America needs a rebirth of freedom

Your freedom is slipping away as Washington’s power grows. Your freedom is undermined by a more intrusive government, which increasingly dictates how you run your life. The principles of America’s Founding have never been more at risk.

Washington is taking over your health care. Encouraging illegal immigration as a political force to suppress your freedom. Raising your taxes. Enslaving your family by national debt. Coddling dictators and gutting our national defenses. While some “conservatives” may have abandoned principle or compromised needlessly, The Heritage Foundation is confronting the crisis with a bold plan to give America a new birth of freedom.

To meet the crisis, Heritage is launching Reclaim America, a revolutionary campaign—unprecedented by any policy organization—to rapidly restore the constitutional rule of “We the People.”

Reclaim America will use four revolutionary strategies to drastically reduce Washington’s power. We will liberate Americans from big government, dethrone the special interests that hold sway over both parties, and end the chokehold the Left has on America.

Reclaim America’s aim is simple: Change America’s trajectory. Beginning right now.

Via: Heritage.com

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YOUR STORIES: Insurance Plans Cancelled Due to Obamacare

Estimates this week suggest that 11 million people could lose their current insurance plans because of Obamacare’s mandatory requirements. We knew that included many Heritage readers, so earlier this week we asked: Has your health insurance plan been canceled?

Here are some of your stories:

  

John B:

IL family of 4. Both parents & a 23 yr. old canceled. We’re scrambling to replace coverage by Jan. 1st at a 80% increase in premiums. Washington, you’re killing us out here.

Via: The Foundry

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Action Figure - Heritage Action’s Mike Needham is just getting started.

Heritage Action, the conservative group that orchestrated the defund-Obamacare campaign, emerged from the recent shutdown with few legislative victories. But it didn’t walk away empty-handed; it won influence, especially among activists, who view the group as the operational muscle behind Senator Ted Cruz.

How Heritage Action wields its newfound authority (and its Cruz ties) in the coming months will say much about its place in the conservative firmament — and its ability to shape the GOP’s strategy.

To get a better sense of its agenda, National Review sat down with Mike Needham, Heritage Action’s 31-year-old CEO, at a Capitol Hill coffee shop. He remains disappointed about the way his defund strategy fizzled, but he’s convinced he can win the brewing conservative debate over best practices during divided government.

When I mention how some Republicans think Cruz and his group were damaged by the showdown, Needham tells me, “They haven’t been more than five miles outside D.C. if they think that.”

At the top of Needham’s to-do list: encouraging House Republicans to take the lead on both tactics and policy, regardless of resistance from their Senate counterparts. “Speaker John Boehner and Eric Cantor fought during the shutdown,” Needham says. “They fought to keep the message on Obamacare. But they were kneecapped constantly by the Republicans in the Senate.”

Via: NRO

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3 Trillion Reasons Not to Raise Taxes Again

Do you know how much President Obama has raised taxes?

Oh, by about $3 trillion.

In a new paper, Heritage expert Curtis Dubay reminds us:

President Obama has already raised taxes substantially twice—first as part of Obamacare and then as part of the “fiscal cliff” deal earlier this year. Together, those increases raised taxes by more than $1.3 trillion over 10 years. Including the payroll tax increase that was also part of the fiscal cliff deal, taxes have risen by almost $3 trillion during President Obama’s tenure.

That’s right: Taxes have risen by almost $3 trillion during President Obama’s tenure.

>>> See the 13 tax increases just in 2013

Today, a special congressional committee will meet to start hashing out what the next budget could look like—and members of this committee will face a lot of pressure to raise taxes again.

They should not.

Via: The Foundry

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Chart of the Week: Major Benefits of Free Trade

Nations that embrace international trade enjoy significantly stronger economies, achieve lower rates of hunger, and maintain a better stewardship of the environment, according to new data published by Heritage for the forthcoming Index of Economic Freedom.

There are, of course, other factors that contribute to such positive trends. But international trade undoubtedly plays a major role in determining the success of a nation and its economy. Contrary to the claims that “unfair” foreign competition hurts the jobs at home, the unemployment rate actually fares better in times of higher trade deficits. Bryan Riley and former Ambassador Terry Miller provide further clarification:

When the trade deficit increases, the unemployment rate decreases, and vice versa. For example, in 2009, the U.S. trade deficit shrank by 46 percent, and the unemployment rate increased by 60 percent.

Many critics of trade deals such as NAFTA and the WTO agreement argue that free trade benefits big multinational corporations and “the rich” at the expense of everyone else. In fact, poverty rates are much lower in countries with low trade barriers than in those where trade is restricted.

It adds up to this: Limited regulations on trade expand the economy and improve the well-being of both a nation’s citizens and its environment. With a lagging U.S. economy still bound by the recession, the expansion of trade is as important today as ever before. Trade can make everyone better off.

Via: The Foundry

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PINOCCHAHONTAS: ELIZABETH WARREN DOUBLES DOWN ON CHEROKEE CLAIM

In her new "Family" television ad, Elizabeth Warren directly responds to the controversy surrounding her claims to Native American heritage.

Here are the three central claims Ms. Warren makes using the same phrasing she's tested out with crowds over the past several months:

1. That she has Native American heritage.

2. That her parents were forced to elope because her father's parents objected to their marriage due to her mother's heritage.

3. That she did not benefit from "checking the box" as a Native American in a law school professor directory several times during the 1980s and 1990s.

Let's analyze these three claims, one by one:

Claim #1:  "[My mother] was part Cherokee and part Delaware."

As Breitbart News and many other sources have documented in excruciating detail, there is zero credible evidence to support the claim that Elizabeth Warren's mother had any Native American heritage, either Cherokee or Delaware. The only "evidence" Ms. Warren has ever presented to support those claims are her recollections and the recollections of her brothers that her mother and grandmother made such claims while they were children.

Claim #2: "[M]y parents had to elope."

Ms. Warren repeated this claim that Breitbart News debunked in June at the debate with Scott Brown last Thursday.

Via: Breitbart

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