Heritage Foundation expert JD Foster testified yesterday before the House Ways and Means Committee about the debt limit.

Watch Foster’s testimony below, in which he answers questions from lawmakers:

Heritage's James Carafano, right, testifies about the Democratic Republic of Congo alongside activist and actor Ben Affleck, left.

Heritage Foundation vice president James Carafano testified yesterday before the House Armed Services Committee about the ongoing security challenges facing the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On his same panel was none other than Ben Affleck. Yes, that Ben Affleck.

The African nation has a long history of instability, which has implications reaching far beyond its borders. Unfortunately, the Democratic Republic of the Congo suffers from both a corrupt and ineffective government and a corrupt and ineffective United Nations peacekeeping force.

“Although the U.S. does not have a direct national security interest in the DRC, it does have an interest in promoting stability and good governance,” Heritage experts Morgan Roach and Brett Schaefer explain. The Obama administration should take the following five steps, they write: Continue Reading »

The Senate could vote this week on a new United Nations treaty intended to protect people with disabilities.

But in testimony earlier this year before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Heritage Foundation expert Steve Groves argued that ratifying the treaty is both harmful to American sovereignty and unnecessary to protect the rights of the disabled.

Groves, who works in Heritage’s Thatcher Center, pointed out that a vast array of federal, state and local laws already protects people with disabilities. Ratifying the treaty would only make American laws subject to review by international bureaucrats who aren’t looking out for our nation’s interests.

An excerpt from his testimony: Continue Reading »

Peter Brookes

China is increasingly focused on asserting its military power in the South China Sea, Heritage Foundation foreign policy expert Peter Brookes told lawmakers on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs earlier this month.

American weakness could allow Chinese hegemony in the region, he warned:

In the end, Chinese policies and activities in the South China Sea have the potential to set a troubling precedent if Beijing is not effectively opposed. In the absence of any Southeast Asian nation capable of opposing Chinese assertiveness, a weak U.S. response will enhance the chances of China achieving its apparent goal of hegemony over the strategic South China Sea. The Chinese could potentially realize this end state without the use of force. Of course, misperception and miscalculation could lead to a major crisis with significant, but unintended, consequences.

How do you think the U.S. should respond to China’s growing power?

Heritage Foundation expert Steven Groves testified last week before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (link in PDF) at hearings about ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.

Also testifying on the panel were former Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld and former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Watch a video of Groves’ testimony below, starting at minute 61, and be sure to watch his discussion with Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) at minute 67:

Is John Kerry right that we need to ratify the Law of the Sea Treaty?

Advocates of the misguided Law of the Sea Treaty hope to ram the treaty through in the lame-duck session after the election, Heritage Foundation expert Brian Darling writes.

Hearings held today on treaty ratification “are a pretext for a lame duck strategy to railroad the treaty through the Senate after the November election.”

Heritage scholar Steve Groves plans to testify Thursday at Senate hearings on the treaty and explain why it would undermine American sovereignty and security.

Do you think the Senate will be able to pass the legislation in a lame duck session?

Two new bills before Congress would address major weaknesses in the federal budget process and allow for long-term planning to bring the nation’s finances under control, Heritage Foundation economist Alison Fraser told the House Budget Committee last week.

Failure to act has dire consequences: “By the end of the decade, debt held by the public will reach 100 percent of GDP. After a generation it will reach nearly 200 percent and continue to skyrocket thereafter.”

Both the Spending Control Act and the Balancing Our Obligations for the Long Term (BOLT) Act would help bring runaway entitlement spending off of auto-pilot, she says. Here’s why that’s so important: Continue Reading »

David John

With Social Security’s facing a questionable future, it’s all the more important that Congress act to facilitate retirement savings by private individuals, The Heritage Foundation’s David John told lawmakers in testimony last week.

“The Automatic IRA offers most employees who are not covered by any form of employer-sponsored retirement plan the opportunity to save through the powerful mechanism of regular payroll deposits that continue automatically,” John told members of the House Ways and Means Committee.

This proposed plan would allow workers to save their own funds to supplement Social Security income in retirement, he continued: Continue Reading »

Ed Meese speaks at Heritage in July. Photo: Chas Geer

Federal criminal laws have grown vastly in their scope and today ensnare unsuspecting citizens who were unaware even that they committed an offense, Heritage Foundation scholar and former Attorney General Ed Meese told members of Congress yesterday.

“Today, a person can be found guilty of violating a commercial, regulatory, or environmental law without proof of either of the following elements: (1) that he had a purpose of breaking the law or (2) that his conduct clearly was blameworthy,” Meese said in testimony before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security.

Today there are “more than 4,000 federal criminal statutes and hundreds of thousands of potential federal offense-defining regulations on the books,” he added.

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday about the case of Lawrence Lewis, a Maryland man sent to jail for unintentionally violating the Clean Water Act while trying to protect sick veterans from a sewage backup.

Meese made four key recommendations in his remarks: Continue Reading »

David Muhlhausen

Heritage Foundation expert David Muhlhausen is testifying on Capitol Hill today at a hearing on Veterans Treatment Courts.

Watch Muhlhausen’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism live at 10:30 a.m. Eastern.

Also testifying at the hearing on improving the effectiveness of these programs and reducing recidivism: actor Martin Sheen and a federal judge.