Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.

Biden Buries Bad News of a Bloated, Reckless Budget and Hopes You Won’t Notice <[link removed]> – The Biden budget proposes $753 billion for defense discretionary spending in
fiscal year 2022, a 1.6% increase over current levels, while the proposed funding for future years is not tied to strategic requirements. The budget even proposes to distract from the military’s core mission by adding requirements such as “tackling the climate crisis.” Congress must exercise
spending restraint instead of continuing down the path of seemingly endless, reckless federal spending. When the federal government grows beyond its proper limits, and spends and taxes too much, it stifles prosperity, infringes on liberty, and makes it more difficult to live the American dream. Biden’s
budget request should be disregarded, and Congress should chart a responsible fiscal path. Heritage expert: Joel Griffith <[link removed]>

President Biden’s Plan Harms Families and Undermines Work <[link removed]> – Lawmakers should reject President Biden’s so-called American Families Plan, which is in fact a leftist wish list that does not
promote family stability and prosperity. The plan undermines families and discourages work, leaving Americans with fewer opportunities and less control of their lives while failing to address real needs. The plan also provides government handouts to special interests and the rich. Rather than undermine families and discourage work, policymakers who want to help the family should pursue changes that equip them to thrive. Heritage experts: Rachel Greszler <[link removed]> and Robert Rector <[link removed]>
Anti-Semitism Is an Attack on American Principles <[link removed]> – American Christians of all denominations recognized in Judaism one of the great gifts to Western civilization: the concept of a moral law
given to mankind by a divine Lawgiver. From their very beginnings as a nation — like no one else in the ancient world — the Jewish people sought to order their social, political, and religious life according to these norms. The Ten Commandments supplied the ethical bedrock not only for Judaism but also — quite remarkably — for Western civilization throughout the centuries. The American Founders were acutely aware of this cultural inheritance and its importance to their new republic. They paid homage to it in countless ways, not least of which was in the physical architecture of their most important political institutions. It is almost impossible, for example, to ignore the carved image of Moses — deliverer of the Ten Commandments to the Jewish people — dominating the frieze atop the U.S. Supreme Court. Heritage expert: Joe Loconte <[link removed]>
Biden’s ATF Nominee Amplifies Concerns About Stance on Second Amendment <[link removed]> – Chipman says he believes that I have an individual right
to keep and bear arms. And I’ll take him at his word that this is, in fact, what he believes. But it’s also clear that he believes I only barely have this right, and only with respect to the less “firearm-y” types of firearm he thinks are appropriate for me. He advocates policies that would limit my right to
keep and bear arms yet are unlikely (indeed, incapable of) reducing gun violence. And he’s willing to misstate facts and obfuscate truth in the process of making these policies a reality. At the end of the day, those aren’t the qualities of someone who should lead the ATF. Heritage expert: Amy
Swearer <[link removed]>
Three Big Questions Biden’s National Security Strategy Has to Answer <[link removed]> – One does not substitute hard power for soft power or vice versa. These elements of national power are not fungible. There is no formula for how many diplomats can replace a division. Further, many of these instruments are not well suited for dealing with modern great-power competition. Traditional tools of public diplomacy and foreign assistance match up poorly against China’s sharp power. The United States needs to scrape the rust off all these instruments. How it competes in international organizations is one example. And the country cannot neglect hard power. Whether Biden’s team can deliver satisfactory answers to these three questions will tell the country a lot about how well they will prepare America to compete for the long term. Heritage expert: James
Carafano <[link removed]>
Tribalism Will Be the Death of the Military Services <[link removed]> – The challenge for the services will be to deal with pressures for
defense reviews and rationales that justify proposed plans for lower military top lines. After all, the military must respond to legal, competent civilian leadership, following the civilian leaders’ strategic guidance and priorities. To do anything else is injurious to appropriate civil-military relations. That said, the services should not try to game the system and play politics themselves in the hopes they can better their budgets by undermining the needs, capabilities and requirements of other services. Rather, their assessments and advice should focus on stressing the importance of having the capability to compete and dominate in every domain, in every key strategic theater. It is easy to be joint when there is money enough to go around. The real mark of military professionalism is to defend the importance of a robust joint force when the budget-cutters find the essential need for jointness in modern warfare an inconvenient truth. Heritage expert: James Carafano <[link removed]>

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