Last fall Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) visited Heritage to talk about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the “unaccountable” nominee to head the agency. At the time, there was speculation President Obama would attempt to bypass the U.S. Senate to install Richard Cordray as CFPB director. That’s exactly what happened today in what Heritage’s Todd […]
Indiana lawmakers are bracing for another high-profile fight over a right-to-work bill when the legislative session opens Wednesday. Last year Democrats fled the state in protest, preventing the legislature from conducting business for five weeks. The right-to-work bill would end forced unionization for private-sector workers in Indiana. Its supporters say the bill would increase jobs […]
by David J. Rusin • Dec 31, 2011 at 3:26 pm The most vexing video of 2011 may be this clip of Congressman Dan Lungren questioning Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Stockton on December 7. Though Stockton’s evasiveness is in line with the government’s history of not calling Islamism the enemy — recently exhibited by […]
If a single person retires at 65 after earning an average income of $30,000 a year for 30 years, an amount equal to an average of $4,500 was paid into Social Security, per to fund his SSI benefits. If an average interest rate of 5 percent were paid, the future value of his account would […]
At The Heritage Foundation, our experts work tirelessly to produce relevant research on the big policy questions facing Congress. This year was no different, and Members of Congress, their staff, journalists, researchers, and Heritage members and readers turned to our experts for their analysis. Listed below are the top 10 papers of 2011, covering everything […]
Over the past 50 years, 10 U.S. presidents have made annual budget requests to Congress, projecting deficits both big and small. But no other president compares to Barack Obama when it comes to the size and scale of the current budget deficit facing the United States. The country is facing an 8.3 percent estimated average national […]
A picture released by Fars News Agency on December 29, 2011, shows a U.S aircraft carrier spotted in an area of the Iranian navy ongoing maneuver zone on the Sea of Oman, near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran. UPI/ Abdollah Arab Koohsar/Fars News The Strait of Hormuz lies between Iran and the United […]
Before he became president of MF Global, the bankrupt brokerage firm that lost $1.2 billion in client money, Bradley Abelow spent time as New Jersey’s treasurer and former Gov. Jon Corzine’s chief of staff. In those roles, Abelow served alongside Lisa Jackson, who led the state environmental protection department and eventually succeeded Abelow as Corzine’s chief […]
While millions of Americans saw their incomes decrease, their job opportunities dissipate and their home values drop as the economy dipped, the 535 men and women they elected to represent them in the U.S. Congress were not only shielded from the economic downturn but gained during it. The average American’s net worth has dropped 8 percent […]
Americans are blessed to have inherited a constitutional republic. If we are to keep it, we must vigilantly preserve the Constitution upon which it stands. As 2011 draws to a close, we made a list (and checked it twice!) of the year’s most important constitutional trends. Nice: Congress begins to rediscover its (atrophied) constitutional muscles […]
