This afternoon, the House voted to restore the work requirements that the Obama Administration has attempted to gut from the 1996 welfare reform law. The breakdown: 250 Republicans voted for restoration and 164 Democrats voted against the resolution. The 1996 reform inserted work requirements into the largest federal cash assistance welfare program, replacing the old […]
Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius has misled the American public again. HHS just announced that enrollment in Medicare Advantage (MA) is projected to increase by 11 percent next year. That’s good news. But the Secretary goes terribly wrong when she credits the increase to Obamacare, stating, “Thanks to the Affordable Care […]
Tensions between China and Japan over the Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands have increased due to the recent presence of Chinese patrol boats near Japanese waters. Only a handful of Japanese Coast Guard ships currently patrol the Senkaku Island area, and rumors of a flotilla of 1,000 Chinese fishing vessels heading toward the islands could potentially overwhelm […]
A new article published yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, featuring new research by The Heritage Foundation, tries to slice through the rhetoric on trade policy during a week when the Obama Administration announced a new trade suit against China. The article reaffirms the basic benefits that free trade brings to our economy. Not only […]
When Bill Clinton is awarded two out of four “Pinocchios” for legitimatizing President Obama’s gutting of welfare’s work requirements as a pro-work move, maybe there’s hope yet for the occasional fact-based assessment of a policy debate from the mainstream media. The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler finds that the former President stretched the truth in defending […]
Dismal jobs reports and high unemployment continue to weigh down the U.S. economy, but there are a few bright spots. Most notable among them: energy production, particularly the shale oil and shale gas revolution. The technological one-two punch of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has created a remarkable energy boom and created hundreds of thousands […]
Mother Jones has opened a broad debate about the role of government in our society. In a clandestine tape recorded in May and obtained by the magazine, former Governor Mitt Romney (R-MA) remarked that 47 percent of taxpayers pay no federal income taxes. He notes, among other things, the increase in dependency on government in […]
“The death of U.S. public diplomacy” was how one Twitter user last Tuesday described the now-infamous apology from the U.S. embassy in Cairo for the ill-conceived movie Innocence of Muslims. Strong words, but there is no doubt about it: The need for American public diplomacy in the Middle East needs to be rebooted and rethought. […]
Today we celebrate Constitution Day—the 225th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention. The U.S. Constitution remains the object of reverence for nearly all Americans, and an object of admiration by people around the world. Sadly, the assault by 20th century liberal theorists and activist judges has seriously undermined respect for […]
House Cloakroom: September 17 – September 21 Analysis: The House will be in session this week for the final week prior to the November elections and will take up immigration, welfare, and energy legislation. There will be a vote on a resolution under the Congressional Review Act regarding a rule issued by the Department of […]
