Is advertising for Cheerios really making our kids fat? Photo: Flickr/Max V

The Congressionally-chartered “Independent Working Group” has released plans that would restrict healthy food choices, like Cheerios and yogurt, for American children.

These plans, created in the name of combating childhood obesity, would effectively implement a government-regulated grocery list and interfere with commercial advertising standards–a clear violation of commercial speech protections under the First Amendment.

In a new report, The Heritage Foundation’s Diane Katz debunks the IWG’s claims and calls these would-be regulators nanny-state nutritionists: Continue Reading »

Heritage’s Rory Cooper appeared yesterday on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC program to explain the proper role of government in disaster relief in the context of last weekend’s Hurricane Irene.

According to Heritage research, the federal government declares a new disaster area on average every 2.5 days, even for natural disasters that are properly a state or local responsibility.

Watch the full video below:

Hurricane Irene and the recent East Coast earthquake remind us that we need to have a robust response to the most catastrophic events in our country. However, a recent report by experts in The Heritage Foundation’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies notes that the federal government is now responding to a new disaster every 2.5 days.

This is the very definition of “majoring on the minors.”

Continue Reading »

Princeton University economist Alan Krueger, who President Obama picked to be chairman of the White House Council on Economic Advisors, “co-authored a paper that showed that extending unemployment benefits will likely exacerbate joblessness,” reports The Heritage Foundation’s Lachlan Markay.

Markay explains why this is important:

The paper’s findings run counter to the president’s economic argument for an unemployment benefit extension, which is expected to be a major part of the jobs plan he will unveil early next month.

This corresponds with findings by Heritage experts that “greater unemployment benefits provide little stimulus.”

In their analysis, Heritage’s Karen Campbell and James Sherk point out the real consequences of expanded unemployment insurance: Continue Reading »

Apple iPad. Photo: Flickr/Leon Lee

When Apple CEO Steve Jobs resigned last week, he was lauded for his many successes in business. But these successes were built on a long history of flops and failures.

These failures, The Heritage Foundation’s Mike Brownfield explains, are critical to the success of free enterprise:

The list of entrepreneurs who took risks, suffered failures, and picked themselves up again is long and distinguished. Their names include the likes of Thomas Edison and R.H. Macy, Bill Gates and the Wright Brothers. It was from their failures that success was born—and it was in the free market that they made it big. Unfortunately, today that system is under assault.

Over the past several years, he notes, government has stepped in to prop up people and firms that otherwise would have failed.

“If America wants more entrepreneurs to emerge, more people to take risks, and more jobs to be created, then the government should stand back and let the brightest minds get to work,” Brownfield argues.

What do you think? Should the government allow homeowners, entrepreneurs and big businesses like banks to fail?