Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.
Biden’s Divisive COVID-19 Vaccination Plan Favors Coercion Over Persuasion <[link removed]> – The
mandate wrongly turns employers into the government’s “police” over this policy. Judges and lawyers will sort out whether the Labor Department has the legal authority to enforce these mandates, just as they had to recently when Biden overstepped his authority to extend eviction moratoriums through the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention. But, combined with the president’s toxic rhetoric, the mandates are more likely to harden opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine than change the minds of the unvaccinated. And while the president casts the unvaccinated in political terms, accusing those who oppose mandates of playing “pandemic
politics,” the reality is more complicated. Young adults, who backed Biden by larger majorities than any other age group, haven’t heeded his call to be vaccinated. Fewer than half of 18- to 24-year-olds are fully immunized; for those ages 25 to 39, that figure is just 52%. The rate of new infections among young adults is more than twice that of those over 65, more than 80% of whom are fully immunized. Young adults—including those who are unvaccinated—helped put Biden in the White House. But instead of seeking to persuade them, the president demeans them. He insists on casting pandemic response in starkly political terms, enlarging divisions, hardening attitudes, and igniting a counterproductive debate over the use of “emergency” regulations to threaten the jobs of the unvaccinated. The president needs a new plan with clearly articulated goals, one that isn’t dismissive of
freedom. Heritage expert: Doug Badger <[link removed]>
Biden’s Corporate Tax Increase Would Reduce Wages, Harm Economic Growth, and Make America Less Competitive <[link removed]> – President Joe Biden has
released his American Jobs Plan, a $2 trillion tax-and-spend proposal. The tax plan would reduce wages, cost jobs, restrict economic growth, reduce investment, and make America less competitive. The plan would increase the tax burden on American job creators by raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent (from 21 percent), add a new minimum tax on book income, increase taxes on U.S.-headquartered multinational corporations, sacrifice American competitiveness through a new international agreement to create a cartel of high-tax countries, target the fossil-fuel industry for tax hikes,
increase green-energy subsidies, and increase tax-collection enforcement. Congress should reject tax hikes in favor of a pro-growth agenda that keeps all taxes low. Heritage expert: Joel Griffith <[link removed]>
$3.5T Spending Bill Would Lavish Hundreds of Billions on Nanny State Education <[link removed]> – The so-called Build Back Better plan financed through the House bill includes massive new spending in the K-12 education sector, too. The so-called reconciliation package includes $82 billion to modernize school infrastructure, on top of unprecedented federal spending for schools that was doled out through three COVID-19 spending packages in 2020 and 2021. When you add together the taxpayer dollars that Congress appropriated for education since March 2020, it comes out to a staggering
$282 billion. To add insult to injury, state education agencies still have an estimated $180 billion in unused emergency funds, in part because only 5% of American Rescue Plan funds are to be spent this year, with the remainder being allocated through 2028. Not only is this more proposed spending superfluous and unaffordable, school infrastructure is not the role of
the federal government. It’s the responsibility of districts—not Washington—to construct and maintain schools. Heritage expert: Lindsey Burke <[link removed]>

Critical race theory will destroy the fabric of our military <[link removed]> – For
more than 50 years, our military has set the standard for race relations in the United States. While there will always be room for improvement, critical race theory will reverse that trajectory. If allowed to propagate, it will foster internal contempt, destroy morale and undercut the demand for excellence on which the success of our military relies. Senior leaders within the Defense Department must stand alone, if necessary, against every introductory element or seemingly benign aspect of this destructive scheme. They must make that stand now, before we lose the bond that holds our military together and relegates those segregated groups, and our nation, to the kind of nightmare the people of Afghanistan now endure. Heritage expert: JV Venable <[link removed]>
Mayor Muriel Bowser meets with group indoors where no one is wearing masks despite her own mask mandate <[link removed]> – This tool is not about playing a political game of “Gotcha!” It is about
protecting and restoring confidence in our governing institutions — a confidence that has been especially shredded by many leaders’ response to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not too much ask that these officials display the most basic sense of integrity. And it is only appropriate that we call them out when they stubbornly refuse to do so. Millions of Americans have heard the phrase “we’re all in this together” for months from corporate advertisers, friends on social media and, of course, government officials. If the behavior of our elected leaders is any indication, however, it would seem that many of them have chosen to live by another phrase: “YOU’RE all in this together.” Heritage expert: Joel Griffith <[link removed]>
Withdrawal of ATF Nominee a Win for the Second Amendment <[link removed]> – The withdrawal of David Chipman’s nomination to serve as ATF director is good news for
Americans concerned about the protection of their fundamental Second Amendment rights. Chipman has a long history of advocating restrictive gun control measures that fly in the face of the Second Amendment’s text, history, and tradition. Chipman and the Biden administration have repeatedly promoted false claims about guns, gun laws, gun-related violence, and dishonestly associated gun-related crime spikes with an increase in lawful gun ownership. Chipman is more interested in furthering a progressive gun control agenda than with protecting Americans' constitutional rights. Worse, his blatant disdain for the nation’s millions of responsible gun owners shows he was never the right person to head the ATF. Heritage expert: Amy Swearer <[link removed]>

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