Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.
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More Evidence Emerges That the Media Is on Team Biden – As communications director for the Trump 2020 campaign for two years, I saw the media’s bias in action daily. Perhaps there was no better example than our elongated struggle to get Beltway reporters to cover the story surrounding Hunter Biden’s business dealings, which we viewed as a scandal that involved Joe Biden every bit as much as his son. The media dug in and enforced an almost total news blackout of the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained emails that we strongly believed connected Joe Biden himself as having known about, approved of, and possibly benefitted from Hunter Biden’s foreign schemes. Social media giants blocked users from sharing it and Twitter even locked the account of the New York Post for having broken the story in the first place. Heritage expert: Tim Murtaugh
The Equality Act Would Make Protecting Your Child An Act Of Bigotry – If either of these bills becomes law, all public schools and any private school that receives federal funds must adopt this unscientific newspeak. A host of other “gender-inclusive” policies will be forced on students, such as giving access to bathrooms, locker rooms, and athletic participation on the basis of gender identification. Schools will be forced to facilitate a child’s gender transition while hiding this from parents (as many school districts already do.) Of course, all people should be treated with respect, and no one should be subject to unjust discrimination. But affirming biological reality is neither bigotry nor discrimination. And protecting children from confusion or from harmful experimental “treatments” is neither abuse nor neglect. On the contrary, it is a fundamental right and duty of parents that the state has an obligation to respect. These are views held by millions of Americans across the political spectrum. Heritage expert: Melissa Moschella and Emilie Kao
“There's no room in our classrooms for things like Critical Race Theory." – Critical Race Theory makes race the prism through which its proponents analyze all aspects of American life—and do so with a degree of persistence that has helped CRT impact all of American life. CRT underpins identity politics, an ongoing effort to reimagine the United States as a nation riven by groups, each with specific claims on victimization. In entertainment, as well as the education and workforce sectors of society, CRT is well-established, driving decision-making according to skin color—not individual value and talent. As Critical Theory ideas become more familiar to the viewing public in everyday life, CRT’s intolerance becomes “normalized,” along with the idea of systemic racism for Americans, weakening public and private bonds that create trust and allow for civic engagement. Heritage expert: Mike Gonzalez
Fact-Checking DHS Chief’s Dishonest Statement on Border Crisis – Claim No. 8: “There was no appropriate planning for the pandemic at all.” Rating: False. This statement is a slap in the face to the men and women at the Department of Homeland Security, who worked tirelessly to put plans in place to deal with the challenge of a pandemic on top of keeping our immigration system running. We implemented extensive plans—to include vaccine distribution to front-line officers when the vaccine would be made available—to ensure our front-line workers would be protected. Heritage expert: Lora Ries and Mike Howell
Don’t Let the Department of Defense Become the Department of Distraction – It is perfectly appropriate for the U.S. military to temporarily support COVID-19 vaccination sites with servicemembers or to help establish hospitals. But it would be an entirely different matter for the military to be assigned that mission on an enduring basis. When the Biden administration elevates combating climate change to a primary mission for the Pentagon, it adds yet another task on top of a military already struggling to perform its traditional tasks. In that vein, it might be useful to wonder where fighting climate change falls on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s or Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s to-do lists. Heritage expert: Tom Spoehr
An Economic History of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act: Higher Wages, More Jobs, New Investment – This Backgrounder separates the positive effect of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) from the underlying economic trends and negative effects of trade uncertainty and tariffs. In 2018, business investment increased more than was predicted, the labor market improved, resulting in annual wages of about $1,400 above trend, and overall measures of the economy outpaced government forecasts. Congress needs to preserve the economic gains from the TCJA. Beginning in 2023, the most pro-growth reform—full expensing—begins to phase out, and three years later the lower tax rates for small businesses and individuals expire. Reversing the tax cuts would cost jobs, slow down wage growth, and shrink domestic investment. Heritage expert: Adam Michel
Obamacare’s Health Insurance Exchanges in 2021: Increased Options, but Still Less Than Pre-ACA – As the Obamacare exchange market has stabilized over the past three plan years, more insurers have resumed or expanded their offering of exchange coverage. The result is that, at both the state and county levels, insurer choice and competition in the Obamacare exchanges in 2021 is essentially back to where it started out in 2014. Improvements (especially to premiums) are due to the Trump Administration’s efforts to stabilize the market through actions such as limiting the ability of medical providers and enrollees to “game” the system and saddle carriers with significant losses and allowing states to waive some of Obamacare’s mandates in order to better align federal subsidy dollars with enrollee need using state-based “reinsurance” programs. Despite improvements, the exchanges in 2021 are still one-third less competitive than the individual market was before the implementation of Obamacare. Heritage expert: Ed Haislmaier
Top Democratic Election Lawyers Sanctioned for ‘Misleading’ Conduct – The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued an order sanctioning lawyers at Perkins Coie—the Washington law firm that represents Democratic candidates, as well as prominent Democratic political organizations—for filing a “redundant and misleading” motion in the court in an election case out of Texas. Among the specific lawyers named in the March 11 order for “violat[ing] their duty of candor to the court” is Marc Elias, the chairman of the law firm’s “Political Law Group.” Elias represented Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and was responsible for the hiring of Fusion GPS, the political research and consulting firm that created the infamous “Steele dossier” that falsely claimed collusion between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Heritage expert: Hans von Spakovsky
Universal Periodic Review Reflects ‘Deficiencies’ of Human Rights Council – A mandatory review of the Human Rights Council is required between 2021 and 2026. The Biden administration should insist that the review be conducted promptly and use the opportunity to challenge U.N. member states to adopt reforms so that the council can better live up to its mandate. By reengaging prior to securing reform, the Biden administration risks repeating the failures of the Obama administration, which made the same pledge to fix the council when it joined in 2009. The wiser course would have been to secure reform before reengaging. But the Biden administration places great value in the U.N. human rights system and wishes to signal that support. The deficiencies of the Human Right Council, however, will not be overcome by goodwill or participating in the universal periodic review. If the council is to live up to expectations, the United States must demand fundamental reforms. Heritage expert: Brett Schaefer