Free Republic

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2010--The head of The Heritage Foundation last night labeled the House-approved health bill a modern-day "Intolerable Act" and called for its repeal.Edwin J. Feulner, president of the Washington, DC-based think tank, said the bill represented "a giant step toward creation of a European-style welfare state." Instead of empowering individuals, he noted, the trillion-dollar, 2,700 page bill empowers an "unelected bureaucracy [to}... determine the content of health benefits packages, including medical treatment and procedures, and how much will be paid for those services."Feulner called the government-centered approach "alien to our national character" and predicted that opposition to...

Even with the economic recovery underway, state lawmakers nationwide are finding it tough to balance their budgets. As a result, many have been lobbying for - you guessed it - higher taxes. They haven't made much headway in Arkansas, though. Gov. Mike Huckabee has refused to sign off on tax hikes, provoking howls of protest from those who warn of cutbacks in "vital" state programs. Gov. Huckabee prefers to do what real-world people do when faced with tight budgets: Cut spending. (It's not as if the average citizen has the option of taxing someone when it looks as if he...

Many people have good ideas, but few live to see those ideas define an era and even win a war. George Kennan did, even though he eventually backed away from the ramifications of his idea. In 1946, as the United States was trying to decide how to deal with the post-World War II world, Kennan weighed in with the famous “Long Telegram” from Moscow. The Soviet Union is “impervious to the logic of reason,” Kennan warned his superiors at the State Department, but “it is highly sensitive to the logic of force.” Thus began the policy of containment -- a...

Me and My Shadow September 23, 2004 | | Under the British parliamentary system, members of the minority party act as “shadow ministers.” They basically pretend to hold the same posts they would if their party were in power. It’s an effective way for voters to find out what the opposition party would do if it could call the shots.