Two Solyndra executives slated to testify before a House committee Friday have announced they will invoke their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answer any of the committee’s questions. The two had previously told the committee they would not plead the Fifth if they could push back the date of their testimony. Jan […]
President Barack Obama provided a broad outline of his deficit reduction plan Sunday that includes $1.5 trillion in new taxes through a new tax rate for millionaires and repeal of the Bush tax cuts for Americans couples making more than $250,000 per year. The millionaire’s tax proposal, dubbed the “Buffett Rule” by the White House, […]
President Obama unveiled the details of his jobs plan last week, including a proposal to offset the new government spending with tax hikes. It’s a bizarre strategy for a president who says he wants to create jobs. As the above chart from Heritage’s 2011 Budget Chart Book illustrates, Americans are already grappling with the prospect […]
Earlier this week at Heritage, a Bush-era deputy assistant attorney general shared the stage with a former president of the American Civil Liberties Union. It’s not exactly the type of combination you might expect talking about terrorism 10 years after 9/11. But for John Yoo and Nadine Strossen, it was an opportunity to discuss the […]
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) came to Washington as the a tea-party conservative with the goal of fixing the economy, addressing the debt crisis and curbing the growth of the federal government. It’s an uphill battle for the youngest member of the U.S. Senate, but one he’s prepared to fight. Lee’s recent book, “The Freedom Agenda: […]
Last week, Solyndra became the third solar company in recent weeks to go belly-up, but the Fremont-based solar manufacturer made the most noise—because it lost more than a half a billion dollars in taxpayer money. Solyndra received one of the first stimulus loan guarantees, a $535 million loan. During a visit to the plant last […]
A top congressional investigator said on Tuesday that he believes more companies that benefitted from the stimulus bill’s renewable energy loan guarantee program will go bankrupt before all allotted funds are spent. The program, which guaranteed a $535 million loan to Solyndra before the company declared bankruptcy last week, still has $8-10 billion in authorized […]
This afternoon, the District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania became the latest court to strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (Obamacare) individual mandate, holding that “[t]he power to regulate interstate commerce does not subsume the power to dictate a lifetime financial commitment to health insurance coverage.” The challenge was brought […]
Roll Call carries op-eds today from the Ripon Society and Heritage debating the merits of Super Committee transparency. Ripon’s Lou Zickar thinks the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction would benefit from privacy. I argue that’s exactly the wrong approach for the most powerful committee in congressional history. As the Joint Committee prepares for its […]
It was sadly ironic that Texas energy company Luminant announced it would lay off 500 employees on the same morning that President Obama unveiled legislation designed to promote job growth. The company said that a new rule from the Environmental Protection Agency will force it to cease operations at two electricity generating plants, and close […]
