Recent Policy Studies

• Economic Growth
  

  100 Ideas for 100 Days

  By Goldwater Institute, Goldwater Institute
  
  Report, 12/10/2009
  

  Protecting individual rights and promoting limited government aren’t just buzzwords. Those are the constitutional obligations of our elected officials. The Arizona Constitution explains this clearly in Article II, Section 2. With 100 Ideas for 100 Days, the Goldwater Institute provides elected officials at all levels of government a stable of ideas that will help them in that purpose. Arizona’s legislative session is supposed to last only 100 days, but since it has a tendency to run a little longer than that, this year we are offering 152 ideas that will help close the state’s unprecedented budget deficit, get the government back to basics, and allow entrepreneurs to create new jobs to help pull us out of recession.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  Charter Schools in Texas: The Waiting Lists Grow Longer

  By Brooke Dollens Terry, Blaine Yelverton, Texas Public Policy Foundation
  
  Policy Perspective, 12/10/2009
  

  Demand for charter schools is strong in Texas. Through word of mouth, more parents are learning about the benefits of charter schools and are sending their children to charter schools. In fact, nearly 128,000 Texas students attended a charter school last year, up from 113,000 the year before. Yet, demand in the Lone Star State outweighs supply with more than 40,000 students on a waiting list to attend a charter school last year.

  
  
  
• Budget & Taxation
  

  Putting the Spotlight on State Spending

  By Illinois Policy Institute, Illinois Policy Institute
  
  Policy Points, 12/10/2009
  

  Illinois citizens need a comprehensive tool that allows them to look at the details of state spending down to the agency, person and penny. The Illinois Policy Institute’s new website, IllinoisOpenGov.org, gives Illinois taxpayers that tool – essentially, an online X-ray machine into the details of state spending – and provides an unbiased look into raw state government spending data, collected directly from official government sources.

  
  
  
• Information Technology
  

  Let Competition and Choice Check Wireless ETFs

  By Seth L. Cooper, Free State Foundation
  
  Perspectives from FSF Scholars, 12/10/2009
  

  Early termination fees (ETF) in wireless device and service contracts are back in the news. Now nobody likes to pay higher fees, even optional higher fees. But the apparent good intentions animating ETF-critics’ call for regulation ignores the other side of the equation – the pro-consumer benefits of ETFs that reduce or eliminate the up-front cost of wireless devices and make the devices more economically feasible for consumers.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  The Health Insurance Reform Debate

  By Scott Harrington, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  This article provides an overview of the U.S. health care reform debate and legislation, with a focus on health insurance. Following a synopsis of the main problems that confront U.S. health care and insurance, it outlines the health care reform bills in the U.S. House and Senate, including the key provisions for expanding and regulating health insurance, and projections of the proposals’ costs, funding, and impact on the number of people with insurance. The article then discusses (1) the potential effects of the mandate that individuals have health insurance in conjunction with proposed premium subsidies and health insurance underwriting and rating restrictions, (2) the proposed creation of a public health insurance plan and/or non-profit cooperatives, and (3) provisions that would modify permissible grounds for health policy rescission and repeal the limited antitrust exemption for health and medical liability insurance. It concludes by contrasting the reform bills with market-oriented proposals and with brief perspective on future developments.

  
  
  
• Foreign Policy/International Affairs
  

  Bottom-up Nation Building

  By Amitai Etzioni , Hoover Institution
  
  Policy Review, 12/10/2009
  

  The tired debate between those who believe in nation-building and those who scoff at it glosses over a major difference between top-down and bottom-up society-building. The starting point for a bottom-up approach is the communitarian recognition that societies — even modern, so-called “mass” societies — are not composed of just millions upon millions of individual citizens. Instead, most societies are communities of communities.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  The Turnaround Fallacy

  By Andy Smarick, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  Today’s fixation with fix-it efforts is misguided. Turnarounds have consistently shown themselves to be ineffective—truly an unscalable strategy for improving urban districts—and our relentless preoccupation with improving the worst schools actually inhibits the development of a healthy urban public-education industry. Those hesitant about replacing turnarounds with closures should simply remember that a failed business doesn’t indict capitalism and an unseated incumbent doesn’t indict democracy. Though temporarily painful, both are essential mechanisms for maintaining long-term systemwide quality, responsiveness, and innovation. Closing America’s worst urban schools doesn’t indict public education nor does it suggest a lack of commitment to disadvantaged students. On the contrary, it reflects our insistence on finally taking the steps necessary to build city school systems that work for the boys and girls most in need.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  The Phony Funding Crisis

  By Arthur Peng, James Guthrie, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  Whether measured on a per-pupil basis or as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, support for public schools is stronger in the United States than in most other nations. Moreover, this condition has persisted for many decades. A unique set of constitutional, structural, financial, and political arrangements ensures that school systems and professional educators are buffered from revenue losses when the economy declines. State rules surrounding local school-district budgeting procedures contribute to the opposite impression, making it appear that schools are in a perpetual financial crisis. The 2009 ARRA stimulus package may portend an entirely new source of fiscal stability for America’s schools. When the economy turns down, the federal government may serve as the major fiscal backstop for public education.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  The Case for Special Education Vouchers

  By Stuart Buck, Jay P. Greene, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  In addition to legal challenges, opponents of special education vouchers are beginning to advance political and educational arguments against the idea as new programs are being considered in states such as Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and the existing Ohio program is poised to expand. Opponents raise several arguments to which answers can be given from recent studies of existing special education voucher programs.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  Time for School?

  By Dave E. Marcotte, Benjamin Hansen, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  There can be no doubt that expanding the amount of time American students spend in school is an idea popular with many education policymakers and has long been so. What makes the present different is that we now have solid evidence that anticipated improvements in learning will materialize.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  Golden Handcuffs

  By Robert M. Costrell, Michael Podgursky, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  Teacher pensions consume a substantial portion of school budgets. If relatively generous pensions help attract effective teachers, the expense might be justified. But new evidence suggests that current pension systems, by concentrating benefits on teachers who spend their entire careers in a single state and penalizing mobile teachers, may exacerbate the challenge of attracting to teaching young workers, who change jobs and move more often than did previous generations.

  
  
  
• Elections, Transparency, & Accountability
  

  Fraud in the Lunchroom?

  By David N. Bass, Education Next
  
  Education Next, 12/10/2009
  

  Fill it out and turn it in: that’s the message thousands of school districts send parents each year when they offer applications for the federal government’s National School Lunch Program (NSLP). And each year, millions of parents comply. But new data suggest that the process for verifying eligibility for the program is fundamentally broken and that taxpayers may be picking up the tab for participation by ineligible families.

  
  
  
• Crime, Justice & the Law
  

  It’s a Crime? Flaws in Federal Statutes That Punish Standard Business Practice

  By Marie Gryphon, Manhattan Institute
  
  Civil Justice Report, 12/10/2009
  

  For their own compelling reasons, the economic and social policies of the New Deal came to undermine the blameworthiness principle. Standards of conduct promulgated to protect and advance the public’s health, safety, and welfare carried with them deterrents imported from the criminal law. Today, the regulatory state, the New Deal’s descendant, so thoroughly encompasses the range of commercial activity that businesses and businesspeople trying to reduce their costs, better their products, best their rivals—do all of the things, in short, on which survival in a market economy depends—run an ever-present risk of becoming ensnared in the criminal law. In many instances, the laws in question are so voluminous and loosely drafted that even a student of the legislation would not have fair notice of what conduct was prohibited and what was not.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  The Bilingual Ban That Worked

  By Heather Mac Donald, Manhattan Institute
  
  City Journal, 12/10/2009
  

  The significant rise in English learners’ test scores since 1998 demonstrates that bilingual education is not necessary for Hispanic progress. Proposition 227 represents a triumph of common sense over one of the more counterintuitive pedagogical theories to emerge from the sixties’ political agitation.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  Anthraxing New York

  By Peter W. Huber, Manhattan Institute
  
  City Journal, 12/10/2009
  

  The germ-fighting end of the business is already pretty much where the health-care Left says the whole drug industry belongs, and has been for years. Drug companies supply what Washington requisitions, at prices dictated and quality minutely controlled by the one, omnipotent customer—if the right companies show up to supply it. But they no longer do. Even the smallpox story, it turns out, testifies to a decidedly unsocialist fact: we can’t defend ourselves against biological attacks without the private capital and expertise of a thriving, nimble, endlessly innovative civilian drug industry. We will all regret this together, because the spores, when they arrive, will dust and snuff Mayflower WASPs and rainbow immigrants, Lower East Side and Upper West Side, people of every party, hue, ethnicity, gender, lifestyle, and sexual orientation.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  Government Motors 1975

  By Claire Berlinski, Manhattan Institute
  
  City Journal, 12/10/2009
  

  British Leyland, to judge from the news, has disappeared down the world’s memory hole. We’re nonetheless repeating an experiment that has been conducted already, and its results are known to anyone who cares to consult them. The experiment was a failure—and there is no good reason to think that it will succeed the second time around.

  
  
  
• Transportation/Infrastructure
  

  The Role for Public-Private Partnerships in Modernizing and Expanding Nebraska’s Transportation System

  By Shirley Ybarra, Leonard Gilroy, Platte Institute for Economic Research
  
  Policy Study, 12/10/2009
  

  Business as usual will not deliver the infrastructure Nebraska needs to meet the mobility and goods movement needs of the 21st Century economy. Nebraska policymakers should embrace the considerable potential of the emerging public-private partnership (PPP) paradigm for highway funding and operations. PPPs have proven to be valuable tools in leveraging private capital, improving efficiencies, and managing and developing the transportation infrastructure and services that are the foundation of our economy. Thus far, Nebraska has failed to utilize the power of PPPs to help solve its transportation problems, as states like Florida, Virginia and Texas are doing. The choice for Nebraskans now is clear: higher taxes and fees, or partnerships with the private sector.

  
  
  
• Budget & Taxation
  

  Surge of “Nonpayers” Will Be Part of Bush Tax Legacy

  By Scott A. Hodge, Tax Foundation
  
  Fiscal Facts, 12/10/2009
  

  During 2007, Tax Foundation economists estimate that roughly 46.6 million tax returns faced a zero or negative tax liability. These are the so-called nonpayers, people whose exemptions, deductions and credits wiped out any tax that would have been due. Almost a third of all tax returns, 32.6 percent of 143 million federal tax returns filed, were nonpaying in 2007, the most recent year for which IRS data is final. The percentage for 2007 is the second highest, a slight tick down from the all-time highest in 2006, when 33.0 percent of tax filers paid nothing. The percentage of tax returns with no liability was fairly low in the 1960s and again in the early 1980s. A record had been set every year since 2002, as tax cuts throughout the Bush years, especially the refundable child tax credit, pushed low-to-middle income people off the tax rolls.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  State Hospital and Medical Provider Taxes: Not What the Doctor Should Order

  By Justin Higginbottom, Tax Foundation
  
  Fiscal Facts, 12/10/2009
  

  Taxing health care to pay for health care seems counterintuitive, but it is increasingly popular with state governments. Budgets are strained and Medicaid demand is up. In response, states are raising many taxes, and health care providers are an increasingly popular target because the revenue raised from those taxes can be used to obtain a larger amount of federal matching funds. States shift Medicaid revenues to their general funds while shifting Medicaid costs to the federal government. Twenty-two states have significant health provider or hospital taxes, and six of those have been enacted or expanded within the last year. Four enactments or expansions are pending.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  The House That Uncle Sam Built

  By Steven Horwitz, Peter Boettke, Foundation for Economic Education
  
  Monograph, 12/10/2009
  

  The Great Recession (or the Great Hangover) that began in 2008 did not have to happen. Its causes and consequences are not mysterious. Indeed, this particular and very painful episode affirms what the best nonpartisan economists have tried to tell our politicians and policy-makers for decades, namely, that the more they try to inflate and direct the economy, the more damage the rest of us will suffer sooner or later. Hindsight is always 20-20, but in this instance, good old-fashioned common sense would have provided all the foresight needed to avoid the mess we’re in.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  New Federal Regulations Threaten Small Business Access to Credit

  By Terry Neese, Bethany Lowe, National Center for Policy Analysis
  
  Brief Analysis, 12/10/2009
  

  The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency would make it more difficult for lenders to offer services and products that are important to small businesses. At a time when the economy is still struggling to recover, the last thing Congress ought to consider is an additional layer of regulation that could discourage new job creation.

  
  
  
• Education
  

  Rewriting the Job Description: The Teaching Profession in the Twenty-first Century

  By Frederick M. Hess, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Education Outlook, 12/10/2009
  

  “Human capital” is quickly becoming the new site-based management, a popular strategy from the 1980s and 1990s that sought to increase autonomy in schools and spread decision making more widely. While few are sure what human capital means, everyone craves it, has a model to deliver it, and is quick to tout its restorative powers. It is trendy and impressive sounding, but too often it means recycling familiar nostrums or half-baked ideas with new jargon. What is needed instead is a serious effort to rethink what the teaching profession should look like in the twenty-first century.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  Deregulation and the Financial Crisis: Another Urban Myth

  By Peter J. Wallison, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Financial Services Outlook, 12/10/2009
  

  The widely accepted narrative, prominent in the media and pressed by the Obama administration, is that the crisis was caused by deregulation—the “repeal” of the Glass-Steagall Act and the failure to regulate both derivatives and mortgage brokers—which allowed excessive financial innovation, risk taking, and greed among financial players from mortgage brokers to Wall Street bankers. With this diagnosis, the proposed remedy is more regulation and government control of the financial system, from the over-the-counter derivative markets to mortgage brokers and the compensation of CEOs. The problem for the administration’s narrative is that its principal examples do not stand up to analysis: the repeal of a portion of the Glass-Steagall Act did not eliminate the restrictions on banks’ securities activities (they were left unchanged), the mortgage brokers were responding to demand created by the government, and, there is no evidence that the failure to regulate credit default swaps (CDS) had any effect in causing or enhancing the financial crisis.

  
  
  
• Elections, Transparency, & Accountability
  

  Opening a Can of Worms: Government and Climate Change Data

  By James V. Delong, American Enterprise Institute
  
  The American, 12/10/2009
  

  Since open government is a major initiative of the administration, and so is climate change, one mighty collision is coming, because the manner in which the climate change researchers have handled their data is absolutely antithetical to the principles of open government. Information has been kept secret and the processes by which it has been “adjusted” have remained opaque, and, when revealed, turned out to be incomprehensible or dishonest.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  The Jobs Picture Crashes into Debt Realities

  By Veronique de Rugy, American Enterprise Institute
  
  The American, 12/10/2009
  

  Weighing against new jobs programs, however, are two main issues. First, the $800 billion stimulus didn’t achieve much in the way of recovery. Unemployment remains high and millions of jobs haven’t been created as promised by the administration. The concept of “saved” jobs has been discredited, much of the money spent so far seems to have been wasted, and the promise of good reporting and oversight has gone unrealized. Second, trillions of dollars in projected federal budget deficits over the next decade threaten long-term economic stability and complicate the president’s spending plans

  
  
  
• The Constitution/Civil Liberties
  

  Peekaboo, I See a Constitutional Violation

  By Ilya Shapiro, Travis Cushman, American Enterprise Institute
  
  The American, 12/10/2009
  

  Imagine a government agency with the authority to create and enforce laws, prosecute and adjudicate violations, and impose criminal penalties. Then throw in the power to levy taxes to pay for all the above. And for good measure, make the agency independent of political oversight. As any middle-schooler could tell you, such an entity goes against every principle of American civics. Still, it’s an accurate description of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB, pronounced “peek-a-boo”).

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  Capitalism without Romance

  By Jeffrey Friedman, American Enterprise Institute
  
  The American, 12/10/2009
  

  Nobody can plausibly deny any more that modern societies are bafflingly complex and the solutions to modern problems difficult to discover. So the policies that seem to voters or regulators to be so obviously needed may turn out to be disastrous nostrums—unless regulators or citizens are infallible. That surely would be magical. But there is no more magic to politics than there is to capitalism. The question is how best to guard against human frailties: by putting all our eggs in one politically decided basket? Or by hedging our bets by setting fallible ideas into competition with each other?

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  Drug Development in the Balance

  By Jack Calfee, American Enterprise Institute
  
  The American, 12/10/2009
  

  There are good reasons to worry about the prospect of adding drug importation to health reform legislation. A substantial part of future drug development hangs in the balance.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  Putting Medicare Consumers in Charge: Lessons from the FEHBP

  By Walton Francis, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Book, 12/10/2009
  

  Until a recent government decision to place it in the same tax-preferred status as most private-insurer health insurance, the FEHBP consistently outperformed Medicare in cost control; it still outperforms Medicare in service, benefit generosity, fraud prevention, and protection from catastrophically high health care expenses. In this timely volume, Walton Francis analyzes the successes and failures of both programs and proposes reforms that will revive the FEHBP and improve Medicare.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  Bring Market Prices to Medicare: Essential Reform at a Time of Fiscal Crisis

  By Robert F. Coulam, Roger Feldman, Bryan E. Dowd, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Book, 12/10/2009
  

  In Bring Market Prices to Medicare, Robert F. Coulam, Roger Feldman, and Bryan E. Dowd propose a groundbreaking solution: Use market-based arrangements to set prices for Medicare plans. The authors contend that the federal government should pay only the cost of the most economical health plan in each market area. To accomplish this, both traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare and private Medicare Advantage (MA) would submit bids for the government’s business; the federal contribution to premiums would be set to equal the lowest bid in each market area. This competitive pricing system would penalize plans that bid too high—their beneficiaries would pay higher premiums—providing an incentive for plans to offer their best prices. Meanwhile, low-bidding plans would be rewarded with increased enrollment. Such an approach would reduce Medicare spending by 8 percent, shoring up the program’s finances while empowering consumers to make sensible choices about their health care.

  
  
  
• Transportation/Infrastructure
  

  The Citizens’ Guide to Transportation Reauthorization

  By Randal O’Toole, Cato Institute
  
  Briefing Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  Decades of experience have proven that the best way of reducing the environmental costs of transportation is to use new technologies to reduce the impacts per mile of mobility, not to reduce mobility itself.

  
  
  
• Regulation & Deregulation
  

  Rationalism in Regulation

  By Christopher C. DeMuth, Douglas H. Ginsburg, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  The essay addresses such questions as whether regulation has been notably different in Republican and Democratic administrations and whether cost-benefit analysis has employed “antiregulation” biases that have blocked or weakened important health, safety, and environmental protections. It also considers several contentious issues in regulatory cost-benefit analysis—such as adjustments to account for “unintended” costs and benefits of government rules and for the age and “quality of life” of protected populations, and the discounting of benefits that will occur in the near or distant future. Finally, the essay argues that White House oversight of regulatory policymaking is a legitimate and essential means for presidents to pursue their policy objectives.

  
  
  
• Budget & Taxation
  

  Taxes Around the World: A Brief History of World Tax Policy, 1981-2007

  By Kevin A. Hassett, Aparna Mathur, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  In this paper, we provide a brief overview of U.S. tax policy in relation to other OECD countries and also in some cases, in relation to world averages. The U.S. tax code emerges, in our analysis, as exceptional in many regards. Most countries have gradually moved toward collecting a large share of their revenue from value-added taxes. This movement has generally allowed countries to reduce income tax rates relative to the United States. The U.S. tax code also redistributes income significantly more than most of its trading partners.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  Banking Crises and the Rules of the Game

  By Charles W. Calomiris, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  Banking crises properly defined consist either of panics or waves of costly bank failures. These phenomena were rare historically compared to the present. A historical analysis of the two phenomena (panics and waves of failures) reveals that they do not always coincide, are not random events, cannot be seen as the inevitable result of human nature or the liquidity transforming structure of bank balance sheets, and do not typically accompany business cycles or monetary policy errors. Rather, risk-inviting microeconomic rules of the banking game that are established by government have always been the key additional necessary condition to producing a propensity for banking distress, whether in the form of a high propensity for banking panics or a high propensity for waves of bank failures.

  
  
  
• Budget & Taxation
  

  On the Fiscal Road to Serfdom

  By Desmond Lachman, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  U.S. public finances are now on a patently unsustainable path. In the absence of early remedial action, the United States could be on the path to a disruptive outburst of inflation.

  
  
  
• International Trade/Finance
  

  The United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement: What Did You Expect?

  By Philip I. Levy, American Enterprise Institute
  
  Working Paper, 12/10/2009
  

  Bilateral free trade agreements have generally been analyzed as instances of preferential reciprocal tariff liberalization. Viewed through this lens, such agreements raise concerns both about new competition and about trade diversion. The United States-Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, an example of a serious North-South accord, demonstrates that new market access was not a principal Peruvian goal in the trade negotiations. Instead, the agreement was intended to encourage investment by locking in Peru’s economic reforms. This motivation has very different implications for the global trading system than a quest for preferential access.

  
  
  
• Regulation & Deregulation
  

  Congressional Misdiagnosis: Why Repealing McCarran-Ferguson Will Harm Competition in Health Insurance Markets

  By Gregory Conko, Kevin Hilferty, Competitive Enterprise Institute
  
  On Point, 12/10/2009
  

  As Congress moves forward with its health care reform efforts, a last-minute proposal to revoke the 64-year-old exemption from federal antitrust laws for health insurers has flown under the media radar. Proponents of the repeal proposal tout it as a broadly popular effort to slow the consolidation of the health insurance industry and promote more vigorous price competition. But the change would do nothing to prevent insurance firm mergers, which are already subject to federal oversight. However, federalizing antitrust enforcement over the insurance industry would unnecessarily duplicate existing state insurance regulations and jeopardize practices that help small insurers compete.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  Payment Card Networks under Assault: How Capping Interchange Fees Will Hurt Consumers, Charities, Community Banks, and Credit Unions

  By John Berlau, Ryan Radia, Competitive Enterprise Institute
  
  Issue Analysis, 12/10/2009
  

  To the extent that the current market for payment cards is insufficiently competitive, government regulation of card-issuing institutions, not interchange fees and payment card industry practices, is to blame. If Congress wants to advance consumer interests, it should reject proposals to regulate interchange fees and instead focus on reforming laws that distort natural market arrangements in the payment card market. The payment card system is a complex one that involves not only merchants and consumers but also payment card networks and financial institutions from banks to credit unions. The marketplace for credit and debit cards is vibrant and competitive, and its innovations have been a boon for consumers and merchants alike. At a time when the U.S. economy is recovering from one of the worst recessions in decades, for government to intervene in this well-functioning market would have serious unintended negative consequences for consumer welfare

  
  
  
• Foreign Policy/International Affairs
  

  Strategic Listening: How to Build Research Capacity Within the U.S. Government

  By Helle C. Dale, Edwin J. Feulner, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Winning the war of ideas against a radical Islamist ideology will require an unprecedented use of market research and communications resources.

  
  
  
• National Security
  

  Don’t Circumvent the Senate’s Important Role in Negotiating Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties

  By Baker Spring, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Strategic nuclear arms control is too important a matter to be mishandled. Likewise, it is too important to be resolved through a process that circumvents or shortchanges the Senate’s role in treaty-making.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  Reduced Investment and Job Creation to Blame for High Unemployment

  By James Sherk, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 12/10/2009
  

  The unemployment rate in America jumped from 4.9 percent in late 2007 to 10 percent in November this year. The conventional wisdom that unemployment is rising because more people are losing their jobs is only partly true. Job-loss rates have increased, but the largest force driving unemployment is the sharp drop in private-sector job creation. The massive stimulus bill championed by President Obama did nothing to “create or save” millions of jobs. Any “jobs bill” that relies on government spending without improving the investment and entrepreneurship climate will fail.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  The Senate Health Bill: Cost of the Insurance Premium Tax to Individuals and Families

  By Edmund F. Haislmaier, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 12/10/2009
  

  The Senate health insurance premium tax would impose new costs on Americans who already have coverage while deferring for years the even larger amounts that Congress proposes to spend subsidizing those without coverage. Through either Medicare Advantage or Medigap, seniors would pay approximately 17 percent of the new premium tax: the second largest share after workers in small business, who would pay 54 percent.

  
  
  
• Monetary Policy/Financial Regulation
  

  TARP II: The Sequel Is Never Better

  By The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Fact Sheet, 12/10/2009
  

  In an attempt to reform the financial industry, Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) and the Obama Administration have proposed new regulatory measures that would hurt consumers, increase the likelihood of future government bailouts and interventions, and do little to address the real problems in the financial industry.

  
  
  
• The Constitution/Civil Liberties
  

  Why the Personal Mandate to Buy Health Insurance Is Unprecedented and Unconstitutional

  By Randy Barnett, Nathaniel Stewart, Todd Gaziano, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Legal Memorandum, 12/10/2009
  

  An individual mandate to enter into a contract with or buy a particular product from a private party is literally unprecedented, not just in scope but in kind, and unconstitutional either as a matter of first principles or under any reasonable reading of judicial precedents.

  
  
  
• Transportation/Infrastructure
  

  Privatizing Rest Stops Allows States to Serve Motorists and Increase Revenues

  By Ronald D. Utt, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  A number of no-cost ways to keep rest stops open could yield substantial revenues to state transportation departments.

  
  
  
• National Security
  

  The U.S. Can Afford the Troop Increase in Afghanistan

  By Baker Spring, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  In 2010, President Obama’s proposal to increase U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan will cost an estimated $30 billion—or 0.2 percent of the estimated size of the U.S. economy. Clearly, defense spending is not a threat to the U.S. economy.

  
  
  
• Foreign Policy/International Affairs
  

  Public Diplomacy 2.0: Where the U.S. Government Meets “New Media”

  By Helle C. Dale, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 12/10/2009
  

  Can Facebook and Twitter change the world? Can all the nifty new social-networking sites promote democracy and a better understanding of American values around the world? The potential is certainly there – as was seen in the invaluable Twitter updates during the post-election protests in Iran. The U.S. government is embracing Web 2.0 for an ambitious strategy of reaching previously untapped populations around the world – call it Public Diplomacy 2.0. While the potential progress is undeniable, so is the potential danger.

  
  
  
• Budget & Taxation
  

  Tax Hikes Unnecessary for Extension of Current Policy

  By Curtis S. Dubay, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Congress should not use the need to extend current policy as an excuse to raise taxes, because preventing a tax hike is not a tax cut.

  
  
  
• Crime, Justice & the Law
  

  U.S. Drug Policy in Latin America

  By Ray Walser, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Testimony, 12/10/2009
  

  Debates about the failed war on drugs will likely lead us nowhere. We need a strategy that fights the supply side by working with partners and endangered friends like Mexico and Colombia whose very democratic governability and internal security can be placed at risk by the violence, corruption, and insecurity caused by drug cartels, narcoterrorists, and external enemies.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  “Socially Responsible” Corporations: Whose Wealth Are They Spreading Around?

  By James M. Roberts, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Rather than seeking a public relations coup through corporate social responsibility, corporations should focus on providing the highest quality at the best price.

  
  
  
• Foreign Policy/International Affairs
  

  U.S. Should Reject Illegitimate Election Process in Bolivia

  By James M. Roberts, Gonzalo Schwarz, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  If President Evo Morales prevails in Bolivia’s December 6 elections, Morales’ campaign to destroy constitutional democracy in Bolivia will be nearly complete.

  
  
  
• International Trade/Finance
  

  America Should Follow Through with Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Negotiations

  By Daniella Markheim, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  One positive outcome of President Obama’s recent trip to Asia is a U.S. commitment to reengage in negotiations to join the Trans-Pacific Economic Strategic Partnership.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  Obama Jobs Deficit Up Again, Real Jobs Strategy Needed

  By J.D. Foster, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  One day after the White House jobs summit admitted that the President’s policies are not working, the Department of Labor’s monthly jobs report added the exclamation point.

  
  
  
• Economic Growth
  

  Heritage Employment Report: Thanks for the November Jobs Report?

  By James Sherk, Rea S. Hederman, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Today’s jobs numbers, released the day after the White House jobs summit, show that Christmas has come early for many workers. However, as long as entrepreneurial activity remains low, unemployment will remain high.

  
  
  
• Natural Resources, Energy, Environment, & Science
  

  Opportunity at Copenhagen—Nations Should Promote Free Trade at the Climate Conference

  By Daniella Markheim, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Special Report, 12/10/2009
  

  Copenhagen 2009 – yet another climate conference. Fortunately, this month’s conference, which had been well on its way to renewing and reinforcing the controversial Kyoto Protocol on global warming, has lost much of its momentum. Worldwide economic downturn, uncertain U.S. climate policies, and the gap between developed and developing countries in climate negotiations have actually produced a potentially positive side effect: the opportunity to enact freer trade policies that promote prosperity and job creation while protecting the environment. Heritage Foundation trade-policy expert Daniella Markheim explains why the members of Copenhagen 2009 should embrace the opportunity to support open markets – and the chance to benefit all nations.

  
  
  
• Health Care
  

  How the Senate Health Bill Punishes Businesses That Hire Low-Income Workers

  By Robert A. Book, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  The net result of the Senate health care bill would be higher unemployment for low- and moderate-income families and higher health insurance costs for their co-workers.

  
  
  
• National Security
  

  The War in Afghanistan: Costs in Context

  By The Heritage Foundation, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Fact Sheet, 12/10/2009
  

  The federal government is projected to spend almost $3.8 trillion in 2010. Between Medicare fraud, government subsidies and bailouts, Cash for Clunkers, and so on, Congress should be able to cut spending by 2.6%. Not only would it then offset the costs of the war, but it would be a serious gesture of fiscal responsibility.

  
  
  
• National Security
  

  NATO Allies in Europe Must Do More in Afghanistan

  By Sally McNamara, The Heritage Foundation
  
  Backgrounder, 12/10/2009
  

  President Obama’s new strategy for the NATO ISAF mission is Continental Europe’s last chance to demonstrate that it is serious about victory in Afghanistan. Having endorsed General McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy, NATO’s European members must, at a minimum, provide an additional 10,000 troops to match President Obama’s 30,000 additional U.S. troops. Europe should also commit other resources, including civilian and military trainers, helicopters, and surveillance platforms.

  
  
  
• National Security
  

  START Follow-On Treaty: Balance Arms Control with Nuclear Modernization Progress

  By Baker Spring, The Heritage Foundation
  
  WebMemo, 12/10/2009
  

  Given the risks inherent to producing an effective nuclear arsenal, the Senate should not be in a rush to consent to the ratification of a START follow-on treaty.