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Heritage Scholars Condemn Biden Administration’s Use of Federal Law Enforcement to Intimidate Parents – A school board’s responsibility is to represent the families in its district, and parents and voters should be active participants in board members’ decision-making processes—on everything from curricula to COVID mandates. Biden administration officials should praise Americans for their civic participation and sense of duty, not treat them as a threat because they hold different views than radical bureaucrats. This is nothing less than an attempt to chill debate using the muscle of an increasingly politicized federal law enforcement apparatus. Americans’ rights to seek redress against their leaders, including members of their local school boards, must be guarded, no matter how many vague and intimidating memos this administration chooses to craft. Neither Garland nor the Justice Department has asserted a violation of a federal criminal law, but are invoking federal law enforcement anyway. Parental participation in school board meetings during periods of public comment—which school boards in Indiana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Virginia, to name a few, have suspended in recent months—does not violate provisions related to terrorist activities, and it is laughable for this administration to think they do. Heritage experts: Mike Gonzalez and Jonathan Butcher

A Warning From Australia About Power of Government – The same views about government and the rights of the governed apply to both mass gun control and extreme COVID-19 lockdowns. In both, individual and communal power to make decisions is taken out of the hands of citizens and placed in the hands of government authorities and bureaucrats. Australia is a warning to America. Yes, in times of extreme duress, citizens can and must sacrifice some amount of liberty for security. But this contingency comes alongside the fundamental recognition that certain rights must be retained by the people and protected by the government. Evan Mulholland, director of communications at the Institute of Public Affairs in Australia, explained in a podcast interview with my colleague, Virginia Allen, how liberty-loving Australians began changing. “Australia has this great reputation of individualism, about pushing back against authority,” Mulholland said. “But what we’ve seen is that a lot of people, particularly last year, less so now, actually liked being told what to do, liked the lockdowns, liked getting through them, but these things don’t happen in a vacuum. As I said, they happen when … the political and cultural elites very slowly pick away at different freedoms.” Is this not happening in our country too? Heritage expert: Jarrett Stepman

The ‘Build Back Better’ Plan Puts in Place a Government Option and Sets a Path to Single-Payer – Without meaningful reforms, costs and premiums will continue to rise in the Obamacare exchange. The Obamacare system today gives insurance companies more taxpayer money every time they raise prices—a recipe for the higher costs and fewer—and worse—choices we’ve seen in the program. Rather than take this problem head-on and address the government policies behind it, this new program papers over it with more big government. The single-payer “solution” of course would be to open access to the government-run option. This would drive private competitors out, leave the government option as the only option and open the gate to single-payer. Of course, this is where the fantasy of single-payer meets reality. Generous benefits would increase demand and increased demand would increase costs. Either politicians would have to increase taxes—with some estimates predicting the need for an additional 20% payroll tax—or would begin to ration access to care as done in countries with single-payer models. While it may appear that the push for single-payer has faded, the reality is that the “Build Back Better” plan continues to set a path to single-payer on the installment plan. Heritage expert: Nina Schaefer

How Congress Can Help to Reverse Hospital Market Consolidation – Hospital market consolidation is a problem for every American. The lack of competition in the nation’s hospital markets undermines patient choice and increases consumers’ costs. Conversely, strong market competition not only increases patient choice and controls costs, but also stimulates innovation in health care delivery and improves the quality of care. Consumer-driven market competition can deliver what government bureaucracy cannot: fast, efficient, personalized, and patient-centered care. To realize these goals, federal and state officials alike need only remove costly government barriers and adopt pro-competition policies. Heritage expert: Bob Moffit