Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.Please reply to this email to arrange an interview.
Biden’s kowtowing on student loans doubly hurts low-income taxpayers <[link removed]> – The never-ending moratorium on student debt payments is the administration’s attempt at squaring the circle: It takes the place of forgiveness, attempting to appease the far left-wing of the party, without incurring the political costs that outright forgiveness would incur. The cost to taxpayers, however, is still accruing. Ironically, “lunch-bucket Joe” is effectively taxing welders, crane operators and assembly line workers to subsidize people who will likely have higher lifetime earnings, a clear violation of Mr. Biden’s campaign promise of not raising taxes on people earning less than $400,000 annually. Like the previous pledge not to extend the moratorium, it is a case of promises made, promises broken. Heritage Expert: EJ Antoni <[link removed]>
Radical strategies block parents’ care for their schoolchildren <[link removed]> – Remove, rename, restrain. Radical activists and policymakers are using these tactics to restrict parents’ involvement in their children’s health care and education. Now some state lawmakers are responding with another “r” — reinforcing parental rights. First, the radicals: In Vermont, lawmakers introduced a proposal that would allow young children to receive puberty-delaying hormones or other “treatments” without the consent of a parent or guardian. Minor children could take the drastic step of trying to assume a different “gender” without their parent’s input. Heritage Expert: Jonathan Butcher <[link removed]>
3 Colleges Get Their Just Desserts <[link removed]> – When the Soviet communists’ hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered at the Kremlin for the last time on Dec. 25, 1991, some said that the last refuge of Marxism was in the academic institutions of the West. They were right. That totalitarian ideology has infected American colleges and universities and other institutions that are purveying cancel culture, wokeism, censorship, and gender dogma that rejects reality. But students, parents, and others are fighting back. And two colleges—Oberlin College and Shawnee State University—recently got exactly what they deserve: large legal judgments against them for defamatory and discriminatory misbehavior. Heritage Expert: Hans von
Spakovsky <[link removed]>
What Spain’s Re-Energized Conservatives Can Teach Their U.S. Counterparts <[link removed]> – Spain and the U.S. are allies with very different societies and cultures, but they increasingly resemble each other in at least one respect: each country's political arena features a new and energized conservative movement ready to wage battle to take back cultural ground lost to the Left in recent years. And, in both countries, this new combative Right must contend with conservatives happy to accept the Left's gains and simply promise to manage the economy better. Heritage Expert: Mike
Gonzalez <[link removed]>
Chinese espionage 'greatest long-term threat' to US national and economic security <[link removed]> – We need more investigators in the United States; FBI, CIA, for example, to monitor and to actually go out and find when the Chinese <[link removed]> are trying to use cover companies to get in and sneak and steal our intellectual property. The United States needs to understand that the Chinese Communist Party is an existential threat to its own people and the American people. … Right now, we are playing from behind and this president is instilling no confidence whatsoever that our country is prepared for this fight. Heritage Expert: Brent Sadler <[link removed]>, Dean Cheng <[link removed]>, and Olivia Enos <[link removed]>
Biden's greatest Ukraine challenge is coming <[link removed]> – At home, the president is distracted and weakened by an unpopular domestic policy agenda that seems to sink more deeply into a quagmire by the day. Will he have the time, energy, and interest in building back a better Europe? Biden also must fight against the weight of his own policies that make the U.S. a less effective force at home and abroad. This challenge is particularly daunting when it comes to energy policy because he would have to abandon his unrealistic ambitions of reaching "Global Zero" and powering the nation solely on renewable green energy. Perhaps Biden will find his inner-Harry Truman and take on the tough leadership role these times demand. But a betting man would wager that, even if he decides to take on these difficult challenges, he will want to lead with the same woke policies that have thus far left him leading from way, way behind. And that’s just not enough to get the job done. Heritage Expert: Brent Sadler <[link removed]> and John Venable <[link removed]>
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