Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.
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The unintended consequences of the American Families Plan – As a mother who depends heavily on workplace flexibility and family-friendly policies, I’d rather keep the government out of my arrangements. Over the last four years, the number of employers providing paid parental leave has doubled. Lawmakers should encourage that, not try to supplant it. When employers have paid family leave programs forced upon them, they may be less likely to hire or promote women, particularly for managerial positions. According to Pew Research Center, countries with government paid-leave programs tend to have larger gender wage gaps. And female workers in European Union countries are far less likely than American women to hold managerial positions. Heritage expert: Rachel Greszler
All Biden Needed To Not Screw Up The Presidency Was Stay In His Basement, And He Failed – Biden inherited a nation poised for a tremendous post-COVID resurgence, requiring only mid-level competence to keep things on track. Unfortunately for America, he hasn’t been up to the task. The biggest issue facing the nation for the past year obviously has been the coronavirus, which has killed more than 600,000 Americans, infected nearly 34 million, and forced the economy into a near standstill last year. As he entered office, however, the good news for Biden was that multiple vaccines already had been developed and with doses ramping up, thanks to former President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed. The economy was rebounding, and millions of jobs had returned. What was required of the new president was to not screw things up. But at the four-month mark of his administration, Biden has badly mismanaged things, contributing to a cluster of problems that are increasingly spiraling out of control. Heritage expert: Tim Murtaugh
Biden’s $1.7 Trillion Infrastructure Proposal Still Troubling, Promotes a Radical Left-Wing Agenda – While reducing the size of the ‘infrastructure’ proposal is a step in the right direction, the $1.7 trillion amount is still troubling. The plan promotes a radical left-wing agenda with provisions like an expansion of government health care, elements of the Green New Deal, prioritizing Amtrak and mass transit over roads and bridges, and giving wealthy households a bigger tax write-off for buying electric vehicles. The Biden administration would still fund the plan with a job-killing tax hike on businesses just as we're recovering from the pandemic recession. Further, such a large increase in federal spending would mean taking more power from the private sector and state and local governments, and transferring that power to the dysfunctional swamp in Washington. Americans have seen firsthand that Congress can't properly manage or oversee the federal government we have today, and last thing we should do is put Congress in charge of even more aspects of our lives. Heritage expert: David Ditch
Never Forget That US and UK Saved World From Tyranny – We have hit a moment in history where authoritarian regimes such as Russia and Communist China proclaim their superiority, their victories, and their pride in their achievements even as they hide or ignore the ugly truths about the evils their systems produce. And not just evils from half a century or centuries ago, but today. At the same time, countless countries throughout the West—the United States, Great Britain, and others—have crossed the line of self-criticism essential to a free society and into outright self-loathing. The triumphs of the free world are being forgotten and diminished, its sins heightened and embellished. With the increasing power of authoritarian regimes, it is essential that we as Americans regain our self-confidence. While many of the West’s elite institutions seemingly no longer are capable of justifying our own existence, it very well may be up to the millions of average Americans who still believe in freedom and self-government—who still cling to the notion that our system, our country, our way of life is far from perfect and certainly could be improved, but is still an incredible force for good. Heritage expert: Jarrett Stepman
Biden's risky risk-averse foreign policy – why it's not smart to mimic Obama – Like Obama, Biden will try to disengage as much hard power as possible from the conduct of foreign affairs and lean increasingly on diplomatic jaw-jaw lots and lots of "foreign aid."The problem with a risk-averse strategy is that it introduces a lot of risk. By shrinking the safety net of American power, it leaves lots of open space for bad people to do bad things. Not surprisingly—they do.When Obama tried it we got Benghazi, Russian aggression, more Cuban meddling in Latin America, Chinese island-building in the South China Sea, an Iran run wild, and expanded and threatening nuclear weapons and missile testing in Korea. Heritage expert: Jim Carafano
The woke takeover of the US military endangers us all – The Defense Department is now reportedly considering hiring a private company to monitor the free speech of military personal on social media, using key words or algorithms that by their very nature reflect the perspective of those who select the words and write the algorithms. The relentless drive to enforce conformity within the military with a preferred leftist narrative is troubling, especially as it reinforces the Marxist tendency Lohmeier warned about. The American people and our elected representatives should not only be aware of what is going on within the Department of Defense, but speak out as boldly and courageously as has Lohmeier. As a nation, we call upon our military to defend what is best of America. Efforts to undermine and disparage that are unconscionable, harmful not only to our security, but also to the very essence of what the United States represents. It should not be tolerated. Heritage experts: Dakota Wood and Mike Gonzalez
Tripping Trump, Trapping Biden – These two precedents amount to a formidable new hurdle for any administration trying to undo its predecessor’s administrative agenda—especially Biden, who promulgated more executive orders and memoranda in his first month than George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Trump combined. In particular, they could hinder Biden’s efforts to unwind Trump’s environmental and commercial deregulation. Biden has ordered executive agencies to “consider suspending, revisiting, or rescinding” all actions related to the environment passed during Trump’s tenure, and has targeted scores of Trump’s agency actions that relaxed restrictions on commerce. As with DACA, most of these efforts involve reliance interests and granted benefits and are quite complex. Heritage expert: GianCarlo Canaparo