National Interest.
And there’s reason to worry, he continues, that our military leadership is losing its focus on threats like North Korea, or China’s military buildup: Continue Reading »
Photo: Newscom
President Obama’s “green” agenda is going to hit your wallet hard. That’s because stringent new fuel efficiency regulations make cars more expensive.
The Heritage Foundation’s Katie Tubb explains:
The average price of a new car in 2012 was $30,500. Wondering why? One contributing factor is the new Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.
All models from a single manufacturer must reach an average of 35.3 miles per gallon (mpg) by 2016 and 54.5 mpg by 2025. The current average is 29 mpg. We already knew federal fuel efficiency standards don’t reduce global warming, considering that not even cap and trade would have. We knew they don’t reduce dependence on foreign oil. And now, if we didn’t know it before, we know that they don’t help make cars affordable.
She continues: Continue Reading »
The Heritage Foundation’s documentary, “Powering America,” highlights the advantages of nuclear energy and why it is one of the safest forms of energy production. The film tells the story of nuclear energy in America and and the people who have benefited from it.
After premiering last year on the Documentary Channel, “Powering America” is now available online from leading providers. Watch online today:
Do you think nuclear energy has a role in America? Tell us in the comments.
Heritage Foundation experts live-blogged President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. Below are excerpts from their reactions.
President Obama called for more “balance” in reducing the deficit, though according to Heritage expert Patrick Knudsen this actually means higher taxes:
With the government drowning in red ink, Obama offers a life preserver made of lead: more spending. He has already pocketed a $618 billion tax increase in the fiscal cliff deal (in addition to $1 trillion in new Obamacare taxes). He needs to accept that true “balance” has two sides—and start cutting spending.
The Heritage Foundation’s Amy Payne explains President Obama’s second inaugural address in plain English:
The President was very clear that he sees no urgency about reducing the debt and cutting the deficit. In fact, in his second inaugural address, President Barack Obama was honest about his intentions to grow government in order to remake our country along his progressive vision.
To sell his agenda, the President borrowed imagery and terminology from America’s first principles. But he twisted the American founding idea of “We the people” into the liberal “It takes a village.”
Her take on what the President really said about “We the People”: Continue Reading »
The media plays a very important role in modern politics. The Heritage Foundation knows this and makes every effort to create videos to correct the facts liberal mainstream media dispels. Below is a list of Heritage’s most viewed videos of 2012.
Back in July, President Obama said, “when I try something that doesn’t work, then I don’t try it again”
Yet the President continues to funnel taxpayer money to green energy companies that seem to fail month after month.
The Heritage Foundation’s Elinor Renner and Rachael Slobodien compiled a list of 19 green energy companies that received a total of $2.6 billion of taxpayer money–and failed anyway: Continue Reading »
The Department of Energy gives grants to companies that produce clean energy. Recently the department gave nearly $1 million in grant funds to a battery company on the very day the company filed for bankruptcy. And where do the funds for the grant come? Your taxes.
The Heritage Foundation’s Lachlan Markay, investigative reporter for Heritage’s Center for Media and Public Policy, explains this grievous waste of taxpayer dollars was given to the battery making company, A123 Systems Inc.
The DOE agreed to give the company a $249 million clean energy grant, of which, as Lachlan explains: “As of November 14, $115.8 million of the A123’s grant remained outstanding.”
Reuters uncovered the alarming facts about this irresponsible use of tax-payer dollars:
The company, which makes lithium ion batteries for electric cars, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month after a rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group fell apart.
That same day, October 16, A123 received a $946,830 payment as part of its $249 million clean energy grant from the Energy Department, the company said in a letter, obtained by Reuters, to Republican Senators John Thune and Chuck Grassley.
In the letter, dated November 14, A123 said the October payment was the most recent disbursement it had received from the government, with an additional $115.8 million still outstanding on the grant.
Thune and Grassley have pressed the Energy Department for more details about its funding of A123 as the company has faltered.
“The Department of Energy needs to answer for why it appears to put federal grants on auto-pilot to the detriment of U.S. taxpayers,” Senators Thune and Grassley said in a statement. “This can’t stand.”
The DOE responded to the Reuters article by explaining that the grant program continues to reimburse the company for “work they complete toward the goal of the project.”
Investing so much money in a company such as A123 represents just one of the ways the government is misusing taxpayer money. As Heritage’s Rachael Slobodien and Elinor Renner estimate:
123’s “bad bet” cost for government—and taxpayers—at $377.1 million, including “state and federal tax credits, grants, loans, and incentives not listed.”
Do you think the government should put a stop to grants on “auto-pilot”?
Heritage Foundation experts live-blogged their analyses of last night’s presidential candidates’ debate from Hofstra University.
President Obama’s approach to spending and debt is hardly balanced.
President Obama’s recycled “balanced approach” mantra surfaced for the umpteenth time this evening—even though Americans know it is far from balanced, never mind mathematically impossible. Raising taxes on wealthier Americans who, in President Obama’s own words, “can afford to pay a little bit more,” would be a direct hit to the very businesses and investors we need to be encouraged, not discouraged from creating jobs. Failing to addressTaxmageddon and inject certainty into the economy is an abysmal failure of Congress and President Obama. It’s already threatening the economy, and causing economic stagnation.
“Getting tough on China,” something both candidates claimed to aspire to, is good—as long as what is meant by that is ensuring China abides by its international trade commitments. But this is not enough—it is not a trade policy. The U.S. needs to create opportunity with trade, not just manage bad behavior… President Obama said during the debate that he signed three trade deals. Not true…What Obama did was to delay passage of agreements with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama that were already completed. He did so to appease labor unions and others in his political base. During the three years of waiting for the President to submit the U.S.-Korea FTA, the U.S. lost $30 billion in exports.
What did the Obama administration do about security before the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, and how did it respond afterward? Continue Reading »
