On January 22, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) publicly came out in favor of balancing the budget.

This common-sense announcement was a big win for conservatives. The Heritage Foundation has long been urging Congress to balance the budget, and our Saving the American Dream plan does it in less than 10 years.

Boehner’s statement came about thanks to a conservative coalition including The Heritage Foundation’s sister organization, Heritage Action for America. Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle has the story:

On January 15, Michael Needham, Chris Chocola, and Tony Perkins—the heads of those three conservative groupsurged House GOP leadership to support a budget that balances in 10 years. “Very simply, we can quickly jump-start our economy and improve the lives of millions of Americans by insisting that Washington not raise the debt ceiling unless our nation gets on a path to a balanced budget within 10 years that stays balanced,” they wrotein a Politico op-ed.

A couple days later, Needham’s Heritage Action published a “Memo for the Conservative Movement” which had a top line calling for a 10-year balancing budget.

On January 18, a group of current and former chairmen of the conservative Republican Study Committee called for the same thing. Needham backed that call, asking for House leadership, including Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor, “to publicly honor this agreement.”

It was not until several days later, on January 22, that Boehner backed the idea of a budget that balanced within 10 years.

Conservatives realize that a balanced budget is important. Even President Clinton realized this twenty years ago. So why don’t today’s liberals realize this today?

Do you think balancing the budget should be a priority?

Alex Cohen’s high school club works with Heritage Action for America

Our sister organization, Heritage Action for America, has a new activist. But he’s not your typical activist.

Alex Cohen is a 17-year-old high school student who founded a conservative club at his high school to “promote and educate youth on Heritage Action’s mission.” Heritage Action organizes grassroots activists and pressures Congress to advance The Heritage Foundation’s conservative ideas.

His first order of business, Cohen told Heritage Action, is “getting everyone on the topic of defunding Obamacare.” He would also like to showcase and explain the Heritage Action Scorecard to the members of his club. Action’s Scorecard grades lawmakers on how they vote to advance conservative principles.

At a time when conservatives have found it challenging to connect with young people, this is an encouraging story indeed.

Heritage Action plans to recruit more activists like Cohen. Find out how you can get involved with Heritage Action.

What do you think? Tell us below in the comments.

The Heritage Foundation’s sister organization, Heritage Action for America, was featured on the front page of the Style section in today’s Washington Post.

The article starts off with a description of Action’s strength:

Think of Heritage Action as the Clark Kent of the conservative think tank world — as buttoned-down and statistics-laden as can be, but when the nemesis (Democrats! Liberals! Wishy-washy Republicans!) come into sight, the glasses come off and the lobbying muscles flex.

The article features accolades for Heritage Action from lawmakers, political commentators and grassroots leaders: Continue Reading »

The defeat last week of the UN disabilities treaty was a win for sovereignty, made possible in no small part by the work of Heritage Foundation expert Steve Groves and our sister organization, Heritage Action for America.

The disabilities treaty, known formally as Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is essentially a replica of a law already existence in the U.S. Ratifying this treaty and subjecting our sovereignty to international bureaucrats would therefore have been pointless, Groves explains: Continue Reading »

This week on Istook Live, Heritage Foundation fellow Ernest Istook spoke with the staff from Heritage Action for America about the impact they’re having on Capitol Hill and how they are holding lawmakers feet to the fire to vote on principle, not politics.

Istook also spoke with Frontiers for Freedom president George Landrith about the media coverage of President Obama’s response to the crisis in the Middle East. He also hosted Jessica Bellman of LOLA Health to discuss the effects of Obamacare on doctor-patient relationships.

Be sure to tune in 9:00 a.m. to noon Eastern Monday through Friday to hear Istook’s take on current events and politics. Find out more about the show, browse show archives, and listen live on istook.com

The farm bill is responsible for the dramatic increase and expansion of many subsidy programs. Worse, the debate over its renewal is often confused by unrelated programs tacked onto the legislation, Heritage Action for America CEO Mike Needham and Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal.

Heritage Action is a sister organization of The Heritage Foundation.

The bill funds policies such as farm subsidies, crop insurance, and commodity quotas. But 80 percent of what has been marketed as a farm bill actually goes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps.

Needham and Stutzman urge lawmakers to consider these different programs separately: Continue Reading »

Thirty-four Senators have signed a letter pledging to oppose the costly United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which would erode American sovereignty. This effectively ends the treaty’s chances for ratification in 2012, since under the Constitution, treaties must be approved by two thirds of Senators.

“The American people have responded to the educational efforts of Heritage and other institutions concerned about America’s interests in the world and have made clear that the U.S. Senate should not approve LOST,” Heritage Foundation senior vice president David Addington writes. He has more:

The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America have fought steadily for American sovereignty and American naval and maritime rights and against taxation of Americans by international organizations and giveaways of America’s resources to foreign countries.

Heritage Foundation expert Steven Groves has spent years pointing out the dangers of the agreement, commonly known as the Law of the Sea Treaty. Continue Reading »

Natural gas is a key energy source--and some lawmakers want to distort its market. Photo: Flickr/Anders Adermark

Last Tuesday, the Senate defeated a misguided measure that would have granted massive new subsidies for natural gas-powered vehicles.

This victory resulted in part from work by The Heritage Foundation and our sister organization, Heritage Action for America, to explain the flaws with the New Alternatives to Give Americans Solutions (NATGAS) Act.

Heritage energy expert Nicolas Loris explains the bill’s shortcomings:

By providing preferential tax treatment to subsidize the production, use, and purchase of [natural gas vehicles] as well as supporting infrastructure, the government picks NGVs as a winner at the expense of all the other applications for natural gas. The stated goal of the bill is to promote transportation-fuel competition and reduce foreign oil dependence and greenhouse gas emissions. It does neither.

“These subsidies create a dependence on government and do not allow producers to recognize the full costs of entering the market,” Loris writes with Heritage’s David Kreutzer in a post on the Foundry. “They centralize power in Washington and allow lobbyists and politicians to decide what companies will produce. They concentrate benefits to the industry and disperse the costs to the rest of us.” Continue Reading »

Mike Needham

Mike Franc

Before last week’s State of the Union address, Heritage Foundation vice president Mike Franc joined Heritage Action for America CEO Mike Needham for a conference call with Heritage members.

Listen to a recording of this teleconference using the controls below or download in MP3 format.