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Congress, Biden Administration Policies Are Crushing Working Americans – Since President Biden took office, real wages have fallen, while the cost of living in Biden’s America has skyrocketed. Prices have risen so much that the average worker has lost the equivalent of $3,000 in annual income since January 2021. This inflation is the direct result of the Federal Reserve printing money to finance the prodigal spending sprees of a reckless Congress and White House. Now that the Fed is finally raising interest rates, borrowing costs are increasing dramatically, with interest rates on mortgages doubling over the last few months. Interest rates on everything from credit cards to auto loans have increased, costing the average American around $1,200 in annual income compared to January 2021. Unfortunately, the Biden administration and Congress are now working at cross purposes to the Fed. The constant spending and borrowing in Washington mean that the Fed needs to raise rates higher and faster to get inflation under control. Heritage Experts: EJ Antoni and Joel Griffith
Biden administration outsourcing online censorship of conservatives – The federal government is constitutionally barred from abridging freedom of speech. Yet the Biden administration has funded an organization dedicated to suppressing the online speech of those whose views they see fit to label as “disinformation.” The fact that those “offenders” are overwhelmingly conservative is no accident. EIP is acting as a proxy for the American left, conducting an information war against its perceived enemies on the right. No Americans, conservative or otherwise, should have their constitutional rights quashed by the state or by state-sponsored entities. Heritage Expert: Jake Denton
The labor market’s double-edged sword – There are 2.8 million fewer people working today than there would be if the employment-to-population ratio were the same as it was prior to the pandemic. That’s created a double whammy for the U.S. economy, and it doesn’t bode well for the future. Employed workers produce goods and services that add to economic output, earn incomes that increase consumer spending, and save money that increases innovation and productivity. But would-be workers on the sidelines add nothing to output and usually take from it through government welfare benefits that subtract from other people’s paychecks and from private investment (when funded through government debt). This worker shortage is the result of bad government policies that have caused a decline in the culture of work in America. Heritage Expert: Rachel Greszler
Biden should ask a mirror whom to blame for his energy policy failure – President Joe Biden and his congressional allies were very shocked when OPEC+ countries announced they would cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, starting this November. Some lawmakers even propose punishing OPEC by pulling all U.S. military assets out of the Middle East (conveniently ignoring that those deployments are there to protect U.S. interests). Clearly, Biden and his allies are frustrated that prices at the pump are going up weeks before national elections. But if anyone deserves punishment for our energy problems, it’s Biden and his green team, not governments in the Middle East . Biden has been throwing our Middle Eastern partners under the bus since he came into office, trying to resurrect a hopelessly flawed nuclear deal with Iran . It’s a deal that would give our friends' archenemy, Iran, many billions of dollars while doing nothing to keep Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon. Heritage Experts: James Carafano and Diana Furchtgott-Roth
Army’s Misplaced Priorities: Recruitment Shortfall More Problematic Than Climate Change - The Army’s plan, among other things, contains the requirement to modify unit designs to account for soldiers and civilians that hold “approved climate credentials.” There is direction to incorporate climate change into “strategic and operational-level wargame and exercise designs.” And the most damning of all is a requirement to “ … produce a digital handbook of potential unit-level collective training modifications that would reduce direct Army [greenhouse gas] emissions.” Reading between the lines, the Army is considering modifying its unit training programs to reduce greenhouse gases. A changing climate has always been a challenge the military has had to confront in planning and carrying out its mission. But a consistent failure by the Army to meet its recruiting targets carries dire national security consequences—not sometime in the distant future, but today. Building a strong national defense is a deadly serious endeavor, one that demands a narrow focus on a few key priorities. That appeared to be missing last week. Heritage Expert: Thomas Spoehr
How Biden and IRS Unlawfully Expanded Obamacare - Biden’s IRS did what Congress had left undone. It effectively amended the tax code, creating eligibility for premium subsidies based on the cost of employer-sponsored family coverage. According to an analysis by the Urban Institute, the principal effect of this policy will not be to reduce the number of Americans who are uninsured. Although a family coverage affordability test would make 4.8 million dependents eligible for federal subsidies, the analysis found that the policy will reduce the number of uninsured by only 190,000. The vast majority of dependents who benefit from this change currently have health insurance. The new rule likely will encourage some employers to reduce or eliminate their contributions to dependent coverage. Employers, on average, pay 72% of premiums for dependents. With companies struggling to cover rising health insurance costs, some may let taxpayers foot the bill for covering their employees’ family members. Heritage Expert: Doug Badger
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s fall: Not unlike the economy’s - Janet Yellen used to be viewed as a talented technocrat and professor, with many prestigious universities listed on her resume. But like many Americans today, Yellen has fallen on hard times. Despite her title of Treasury secretary, she has been reduced to playing Orwellian word games for the Biden administration, illustrating her descent to political mouthpiece. Yellen successfully muddied the waters further with another nebulous statement, saying that those making less than $400,000 a year will have the same audit rates as in "recent years." If Yellen’s use of "recent" resembles her use of "transitory," then she might be referencing a century ago. The nation should expect more than this from its Treasury secretary, and far more from someone as intelligent, competent and well-read as Janet Yellen. Sadly, she is living proof that when financial aptitude is made subservient to ideology, even the talented fall from grace, and no amount of Orwellian word games can offer redemption. Heritage Expert: EJ Antoni
The Biden-Harris Administration’s National Security Strategy - The President’s National Security Strategy—meant to guide the administration’s efforts to counter pressing external dangers—is comprised of a litany of the administration’s accomplishments and a recitation of progressive domestic issues, packaged as threats to the security of the United States. Within the strategy’s 47 pages, only four deal with China and Russia, and but one----a mere 830 words of 23,000---describes the role of the U.S. military to counter external threats. The other 42 pages are devoted to such topics as the challenges from climate change, pandemics, food insecurity, and domestic terrorism. If Americans were looking for a National Security Strategy capable of guiding the nation’s security efforts for the next two years, they will be sorely disappointed by this document. The absence of detail of how the Biden Administration will counter adversaries in cyberspace is a perfect exemplar of the overall deficiencies of the strategy. The strategy is maddeningly vague on the topic of how the U.S. will work with states, localities, and the private sector to deter malicious actors in cyberspace, nor is there any discussion of consideration of changes to NSPM-13 and its effectiveness in allowing Cyber Command to respond and persistently engage adversaries. Heritage Experts: Dustin Carmack and Erin Walsh
A Venezuelan Man of Mystery Helps Tell Story of America’s Open Border – For now, legal, front-door, orderly immigration to the U.S.—including the refugee program—has been eclipsed by a massed rushing of the back gates encouraged and abetted by Biden’s homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, and his Mayorkas Migration Machine. All available Department of Homeland Security resources are going to the giant inward-sucking sound in the south. Deciding who enters the U.S. and gets to stay based on mere physical proximity—and not by due, legal process—allows foreigners to steam-roll over the laws that Americans, through Congress, have enacted. Only a second-rate intelligence could imagine that we will be able to process the millions of migrants who have arrived illegally already since Biden took office, plus millions more on the way, while simultaneously handling over 10 million cases pending action in immigration courts or with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tells us: “We have had a process in place. There’s a legal way of doing this and—for managing migrants.” But what we’re experiencing isn’t legal, and it’s not a process. It is chaos. Heritage Expert: Simon Hankinson