The 2011 Index of Economic Freedom is out, and the news is not good. For the second year in a row, America became less economically free. The U.S. is now just the ninth-freest economy in the world. The decline in the U.S. ranking was driven by skyrocketing government spending, new regulatory uncertainty associated with Obamacare, […]
On March 16, 2006, when our national debt stood at $8.27 trillion, a young Senator from Illinois announced his intention to vote against raising our nation’s debt ceiling to $9 trillion, explaining: The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means that “the […]
This morning, The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal released the 2011 Index of Economic Freedom, and while the news is good for many countries, it is depressing for the United States. All told, 117 countries, mainly developing and emerging market economies, improved their Economic Freedom Index score. Meanwhile the U.S. dropped to 9th […]
The Obama administration is not known for its pro-British track record, but this is by far the strongest indication yet that the current White House has little regard for the Special Relationship and its unique role in modern American history. During a White House photo-op with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, President Obama had this to […]
All of us at The Heritage Foundation were profoundly saddened by the tragedy that occurred this past Saturday morning in Tucson, Arizona. We mourn all of those who lost their lives and are praying for a full recovery by all of the surviving victims. As Speaker John Boehner said Saturday, “An attack on one who […]
Doctors say they are “optimistic” about her chances of recovery, but the prognosis for the first 24 hours is guarded following surgery to save the life of a firm friend of Israel, U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords. The Jewish lawmaker was shot in the head by a 22-year-old gunman with a pistol at point-blank range Saturday […]
Members of the 112th Congress were sworn in just days ago, and already lawmakers are making big waves. Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican from the state of Minnesota in her third term, introduced legislation Thursday that would repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill that was signed into law just six months ago. Dodd-Frank calls for […]
This week’s announcement that 13 oil companies can resume activity in the Gulf of Mexico provided some hope the Obama administration might finally begin to approve drilling new permits. It couldn’t come soon enough. Since the administration’s drilling moratorium was lifted in October, deep-water permit issuance is down 88 percent with only two new permits […]
Today the Bureau of Labor and Statistics released its monthly jobs report showing that the U.S. economy added only 103,000 jobs this December. With the unemployment rate now at 9.4%, this marks the 20th month in a row that the unemployment has been over 9 percent, a post–World War II record. You are going to […]
The authoritarian Russian government may have done too much of a bad thing when it arrested Liberal opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and sentenced him to 15 days in jail for “disobeying police orders.” The Nemtsov arrest, coming shortly after the trumped up charges and kangaroo court proceedings against former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, now rubbed against […]
