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



<[link removed]>TikTok Generation: A CCP Official in Every Pocket - <[link removed]> Every day that TikTok is allowed to operate in the United States is another day that China can collect data on American citizens and sharpen its ability to exploit them—especially young people. The more that TikTok becomes embedded in U.S. society, the harder it will be to uproot. Even so, there will be another TikTok. Without implementing a systemic, risk-based framework to proactively address the next TikTok now, the U.S. will have ceded yet another critical digital battlespace to its adversaries. Heritage Expert: Jake Denton <[link removed]> and Bryan Burack  <[link removed]>
Testifying on the Federal Debt Ceiling <[link removed]> - Americans have faced the scourge of inflation, seen their mortgage rates spike and their purchasing power drop. The domino that began this chain is a spending trajectory that aims to grow the federal budget to a quarter of our economy in a decade. This same reckless fiscal policy has ballooned our debt from $5.75 trillion to $31.46 trillion in just the last 23 years – almost 82% of our national debt was created in less than a generation while tax revenues have been at historic highs as a percentage of our economy. The debt now stands at almost a quarter of a million dollars per family - The federal debt has truly become America’s second mortgage. Heritage Expert: Richard Stern <[link removed]>
 
Can State Sovereignty Be Bought? <[link removed]> - Congress failed to meet this basic requirement when it enacted the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 <[link removed]>, and this failure led a federal court to conclude <[link removed]> in West Virginia v. U.S. Department of the Treasury that the federal government could not enforce one of the law’s key conditions: a restriction on state tax cuts. The decision is one in a litany of legal setbacks for the federal government’s response to the Covid pandemic—an effort characterized by fervent do-something-ism, in which too much authority was taken from the sovereign states and too much given to the federal administrative state. Heritage Expert: Jack Fitzhenry <[link removed]>
 
The U.S. Must Challenge China’s Status as a Developing Country in International Organizations and Treaties <[link removed]> - China has a well-established record of manipulating the international system to its benefit and continues to use its historical status as a developing country to its benefit—even though it is an economic
power rivaling the U.S. While China is the main concern, other relatively wealthy nations similarly benefit from measures intended to assist poor nations. The concept of “common but differentiated responsibilities” needs reconsideration and limitation to ensure that it targets nations that truly need special consideration. It is incumbent on the U.S. and like-minded countries to push back and ensure that wealthy, economically competitive nations, such as China, do not profit from benefits and different standards intended to assist poor nations. Heritage Expert: Brett Schaefer <[link removed]>
 
NDAA 2024: Increasing the Readiness of the U.S. Military <[link removed]> - The 2024 NDAA can play a critical role in helping the U.S. Armed Forces continue their transformations to deter great-power aggression and win the nation’s wars. This NDAA can have tremendous signaling power to China, Russia, and other potential aggressors in the world. Issues such as military recruitment, shipbuilding and ship maintenance, and nuclear enterprise investment impact national defense today and will continue to impact readiness for decades. The time Congress spends deliberating these issues now is time well spent. Heritage Expert: Maiya Clark <[link removed]>
 
Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative <[link removed]> – Forty years ago on March 23, President Ronald Reagan announced to the world his plans to develop a missile defense system that would make Soviet ballistic missiles “impotent and obsolete,” yet in the years
since his Strategic Defense Initiative, plans for a comprehensive homeland missile defense system have deteriorated. Heritage Expert: Patty-Jane Geller <[link removed]>

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