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  4.    <title>Heritage RSS Feed</title>
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  6.    <description>Content from www.heritage.org.</description>
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  10.  <title>Anti-DEI Enforcement Is Coming for America’s Colleges</title>
  11.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/anti-dei-enforcement-coming-americas-colleges</link>
  12.  <description>&lt;p&gt;So far, President Trump’s actions on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” have seen federal DEI offices shuttered and DEI officials placed on mandatory leave. But that isn’t the end of the story. Greater enforcement of civil rights law is coming, and American colleges and universities should be worried.&lt;/p&gt;
  13.  
  14. &lt;p&gt;In President Trump’s first anti-DEI Executive Order, he sought to &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;eliminate&lt;/a&gt; all DEI (both legal and illegal) across the federal government—a broad stroke that extends to all agencies’ “‘equity-related’ grants or contracts.”&lt;/p&gt;
  15.  
  16. &lt;p&gt;This directive includes many grants that directly or indirectly reach colleges—and it has already had some effect.&lt;/p&gt;
  17.  
  18. &lt;p&gt;According to Arizona State University’s provost, several agencies have told grantees to “cease and desist all DEIA activities required of their contracts or grants.” Already, Rutgers University has &lt;a href="https://mailchi.mp/gse/jff-mini-conference-5217834?e=13a3d67b45" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;canceled&lt;/a&gt; an equity-related conference supported by Jobs for the Future, a national nonprofit using funds from the Department of Labor.&lt;/p&gt;
  19.  
  20. &lt;p&gt;Trump’s second anti-DEI order—designed to &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;uproot and destroy&lt;/a&gt; illegal treatment throughout the country—will hit colleges even harder.&lt;/p&gt;
  21.  
  22. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/dei-euphemism-discrimination-the-way-out"&gt;DEI, a Euphemism for Discrimination, Is on the Way Out&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  23.  
  24. &lt;p&gt;This order notes that institutions of higher education are among those that “have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences,” and instructs federal officials to prepare investigative, legal, and regulatory action against universities that engage in such illegal activities.&lt;/p&gt;
  25.  
  26. &lt;p&gt;Far too many American colleges and universities make violating civil rights laws part of their daily routine.&lt;/p&gt;
  27.  
  28. &lt;p&gt;More than simply operating DEI offices (which themselves often blatantly violate civil rights law), many colleges support discriminatory scholarship programs that violate civil rights laws so clearly that even the Biden administration regularly found them illegal.&lt;/p&gt;
  29.  
  30. &lt;p&gt;These scholarships boldly discriminate based on race or sex by explicitly limiting themselves to, for example, members of “&lt;a href="https://americananthro.org/prizes-and-awards/minority-dissertation-fellowship-program"&gt;historically underrepresented U.S. racialized minority group[s]&lt;/a&gt;” (as in one scholarship offered by the American Anthropological Association and advertised by the &lt;a href="https://grad.uchicago.edu/fellowship/american-anthropological-association-aaa-fellowships/"&gt;University of Chicago&lt;/a&gt;).&lt;/p&gt;
  31.  
  32. &lt;p&gt;More examples include a scholarship &lt;a href="https://apiqwtc.org/call-for-applications-apiqwtc-scholarship-2025/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;limited to&lt;/a&gt; “Asian/Pacific Islander lesbian, bisexual, or queer women or transgender individuals” (&lt;a href="https://www.rochester.edu/education-abroad/finances/scholarships/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;advertised&lt;/a&gt; by the University of Rochester), or the Brown and Caldwell &lt;a href="https://brownandcaldwell.com/careers/minority-scholarship/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Minority Scholarship&lt;/a&gt;, which is limited to those who &lt;a href="https://brownandcaldwell.com/careers/minority-scholarship/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;identify as members of minority groups&lt;/a&gt; (advertised by the &lt;a href="https://seas.umich.edu/student-services/financial-aid/funding/brown-and-caldwell-bc-minority-scholarship" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;University of Michigan&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="https://funds.environment.yale.edu/brown-and-caldwell-minority-scholarship" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Yale University&lt;/a&gt;, and many others).&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  33.  
  34. &lt;p&gt;Closer to home, University of California, Berkeley’s Cal Alumni Association, a separate nonprofit organization, &lt;a href="https://alumni.berkeley.edu/get-involved/scholarships/aai/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;offers a scholarship&lt;/a&gt; only available to those who “identify as Black/African American/African.” Berkeley proudly includes this scholarship on its own website.&lt;/p&gt;
  35.  
  36. &lt;p&gt;These all are examples of external scholarships, where off-campus organizations (those offering the scholarships) are the ones discriminating and violating civil rights laws. But when a federally-funded college advertises such opportunities to its students, it too is violating civil rights and must be held accountable.&lt;/p&gt;
  37.  
  38. &lt;p&gt;Heritage Foundation interns have found hundreds, if not thousands, of examples of such violations.&lt;/p&gt;
  39.  
  40. &lt;p&gt;But external scholarships aren’t the only issue. In other instances, universities act on the behest of the government to execute federal programs that discriminate because Congress requires it.&lt;/p&gt;
  41.  
  42. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-dei-regime-trying-make-comeback"&gt;The DEI Regime Is Trying To Make a Comeback&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  43.  
  44. &lt;p&gt;As one example, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) operates a &lt;a href="https://sciences.ugresearch.ucla.edu/programs-and-scholarships/marc/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Maximizing Access to Research Careers&lt;/a&gt; (MARC) program that is funded by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and which only funds students who are from “historically underrepresented racial or ethnic groups,” have disabilities, or are from “low-income background[s].”&lt;/p&gt;
  45.  
  46. &lt;p&gt;This program operates &lt;a href="https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-24-138.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;under the authority&lt;/a&gt; of the HHS’s National Research Service Award (NRSA) program—a program Congress &lt;a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/288" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;specifically instructed&lt;/a&gt; the HHS to run “in a manner that will result in the recruitment of women, and individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds (including racial and ethnic minorities), into fields of biomedical or behavioral research.”&lt;/p&gt;
  47.  
  48. &lt;p&gt;Needless to say, this blatantly violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.&lt;/p&gt;
  49.  
  50. &lt;p&gt;The second anti-DEI Executive order instructs federal officials to issue guidance on how institutions of higher education must comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard.&lt;/p&gt;
  51.  
  52. &lt;p&gt;In that decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” That means discriminatory DEI offices and scholarships must go.&lt;/p&gt;
  53.  
  54. &lt;p&gt;The clock on DEI is ticking. Within 120 days, the guidance—and recommendations for enforcement—will be released.&lt;/p&gt;
  55.  
  56. &lt;p&gt;Under current law, violating civil rights can mean the end of all federal funding. We can expect the Trump administration to use this tool vigorously to incentivize change throughout the education sector. Unless they start cleaning house immediately, colleges have a lot to worry about.&lt;/p&gt;
  57. </description>
  58.  <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:49:22 -0500</pubDate>
  59.    <dc:creator>Adam Kissel, Mary Mobley</dc:creator>
  60.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/anti-dei-enforcement-coming-americas-colleges</guid>
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  64.  <title>Porn’s Diabolical Appeal</title>
  65.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/porns-diabolical-appeal</link>
  66.  <description>&lt;p&gt;A coalition of commercial pornographers, styling themselves as the “Free Speech Coalition,” is asserting that Texas is threatening their First Amendment liberties by making them legally responsible for verifying the age of viewers who use their websites.&lt;/p&gt;
  67.  
  68. &lt;p&gt;Anyone operating with a vestige of a moral compass, however, should sense something farcical in the pornographers’ preening efforts to claim the moral high ground. Yet given the state of precedent, they have reason to expect the Supreme Court to side with them and prevent Texas from enforcing a law to stop porn from flooding into children’s minds.&lt;/p&gt;
  69.  
  70. &lt;p&gt;The process by which the nation’s highest court came to abet the industrial scale of pornography distribution might be fairly described as diabolical. And no, that’s not hyperbole. I use “diabolical” in the etymological sense espoused by&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268102623/freedom-from-reality/" onclick="javascript:window.open('https://undpress.nd.edu/9780268102623/freedom-from-reality/', '_blank', 'noopener'); return false;"&gt;Professor D.C. Schindler&lt;/a&gt;, in which a division (&lt;em&gt;dia-ballo&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp;means “to divide”) is made between reality and appearance, and appearance is made to substitute for reality in a way that is simultaneously appealing but self-defeating.&lt;/p&gt;
  71.  
  72. &lt;p&gt;Pornography generally, and the digital porn industry specifically, is diabolical both in its puerile appeals to consumers and the legalistic appeals it makes to the courts.&lt;/p&gt;
  73.  
  74. &lt;p&gt;To consumers, porn offers graphic, commodified images as replacements for the physical act of the sexual encounter. To courts, the porn industry presents itself as a defender of hallowed liberty, and a vindicator of minority rights against majority tyranny. But in substance, it asserts the expressive right to commodify performers’ bodies and viewers’ attentions, to algorithmically manipulate and overwhelm the most potent human instincts, and to introduce adults and children alike to an addictive, digital stimulant.&lt;/p&gt;
  75.  
  76. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/big-tech/commentary/ai-generated-child-pornography-fuels-the-child-sex-exploitation-industry"&gt;AI-Generated Child Pornography Fuels the Child Sex Exploitation Industry&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  77.  
  78. &lt;p&gt;When the Supreme Court enforces a liberty redefined by pornographers to defeat laws like Texas’s, it participates in the diabolical, appearing to protect what is good while thwarting the defense of the vulnerable.&lt;/p&gt;
  79.  
  80. &lt;p&gt;The case of&amp;nbsp;&lt;em&gt;Free Speech Coalition, Inc.&amp;nbsp;v.&amp;nbsp;Paxton&lt;/em&gt;&amp;nbsp;involves a law modeled off of the same age verification systems that are prevalent in online banking, gambling, and alcohol sales, as well as those used by porn sites in much of Europe. The law covers only commercial entities that traffic primarily in porn, bans no one from accessing porn who can prove his age, and imposes only fines, not criminal penalties.&lt;/p&gt;
  81.  
  82. &lt;p&gt;That very modest burden sent the porn industry dashing to court before the law was ever enforced. There, they shrieked about the supposed threat Texas posed to the Constitution and the privacy rights of the users that the industry surveils so diligently. The district court sided with the pornographers, determining that the law imposed content-based restrictions and burdened constitutionally protected expression in ways greater than necessary to protect children. A three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit voted 2-1 to restore the law, but the majority relied on pre-internet era case law to do so, denying “that the invention of the Internet somehow reduced the scope of the state’s ability to protect children.” Would that it were so.&lt;/p&gt;
  83.  
  84. &lt;p&gt;While it is true that the problems with the Supreme Court’s free speech jurisprudence have predigital roots, as digital porn has expanded by orders of magnitude, lawmakers’ ability to address the spread has contracted.&lt;/p&gt;
  85.  
  86. &lt;p&gt;A predigital sign of trouble was the Court’s shift to a stance of neutrality in free speech cases in the mid-20th century.&lt;/p&gt;
  87.  
  88. &lt;p&gt;For well over a century after the First Amendment constrained federal abridgment of speech, and decades after it could be read to constrain states, courts still saw no legal infirmity in the existence and enforcement of state laws against blasphemy and obscenity, concluding that those categories were not protected speech. But in the 1950s, the Supreme Court began a sustained retreat from that once firm view. By the end of the ‘60s, the Court replaced its deferential approach to state law with an aggressive stance of neutrality as to the content and viewpoint of expression. And while obscenity persists as a category of unprotected speech, the Court’s doctrinal shift has rendered it toothless.&lt;/p&gt;
  89.  
  90. &lt;p&gt;Neutrality became the means of escape for justices who were embarrassed at having to make substantive moral judgments, and were just as embarrassed that state legislators had made them. But neutrality goes against the mainstream, traditional American First Amendment jurisprudence.&lt;/p&gt;
  91.  
  92. &lt;p&gt;In the Founding era, states balanced individual license with public welfare and morals, and thus asserted speech rights were,&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898663" onclick="javascript:window.open('https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3898663', '_blank', 'noopener'); return false;"&gt;writes&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;Jud Campbell of Stanford Law School, “generally defeasible in face of genuine public needs.” After the emergence of neutrality, however, the Court&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep394557/" onclick="javascript:window.open('https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep394557/', '_blank', 'noopener'); return false;"&gt;declared&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;in&amp;nbsp;&lt;em&gt;Stanley v. Georgia&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;that these “noble” moral purposes, which previously helped lawmakers distinguish between liberty and license, were “wholly inconsistent with the philosophy of the First Amendment” that the Court had suddenly discovered almost 200 years later.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  93.  
  94. &lt;p&gt;The Supreme Court’s sudden philosophical epiphany fit comfortably in mid-century America’s haute bourgeois society, which was then engaged in what Campbell calls a “shift toward a more values-neutral form of liberalism” that prized equality. Neutrality in speech cases exemplified this tendency, because it insists, dogmatically and implausibly, on an equality between unlike things. Under the neutrality paradigm, pornography and core political speech are interchangeable when the question is whether a law is content-based. Treating both equally as “speech,” neutrality seems to make speech an end unto itself rather than a means of attaining some other goal. But the judicial triumph of “speech neutrality” was caused by and reinforced a broader shift in American society away from rights and duties toward abstract, expressive individualism, the core of which is the expression of self-determined sexual identity.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  95.  
  96. &lt;p&gt;The shift in the Court’s free speech philosophy works hand in glove with its philosophical approach to “liberty” writ large. That new diabolical view of liberty might be best summed up in a now infamous passage written by former Justice Anthony Kennedy: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”&lt;/p&gt;
  97.  
  98. &lt;p&gt;Tellingly, the Supreme Court deployed that phrase to discern supposed constitutional rights to&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZO.html" onclick="javascript:window.open('https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/91-744.ZO.html', '_blank', 'noopener'); return false;"&gt;abortion&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lawrence_v._texas" onclick="javascript:window.open('https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/lawrence_v._texas', '_blank', 'noopener'); return false;"&gt;sodomy&lt;/a&gt;, rights born in the bourgeois imagination having no historic antecedents. As Schindler notes, Kennedy’s infamous “mystery” passage is astonishing in its arrogance and naiveté. It “thrust[s] upon” even the “meek and unassuming” a burden exceeding the ambitions of antiquity’s tyrants. Moreover, it is utterly incomprehensible unless one begins by indulging the modern assumption that existence, meaning, and the universe are largely subjective. The whole notion that individuals should be left to decide this new freedom for themselves “not only taxes the imagination, it kills it.”&lt;/p&gt;
  99.  
  100. &lt;p&gt;Still, many Americans remain attached to expressive individualism’s redefinition of liberty. The dissent from the lower court’s ruling against the pornographers makes that clear. It explained that the First Amendment makes a “signal commitment to individual autonomy, yet to be realized, and in many ways a child itself until the 20th century when the sense of its embrace of individual worth soon became palpable.”&lt;/p&gt;
  101.  
  102. &lt;p&gt;True enough, the Supreme Court has changed its views on the First Amendment, but the simple fact of change tells us nothing about whether that change is the natural extension of liberty or a corruption of it. Concluding that it is the former requires us to assume, as the dissent does, the essential truth of the expressive-individualist paradigm. But when writing paeans to “individual worth” in a case brought by the porn industry, perhaps judges ought to entertain the possibility that something somewhere has gone amiss.&lt;/p&gt;
  103.  
  104. &lt;p&gt;Expressive individualism is in fact a diabolical counterfeit of real liberty. Pornographers who profit from addiction and slavery are defending a vision of freedom that has no fixed or natural idea of what is good. Actions like making or watching porn become noble expressions of freedom by virtue of an individual’s choice and consent, which are more inferred than real. That liberty is therefore fundamentally negative, a void. And into that void streams the mercenary logic of markets making all things, up to and including the human body, into what Schindler calls “a token, an exchange value,” a process which porn exemplifies.&lt;/p&gt;
  105.  
  106. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/the-courts-obscenity-jurisprudence-due-revision"&gt;The Court’s Obscenity Jurisprudence Is Due for Revision&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  107.  
  108. &lt;p&gt;Pornography illustrates vividly this tragic encounter of abstract legal doctrine with the hardwired realities of human nature, which is always in danger of giving itself over to its appetites even as it vies for control of the world around it. The ancient lust to which pornographers appeal is associated with the most primitive parts of our brain. And though the obsessive devotion to digital technology is a distinctly modern phenomenon, it arises from the much older lust to control the natural world in order to free man from the vicissitudes that make him labor and die. Yet, as with many such developments, the logic of technological advancement has not been the general dissemination of a benign freedom, but the acquisition of control and profit by a few, and the increasing risk and dependency for many.&lt;/p&gt;
  109.  
  110. &lt;p&gt;Pornographers operate comfortably within the dominant legal and technological frameworks, cultivating profit on the dependency of others. The Court has made it easy for them to conceal their online wretchedness beneath claims that “sexual content online” may be “artistic, informative, or even essential to important parts of life.” But pornography does not participate in a rational public debate, nor does it seek after truth, beauty, or even basic knowledge—it trades on a sub-rational appeal, submerging the faculties that make us meaningfully human.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  111.  
  112. &lt;p&gt;The late Justice Antonin Scalia understood the nature of this problem. In his frequent dissents from the Supreme Court’s pornography-enabling decisions, he maintained that commercial entities that appeal to the prurient instinct engage in activity unprotected by the First Amendment. Would that his colleagues had heeded him rather than Anthony Kennedy.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  113.  
  114. &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the liberty claims of pornographers have been met with astonishing credulity. In true diabolical fashion, the Court’s willingness to accept a counterfeit as reality has undermined the whole concept of liberty. For behind the bespoke briefing of well-heeled lawyers, and the once respectable advocacy of the American Civil Liberties Union, is the sneering contempt of Jacobinism that invokes a corrupted view of rights to destabilize order.&lt;/p&gt;
  115.  
  116. &lt;p&gt;Amidst the revolutionary thrall of 1790s Paris, the Jacobins installed a prostitute on Notre Dame’s altar and declared her the “goddess of reason,” a diabolical gesture that would surely thrill today’s pornographers. The Jacobins, much like pornographers, exercised their viciousness by doing ugly things to human bodies for the entertainment of the masses. Grant the porn industry, those latter-day Jacobins, their conceit that pornography qualifies as liberty, and they will continue to do ugly things to the body politic.&lt;/p&gt;
  117. </description>
  118.  <pubDate>Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:17:33 -0500</pubDate>
  119.    <dc:creator>Jack Fitzhenry</dc:creator>
  120.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/courts/commentary/porns-diabolical-appeal</guid>
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  123. <item>
  124.  <title>The DEI Regime Is Trying To Make a Comeback</title>
  125.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-dei-regime-trying-make-comeback</link>
  126.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Proponents of diversity, equity, and inclusion have not yet gotten off the mat to which President Donald Trump knocked them with a flurry of executive orders that made the practices illegal. But we’re starting to see what an attempt to get up might look like.&lt;/p&gt;
  127.  
  128. &lt;p&gt;DEI is as American as apple pie! Indeed, it upholds meritocracy, one country under God, and the American way of life!&lt;/p&gt;
  129.  
  130. &lt;p&gt;No, I am not making this up. This is almost, word for word, what the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), &lt;a href="https://jeffries.house.gov/2025/01/23/leader-jeffries-statement-on-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;said&lt;/a&gt; at a press conference.&lt;/p&gt;
  131.  
  132. &lt;p&gt;It is demonstrably false. In fact, it is the opposite of the truth. But liberals and journalists began to amplify it right away.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  133.  
  134. &lt;p&gt;An &lt;a href="https://meidasnews.com/author/acyn" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;activist&lt;/a&gt; with MeidasTouch News, with more than half a million followers on X, posted what Jeffries said and soon got more than a million views. I did &lt;a href="https://www.c-span.org/program/washington-journal/mike-gonzalez-on-trump-administration-rolling-back-federal-dei-programs/655011" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;an interview&lt;/a&gt; on the anti-DEI executive orders on C-SPAN, and host Pedro Echevarria asked me about it. Pedro is both respected and courteous, so the fact that he raised the issue means Jeffries is being taken seriously.&lt;/p&gt;
  135.  
  136. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/trump-deals-heavy-blow-dei-hopefully-its-lethal"&gt;Trump Deals a Heavy Blow to DEI—Hopefully It’s Lethal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  137.  
  138. &lt;p&gt;First, let’s look at the entirety of Jeffries’s statement. Looking at the gaggle of journalists straight in the eye, the former corporate lawyer from Brooklyn said:&lt;/p&gt;
  139.  
  140. &lt;p&gt;“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are American values. Perhaps I can explain. The motto of the United States of America is e pluribus unum. Out of many, one. That’s diversity. The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution—one of the most influential important amendments in our country—provides equal protection under the law. That’s equity. In this country, we pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. A flag that we just presented to the new President and Vice President. And in that pledge, we promise one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. A-L-L. That’s inclusion. Not complicated. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are American values. It’s about economic opportunity. It’s about merit for everyone, based on what you know, not who you know.”&lt;/p&gt;
  141.  
  142. &lt;p&gt;Now, Jeffries must have known that none of what he was saying was true, which would make his statement a lie. But lacking a godlike ability to divine what was in his heart when he spoke these words, the only recourse is to explain to him and others why none of this is true.&lt;/p&gt;
  143.  
  144. &lt;p&gt;First, DEI represents anti-American values. It helps to think of DEI as the operating system for its ideological base, critical race theory, in the sense that DEI’s trainings, activities, writings, analyses, etc., implement the value system of CRT.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  145.  
  146. &lt;p&gt;The DEI trainings remind so many of us of Mao Zedong’s struggle sessions of the 1960s and 1970s because both seek to indoctrinate—or rather brainwash—the trainees into loathing the present system and seeking to replace it with something else.&lt;/p&gt;
  147.  
  148. &lt;p&gt;CRT—and by inference DEI—postulates that American society is systemically racist, oppressive, animated by white supremacy, or any of many other ills attributed to America, its founding, and its culture. And so, DEI does not promote diversity, etc., to which few people would object. It seeks to dismantle our entire society and recast it.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  149.  
  150. &lt;p&gt;According to both the theorists and practitioners of DEI, academics such as Kimberle Crenshaw, Derrick Bell, and Lani Guinier in the first group, and hucksters such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo in the second, both capitalism and representative democracy—twin columns supporting the American system, are schemes to keep the rich and powerful rich and powerful.&lt;/p&gt;
  151.  
  152. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/trumps-dismantling-dei-deeper-and-bigger-you-even-know"&gt;Trump’s Dismantling of DEI Is Deeper and Bigger Than You Even Know&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  153.  
  154. &lt;p&gt;The second point is baffling. DEI believes and promotes group dynamics through identity politics, the opposite of E Pluribus Unum.&lt;/p&gt;
  155.  
  156. &lt;p&gt;And Jeffries’s description of the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is preposterous. As defined by DEI practitioners, diversity means racial quotas, which are unconstitutional. Equity has come to mean the functional opposite of equality, demanding that Americans be treated differently &lt;em&gt;because&lt;/em&gt; of their race. And inclusion means language codes. A mall cop can throw someone out of a mall for wearing a T-Shirt that says “Jesus Saves.”&lt;/p&gt;
  157.  
  158. &lt;p&gt;And, no, Mr. Jeffries, DEI was never intended to be about merit. Meritocracy “is not only wrong; it’s bad,” &lt;a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exist-and-believing-it-does-is-bad-for-you" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;wrote&lt;/a&gt; Clifton Mark.&lt;/p&gt;
  159.  
  160. &lt;p&gt;DEI has always been about upending all the things that Jeffries now says it defends.&lt;/p&gt;
  161.  
  162. &lt;p&gt;“Diversity without changing the structure, without calling for structural formation, simply brings those who were previously excluded into a process that continues to be as racist, as misogynist as it was before,” the communist leader Angela Davis &lt;a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2018/03/civil-rights-activist-angela-davis-speaks-at-the-paramount-theater" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;told&lt;/a&gt; a University of Virginia audience in 2017.&lt;/p&gt;
  163.  
  164. &lt;p&gt;Jeffries questioned why Trump has done so much to dismantle DEI. “It’s not my understanding based on anything that I’ve seen,” he said, that support for reversing DEI “had anything to do with the results in November.”&lt;/p&gt;
  165.  
  166. &lt;p&gt;They were, in his telling, “the high cost of living in the United States of America, and that should be everyone’s takeaway, along with the importance of working together to secure the border.” But there is a reason Trump is knocking out DEI—he’s sensed all this.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  167.  
  168. &lt;p&gt;Let anyone who thinks they can use Jeffries’s arguments to defend DEI know that we have the receipts.&lt;/p&gt;
  169. </description>
  170.  <pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:39:37 -0500</pubDate>
  171.    <dc:creator>Mike Gonzalez</dc:creator>
  172.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-dei-regime-trying-make-comeback</guid>
  173.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  174. </item>
  175. <item>
  176.  <title>Education Savings Accounts Would Give Military Families Freedom They Deserve</title>
  177.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/education-savings-accounts-would-give-military-families-freedom-they-deserve</link>
  178.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Military families exemplify the best of America—sacrifice, service and dedication to our nation’s security. Yet, too often, their children are shortchanged by an education system that fails to meet their needs.&lt;/p&gt;
  179.  
  180. &lt;p&gt;As President Trump begins his second term, we have an unprecedented opportunity to fix that. It’s time to empower military families with true education freedom through education savings accounts.&lt;/p&gt;
  181.  
  182. &lt;p&gt;For decades, Washington has treated military families as an afterthought when it comes to education policy. These families endure frequent moves and face schools that vary widely in quality. Worse, many Department of Defense schools have embraced radical ideologies such as critical race theory and gender ideology—poisoning classrooms instead of preparing students for success. This cannot continue.&lt;/p&gt;
  183.  
  184. &lt;p&gt;Under Mr. Trump’s leadership, we can make good on our moral obligation to military families by ensuring their children have access to a world-class education—no matter where they’re stationed.&lt;/p&gt;
  185.  
  186. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/media-recycles-teachers-union-rhetoric-attack-school-choice-heres-the-truth"&gt;Media Recycles Teachers Union Rhetoric To Attack School Choice. Here’s the Truth.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  187.  
  188. &lt;p&gt;Education savings accounts represent the gold standard of education choice. By giving parents control over a portion of their child’s education funding, ESAs enable them to tailor an education that meets their child’s unique needs—whether that’s private school tuition, textbooks, tutors or specialized therapies.&lt;/p&gt;
  189.  
  190. &lt;p&gt;This isn’t theory—it’s proven. States such as Arizona and Florida have demonstrated the transformative power of ESAs. Families using them report higher satisfaction, better academic outcomes and a renewed hope for their children’s futures. It’s time to extend this proven solution to military families and other underserved communities under federal oversight.&lt;/p&gt;
  191.  
  192. &lt;p&gt;Consider the children of our active-duty service members. These kids face unique challenges: frequent moves, disrupted learning and assigned public schools that often fail to meet basic academic standards. Worse, they’re indoctrinating students with radical political agendas that reject biological truth and sow racial division.&lt;/p&gt;
  193.  
  194. &lt;p&gt;No service member who risks life and limb for our country should have to worry about whether their child will receive a decent education. Yet for many, this is a harsh reality.&lt;/p&gt;
  195.  
  196. &lt;p&gt;When an active-duty service member is assigned to a new duty station, his children face an assignment of their own, typically forced to attend the public school closest to their parent’s post. It’s such a problem that a Military Times survey found that one-third of service members had considered leaving the military because of the poor quality of schools near their next assignment.&lt;/p&gt;
  197.  
  198. &lt;p&gt;This is a crisis—not just for military families, but for national security. The military is already grappling with serious recruitment and retention challenges. The last thing we need is for educational failures to push more service members out the door.&lt;/p&gt;
  199.  
  200. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/religious-liberty/commentary/going-offense"&gt;Going on Offense&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  201.  
  202. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Trump has long been a trailblazer for school choice, and now he has the chance to make history. Now, he can deliver for military families and transform the systems under federal jurisdiction. By implementing ESAs, his administration can transform the schools serving military families, children in the District of Columbia and students on tribal lands into models of excellence and innovation.&lt;/p&gt;
  203.  
  204. &lt;p&gt;This effort must go beyond ESAs. Federal education programs such as Title I and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) are long overdue for reform. These programs should be restructured so that families—not bureaucrats—control the resources. Oversight should move to agencies that understand families’ needs, ensuring every dollar goes directly toward helping children succeed.&lt;/p&gt;
  205.  
  206. &lt;p&gt;Military families sacrifice so much for our freedom. The least we can do is honor their service by giving their children the education they deserve.&lt;/p&gt;
  207.  
  208. &lt;p&gt;Education freedom isn’t just a policy goal—it’s a moral imperative. Mr. Trump’s bold leadership gives us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make it a reality. Let’s seize this moment to empower parents, protect our children and ensure that every family, especially our military families, can thrive.&lt;/p&gt;
  209. </description>
  210.  <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 15:32:29 -0500</pubDate>
  211.    <dc:creator>Crystal Bonham</dc:creator>
  212.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/education-savings-accounts-would-give-military-families-freedom-they-deserve</guid>
  213.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  214. </item>
  215. <item>
  216.  <title>How Education Choice Helped Me</title>
  217.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/how-education-choice-helped-me</link>
  218.  <description>&lt;p&gt;During National School Choice Week (or any week, for that matter), it’s easy to get bogged down in debates over various education policies. We often forget that there are real kids whose lives are incontrovertibly altered by the decisions we make.&lt;/p&gt;
  219.  
  220. &lt;p&gt;I was one of those kids.&lt;/p&gt;
  221.  
  222. &lt;p&gt;My parents homeschooled me from when I was three till I was 13. I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter then, but looking back, I wouldn’t argue for a second that I didn’t benefit from my parents’ freedom to choose how to teach me.&lt;/p&gt;
  223.  
  224. &lt;p&gt;At the ripe old age of 13, my parents placed me in the unique position of deciding whether to remain homeschooled through high school or to attend a public school. After much thought, I chose to remain homeschooled. And that decision has made all the difference in my life.&lt;/p&gt;
  225.  
  226. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/media-recycles-teachers-union-rhetoric-attack-school-choice-heres-the-truth"&gt;Media Recycles Teachers Union Rhetoric To Attack School Choice. Here’s the Truth.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  227.  
  228. &lt;p&gt;Because I was homeschooled, I had incredible leeway to choose classes I enjoyed and take them at a pace that fit me. When I was 13, I started taking a few online college classes to supplement my normal coursework. By the time I hit high school, I was taking between six and eight college classes a year, partly out of interest and partly to satisfy general education requirements.&lt;/p&gt;
  229.  
  230. &lt;p&gt;At age 16, after two years in high school, I decided the online high-school classes I was taking were no longer challenging enough.&lt;/p&gt;
  231.  
  232. &lt;p&gt;If I hadn’t been homeschooled, I probably would have ended up slogging through another two years of what was, to me, mind-numbing drudgery. But because I was homeschooled, and because I had taken so many college classes, I was able to do something otherwise unthinkable at that age: graduate high school.&lt;/p&gt;
  233.  
  234. &lt;p&gt;Now, at age 18, I’m a college graduate working as an editorial fellow for The Heritage Foundation, where I’m blessed to work alongside some of the foremost experts on the planet.&lt;/p&gt;
  235.  
  236. &lt;p&gt;But none of these accomplishments are primarily the result of my own intelligence or ability. Rather, they’re because my parents (and later I) had the option to choose the education path that worked best for me.&lt;/p&gt;
  237.  
  238. &lt;p&gt;As a homeschooler, I spent little time doing busywork, which meant I had significant free time after I finished my work. I spent most of this time reading, which not only supplemented my knowledge but also taught me how to write effectively.&lt;/p&gt;
  239.  
  240. &lt;p&gt;I also learned subjects like Latin (not something frequently taught in public schools). I hated it at the time but it later helped me build my vocabulary, better understand etymology, and more deeply appreciate world cultures.&lt;/p&gt;
  241.  
  242. &lt;p&gt;Once I hit a certain age, most of my work was self-guided (via textbooks/online lectures), and while I had certain weekly objectives, I was responsible for managing my time and achieving those objectives. This set me up for success in college, where many struggle to adjust to the relatively self-paced workload.&lt;/p&gt;
  243.  
  244. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/education-savings-accounts-would-give-military-families-freedom-they-deserve"&gt;Education Savings Accounts Would Give Military Families Freedom They Deserve&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  245.  
  246. &lt;p&gt;Nor would I consider myself as having been socially stunted, as is the homeschooler stereotype. I participated in church activities and athletics, and even ended up playing for my college’s soccer team.&lt;/p&gt;
  247.  
  248. &lt;p&gt;None of this is to say that homeschooling is necessarily better than other alternatives, or that my education journey was superior to anyone else’s.&lt;/p&gt;
  249.  
  250. &lt;p&gt;Rather, my point is this: one-size-fits-all education programs help no one. By trying to shove children into the same box, we keep them from developing their unique talents. If I had attended public school, I likely wouldn’t have had many of the same opportunities to develop my writing abilities or take college classes on topics that interested me.&lt;/p&gt;
  251.  
  252. &lt;p&gt;And in forcing children to conform, we do a disservice not just to them, but to our society as a whole. A healthy, burgeoning society depends on the contributions of talented individuals who use their unique abilities to undertake entrepreneurial endeavors, invent technologies, discover medicines, and more.&lt;/p&gt;
  253.  
  254. &lt;p&gt;Instead of encouraging all children to take the same educational route, we should urge them and their parents to choose the option that best fits the individual child and family—whether that be homeschool, private school, public school, or something else entirely.&lt;/p&gt;
  255. </description>
  256.  <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 15:00:11 -0500</pubDate>
  257.    <dc:creator>Mary Mobley</dc:creator>
  258.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/how-education-choice-helped-me</guid>
  259.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  260. </item>
  261. <item>
  262.  <title>Death to “Discretionary” Budgeting</title>
  263.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/death-discretionary-budgeting</link>
  264.  <description>&lt;p&gt;U.S. federal budgeting has two major categories of spending. The one subject to the most scrutiny is “discretionary” spending, which is the basis of the annual appropriations process. This includes national defense, the operational costs of federal agencies, and more. In contrast, the “mandatory” category is primarily made up of benefit programs whose spending is based on statutory formulas, including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and means-tested welfare.&lt;/p&gt;
  265.  
  266. &lt;p&gt;The fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations process was marked by a prolonged and heated struggle among House Republicans, Senate Democrats, and the Biden Administration. Yet despite the passage of bipartisan legislation touted as reducing discretionary spending, both discretionary outlays and the federal deficit increased from FY 2023 to FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034,” June 18, 2024, https://www.cbo.gov/publication/60039 (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  267.  
  268. &lt;p&gt;The reason is that Congress has increasingly abandoned responsible budgeting, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Legislators use a growing variety of obscure accounting maneuvers to create massive loopholes for discretionary spending while allowing mandatory spending to grow on autopilot.&lt;/p&gt;
  269.  
  270. &lt;p&gt;With the gross national debt now an astronomical $36.2 trillion,&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Fiscal Data: Debt to the Penny,” https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; along with multitrillion-dollar deficits likely to become standard within the next few years and the annual appropriation process marked by chronic dysfunction, overhauling the federal budget is imperative. Doing so properly would not only strengthen the nation’s economic health but would also make it easier to improve governance by clearing away the accumulation of wasteful and corruptive programs and bureaucracies.&lt;/p&gt;
  271.  
  272. &lt;h3&gt;The Intention and Difficulties of Discretionary Budgeting&lt;/h3&gt;
  273.  
  274. &lt;p&gt;Any kind of budgeting, whether for a family, business, or government, requires prioritizing how to use available resources. Recognizing constraints and reducing or eliminating low-value activities and “investments” ensures that high-value activities receive the resources they need.&lt;/p&gt;
  275.  
  276. &lt;p&gt;In theory, limits on discretionary spending should cause legislators to regularly scrutinize the immense inventory of federal programs&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Office of Management and Budget, “Federal Program Inventory,” https://fpi.omb.gov/search (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; for opportunities to reform and streamline operations.&lt;/p&gt;
  277.  
  278. &lt;p&gt;Prioritization, however, has become anathema in Washington. Almost any attempt to meaningfully reduce spending of a bureau or program creates a dedicated backlash from those who benefit from taxpayer support. However, because any single cut produces a negligible direct benefit at the taxpayer level, there is little public clamor in support of a cut.&lt;/p&gt;
  279.  
  280. &lt;p&gt;In public choice theory this is known as the problem of concentrated benefits and dispersed (or diffused) costs. Since the United States has both a large population spread across a tremendous land mass, it is especially vulnerable to this conundrum. Some legislators take advantage of this phenomenon through “pork barrel” politics, creating programs and projects that direct taxpayer resources from across the country to their own jurisdictions.&lt;/p&gt;
  281.  
  282. &lt;p&gt;The problem of concentrated benefits is exacerbated by the ease with which special interests can now bombard understaffed congressional offices with messages, calls, and negative press releases. Combined with a media environment that refers to deficit hawks as “extreme” and bipartisan deficit spenders as “moderate,”&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “As National Debt Hits $32 Trillion, 4 Examples of Absurd ‘Only in Washington’ Budget Logic,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, June 26, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/debt/commentary/national-debt-hits-32-trillion-4-examples-absurd-only-washington-budget-logic.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; legislators have strong incentives to maintain the panoply of existing spending regardless of fiscal and economic conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
  283.  
  284. &lt;p&gt;None of these incentives changes the moral obligation of officials to properly manage the nation’s finances and oversee the federal government. Allowing chronic deficits, ballooning debt, and festering waste and dysfunction is an abdication of responsibility.&lt;/p&gt;
  285.  
  286. &lt;p&gt;The history of mankind is littered with examples of nations failing because leaders avoided what were seen as difficult (or merely inconvenient) choices. For all its greatness, America is vulnerable to the same fate.&lt;/p&gt;
  287.  
  288. &lt;h3&gt;Fiscal Year 2024 Discretionary Legislation: Context and Political Combat&lt;/h3&gt;
  289.  
  290. &lt;p&gt;The COVID-19 pandemic set off an unprecedented federal spending spree: 2020 through 2022 saw the passage of trillions in new deficit spending. While some of this spending was predicated on addressing the pandemic during its early crisis stage, most of the spending was an exercise in political opportunism. This was possible because the usual restraints on spending, such as they were, disappeared.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch and Richard Stern, “The Road to Inflation: How an Unprecedented Federal Spending Spree Created Economic Turmoil,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 276, September 21, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/the-road-inflation-how-unprecedented-federal-spending-spree-created.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  291.  
  292. &lt;p&gt;A combination of massive spending and accommodative support from the Federal Reserve fueled the largest surge of inflation since the 1970s.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Once it became clear that inflation was not a short-term phenomenon, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates, causing a spike in the cost of financing the swollen federal debt.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch and Rachel Greszler, “The End of Business as Usual: On Supplemental Package, Farm Bill, and More, Congress Must Stop New Deficit Spending Immediately,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3793, October 12, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/the-end-business-usual-supplemental-package-farm-bill-and-more-congress.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Coupled with unfunded liabilities for mandatory benefit programs, at the start of the FY 2024 appropriations process the federal government was in its worst fiscal position since the early days of the republic.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;While public debt reached comparably high levels during World War II, the problem of unfunded liabilities was much smaller.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  293.  
  294. &lt;p&gt;The first fiscal fight of the 118th Congress was over increasing the statutory debt limit. The House passed the Limit, Save, Grow Act, which coupled the debt-limit hike with cuts to legislation passed in the previous session, lower discretionary spending levels, pro-growth regulatory reform, and more.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch and Preston Brashers, “Democrats Refuse to Deal as House Republicans Deliver a Pro-Growth Bill to Reduce Spending,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, April 27, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/democrats-refuse-deal-house-republicans-deliver-pro-growth-bill.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Although Democrats initially dismissed the bill, its passage in the House was enough to force bipartisan negotiations on a debt limit deal.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “Time for Biden and Schumer to Stop Demagoguing and Take Debt, Spending Talks Seriously,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, May 8, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/time-biden-and-schumer-stop-demagoguing-and-take-debt-spending-talks.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  295.  
  296. &lt;p&gt;These negotiations led to the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), which established discretionary spending limits for FYs 2024 and 2025, along with limited regulatory reform and other provisions.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Richard Stern et al., “What’s Wrong and What’s Right With Debt Ceiling Deal,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, June 1, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/debt/commentary/whats-wrong-and-whats-right-debt-ceiling-deal.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; On paper, the deal would cut discretionary spending, ending a streak of several years of rapid discretionary spending growth.&lt;/p&gt;
  297.  
  298. &lt;p&gt;However, FRA negotiations included “side deal” verbal agreements for budgetary maneuvers to get around the spending caps.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “4 Images Reveal How Congress Is Committing an $11 Billion Fraud on American Public,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, July 26, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/4-images-reveal-how-congress-committing-11-billion-fraud-american.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; As these agreements became widely known, conservatives pressured House appropriators to forego the deal and pushed for additional spending cuts.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “House Spending Bills Have Welcome Cuts but Still Leave Billions in Potential Savings on the Table,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, August 1, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/house-spending-bills-have-welcome-cuts-still-leave-billions.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; In contrast, the Senate’s appropriators used budget gimmicks to the fullest extent possible.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “FY 2024 Senate Appropriations: Fiddling While America Burns,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3801, December 19, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/fy-2024-senate-appropriations-fiddling-while-america-burns.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; With the chambers far apart on the proper amount of FY 2024 discretionary spending, four continuing resolutions were necessary to fund the government while legislators continued their debates. The process lasted until March, nearly six months past the start of the fiscal year, before legislators reached a final agreement.&lt;/p&gt;
  299.  
  300. &lt;p&gt;Despite the considerable amount of energy and political capital expended on FY 2024 appropriations, the result was nowhere near fiscally responsible.&lt;/p&gt;
  301.  
  302. &lt;h3&gt;How Congress Obscured Hundreds of Billions in FY 2024 Spending&lt;/h3&gt;
  303.  
  304. &lt;p&gt;Through appropriations, Congress vests agencies with the power to spend up to a fixed amount, which is known as budgetary authority (BA). When a federal agency uses its BA, the resulting spending is called an outlay (OT).&lt;/p&gt;
  305.  
  306. &lt;p&gt;The “topline” FY 2024 discretionary BA limit was $1.59 trillion, $13 billion less than FY 2023.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “Status of Appropriations,” https://www.cbo.gov/topics/budget/status-appropriations (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; However, a more complete accounting of discretionary BA for FY 2024 reveals that it was roughly 20 percent higher than the stated amount.&lt;/p&gt;
  307.  
  308. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Appropriations Gimmicks and Offsets.&lt;/b&gt; While some of the following items are perennial budgetary maneuvers and sleights of hand, others were created through the FRA and its “side deal.”&lt;/p&gt;
  309.  
  310. &lt;ul&gt;
  311. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Genuine rescissions.&lt;/b&gt; An appropriations bill can rescind previously enacted BA as an offset, allowing additional new BA within spending caps. The FY 2024 appropriations packages included rescissions to spending from the American Rescue Plan Act, along with some of the IRS enforcement spending increase from the Inflation Reduction Act. Combined, these rescissions allowed an additional&lt;i&gt; $27.61 billion&lt;/i&gt; in BA for FY 2024 appropriations.&lt;/li&gt;
  312. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Fake rescissions.&lt;/b&gt; While most authorized BA eventually becomes OT, some BA remains unused even after many years. Accordingly, rescissions of the latter type of BA are scored as causing a negligible or even nonexistent reduction in OT. When an appropriations bill includes low-OT rescissions, it leads to a net increase in OT (and deficits), because the rescission creates room for new BA that will generate OT. The most egregious example in the FRA was a “nonrecurring expenses fund” created exclusively as a budget gimmick.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ditch, “4 Images Reveal How Congress Is Committing an $11 Billion Fraud on American Public.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; This fund singlehandedly undid nearly all the claimed appropriations savings from FY 2023 to FY 2024 by allowing Congress to rescind $12.44 billion in phantom BA, which was exchanged for $12.44 billion in real BA. Combined, low-OT rescissions&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;added &lt;i&gt;$32.19 billion &lt;/i&gt;in BA to FY 2024 appropriations.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The largest portion were rescissions from prior-year appropriations. This practice is not new, but the volume (several dozen items) and dollar amount ($17.05 billion) are worrying. Historically, the expected OT from a given year’s appropriations legislation is slightly lower than the BA due to some bureaus and programs not fully spending their authorizations by the end of the fiscal year. If appropriators are now carefully sifting through unused BA from prior years to convert into new BA through rescissions, it would mean that, over the long run, OT would roughly equal BA, likely increasing OT by billions of dollars per year.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  313. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Fake emergencies.&lt;/b&gt; Spending designated for emergencies does not count toward spending caps. Portions of regular discretionary accounts were labeled as emergency spending in FY 2024. These arbitrary emergency designations, including one for space exploration, were part of the “side deal” that accompanied the FRA.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “Fake ‘Emergency’ Spending in Washington Winds Up Costing Us All,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, November 14, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/fake-emergency-spending-washington-winds-costing-us-all.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; These inappropriate emergency designations added &lt;i&gt;$12.5 billion &lt;/i&gt;in BA to FY 2024 appropriations. It is worth noting that this was a smaller amount than the initial side agreement, with the reduction being one of the negotiated requests from House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–LA). Legislation produced by the Senate Appropriations Committee initially contained more than $36 billion of inappropriate emergency designations.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ditch, “FY 2024 Senate Appropriations: Fiddling While America Burns.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  314. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Directed scoring.&lt;/b&gt; Legislation can dictate how scorekeepers, such as the Congressional Budget Office, should weigh certain provisions. Two examples in FY 2024 appropriations included the scoring of offsetting receipts for government housing and the scoring of security fees. These changes added &lt;i&gt;$3.56 billion&lt;/i&gt; in BA to FY 2024 appropriations.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “Status of Discretionary Appropriations Report: Fiscal Year 2024, U.S. House of Representatives,” May 21, 2024, https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2024-05/FY2024-House-2024-04-23.pdf (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  315. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Undisclosed changes.&lt;/b&gt; Not all information about the budgetary effects of provisions in appropriations legislation is made public. In some cases, such as the spending limit on the Crime Victims Fund, the presence of a budget gimmick is known, but not its value. In other cases, the obscure wording of certain provisions coupled with the lack of budgetary disclosure can hide the existence of a gimmick altogether.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “FY 2024 Appropriations: Budget Gimmicks Masquerading as Spending Cuts,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3778, July 17, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/fy-2024-appropriations-budget-gimmicks-masquerading-spending-cuts.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; As such, there was an additional&lt;i&gt; unknown amount&lt;/i&gt; of BA added to FY 2024 appropriations.&lt;/li&gt;
  316. &lt;/ul&gt;
  317.  
  318. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Emergencies, Disasters, and Other Exclusions. &lt;/b&gt;Several types of discretionary spending have long been exempt from counting toward spending limits. While the level of spending varies year to year, each of these types of spending designations occur in most years.&lt;/p&gt;
  319.  
  320. &lt;ul&gt;
  321. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Genuine emergencies and disasters.&lt;/b&gt; The emergency spending designation can cover a variety of events, including natural disasters, global security crises, disease outbreaks, and more. A global security supplemental package included $96.2 billion in emergency funding, and an additional $16 billion in natural disaster emergency funding, for a total of &lt;i&gt;$112.2 billion&lt;/i&gt; added to FY 2024 discretionary BA.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “Status of Discretionary Appropriations Report: Fiscal Year 2024, U.S. House of Representatives.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; The disaster designation is more narrowly focused on natural events. Disasters added &lt;i&gt;$20.4 billion&lt;/i&gt; to discretionary BA in FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  322. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Wildfires.&lt;/b&gt; The federal government’s ownership of vast tracks of arid land across the Western states makes it responsible for preventing and fighting wildfires in those areas. Much of this activity is eligible for a designation that removes it from counting against spending limits. Such designations added &lt;i&gt;$2.65 billion&lt;/i&gt; to discretionary BA in FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  323. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Program integrity.&lt;/b&gt; Activities focused on preventing or uncovering improper payments and fraud can be designated as “program integrity” and are not subject to spending limits. Such designations added &lt;i&gt;$2.45 billion&lt;/i&gt; to discretionary BA in FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  324. &lt;/ul&gt;
  325.  
  326. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Recent Abuses to Make Discretionary Spending Mandatory. &lt;/b&gt;Several pieces of authorizing legislation enacted in recent years funded federal activity in FY 2024 that would normally be subject to discretionary spending limits. These included:&lt;/p&gt;
  327.  
  328. &lt;ul&gt;
  329. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021.&lt;/b&gt; This act included spending on transportation infrastructure, Internet connectivity, water infrastructure, environmental programs, and more. Most of the programs either overlap with activities funded through the appropriations process or directly supplement long-standing programs. While the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) has historically been supported by the federal gas tax and is thus not subject to appropriated spending limits, the IIJA’s increases for roads, bridges, and transit relied heavily on deficit financing&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch et al., “9 Things to Know About Senate’s $1.1 Trillion Infrastructure Bill,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, August 5, 2021, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/9-things-know-about-senates-11-trillion-infrastructure-bill.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; and amounted to extra appropriations. In FY 2024, a combination of advance appropriations from IIJA (inappropriately designated as emergency spending) and increases to HTF accounts amounted to &lt;i&gt;$116.62 billion&lt;/i&gt;&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The IIJA produced $66.9 billion in advanced appropriations for FY 2024 and a $49.7 billion increase in HTF funding accounts for FY 2024. For advanced appropriations data, see Office of Management and Budget, “Advanced Appropriations,” March 2024, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/aaa_fy2025.pdf (accessed October 24, 2024). The HTF calculation is based on Congressional Budget Office baselines for February 2021 and June 2024. See Congressional Budget Office, “Major Recurring Reports,” https://www.cbo.gov/about/products/major-recurring-reports (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; in BA not subject to appropriations limits.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The HTF is treated as mandatory BA. This is reasonable to the extent that the HTF has dedicated funding from the gas tax outside the appropriations process. However, the HTF increase relative to the pre-IIJA baseline did not have proper funding and should be treated as discretionary spending.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  330. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022.&lt;/b&gt; This act covers treatment of certain medical conditions for veterans who were exposed to toxic fumes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The act significantly increased health spending on veterans, which was traditionally funded through the appropriations process. However, some PACT spending was categorized as mandatory without a dedicated funding mechanism. Thus, PACT added &lt;i&gt;$20.27 billion&lt;/i&gt; in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;/li&gt;
  331. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors and Science (CHIPS) Act of 2022.&lt;/b&gt; The most notable aspect of this package is subsidies for the semiconductor industry. The CHIPS program and an industrial technology account are categorized as mandatory spending but should be part of the appropriations portfolio. The CHIPS Act added &lt;i&gt;$6.25 billion &lt;/i&gt;in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  332. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022.&lt;/b&gt; The IRA is a sprawling package that includes energy and environmental programs, welfare, IRS tax-compliance-enforcement hiring, and more.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Preston Brashers, “The Inflation Reduction Act: What Is It Good For?” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3775, June 26, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/taxes/report/the-inflation-reduction-act-what-it-good. A portion of the additional appropriations for the IRS were rescinded during the FY 2024 appropriations process but more remains.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; While most of the fiscal impact of the IRA comes through revenue changes, it also includes hundreds of appropriations. Most of the formal appropriations in the IRA are lump sums that remain available until 2031 or “until expended,” which makes identifying an exact amount of FY 2024 funding impossible. An exception is a spending account funded by the IRA for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which was placed in the mandatory category. This account supplemented a program that receives discretionary funds. As such, the IRA added at least &lt;i&gt;$2.88 billion&lt;/i&gt; in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; However, this is a mere fraction of the true total. Further, many of the revenue-changing provisions are subsidies that disguise de facto new spending in the tax code.&lt;/li&gt;
  333. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022.&lt;/b&gt; This supplemental appropriations package was also inappropriately designated as emergency spending. It increased pre-existing discretionary activities and added &lt;i&gt;$695 million&lt;/i&gt; in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Office of Management and Budget, “Advanced Appropriations.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  334. &lt;/ul&gt;
  335.  
  336. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Carryover Gimmicks. &lt;/b&gt;Passed prior to the FY 2024 process, these bills used directed scoring to hide discretionary spending over multiple years.&lt;/p&gt;
  337.  
  338. &lt;ul&gt;
  339. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.&lt;/b&gt; Enacted in 2020, it was partially amended by the FY 2021 appropriations omnibus such that certain funding of the Army Corps of Engineers was excluded from estimates. As amended, it added &lt;i&gt;$2.83 billion&lt;/i&gt;&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  340. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016.&lt;/b&gt; This act primarily funds medical research. A provision in the bill excludes certain spending within it from budgetary estimates and thus added &lt;i&gt;$457 million&lt;/i&gt; in BA not subject to appropriations limits for FY 2024.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “Status of Discretionary Appropriations Report: Fiscal Year 2024, U.S. House of Representatives.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  341. &lt;/ul&gt;
  342.  
  343. &lt;p&gt;Describing these budgetary procedures does not mean that all the related spending was inappropriate. Instead, it highlights that FY 2024 discretionary BA was functionally more than 20 percent greater than the already generous limit of $1.59 trillion set by the FRA. In the absence of the maneuvers described above, legislators would have needed to expend tremendous effort and political capital toward reducing or foregoing spending to comply with the limits.&lt;/p&gt;
  344.  
  345. &lt;h3&gt;The Increasing Pointlessness of Discretionary Spending Limits&lt;/h3&gt;
  346.  
  347. &lt;p&gt;Since the spending limit can be sidestepped to such an enormous extent (by more than $300 billion in a single fiscal year) and through so many esoteric methods, it is not a meaningful limit.&lt;/p&gt;
  348.  
  349. &lt;p&gt;However, this concern is minuscule compared to the complete lack of limitation on either mandatory spending or net interest payments on the national debt. Those categories now comprise more than 70 percent of federal spending in a typical year.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Congressional Budget Office, “An Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook: 2024 to 2034.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Further, non-discretionary spending has grown much faster than discretionary for many decades, and this trend shows no sign of abating.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Office of Management and Budget, “Historical Tables,” Table 8.3, Percentage Distribution of Outlays by Budget Enforcement Act Category, FY 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/ (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; While the current gross national debt of $36.2 trillion is troubling, unfunded liabilities for Social Security and Medicare are more than twice as large.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Rachel Greszler, “Counting on Social Security to Fund Your Retirement? Think Again,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, May 13, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/social-security/commentary/counting-social-security-fund-your-retirement-think-again, and Robert E. Moffit, “Medicare Trustees Sound Alarms, Again,” Heritage Foundation Factsheet No. 274, June 28, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/medicare-trustees-sound-alarms-again.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  350.  
  351. &lt;p&gt;Thus, not only does the focus on “topline” discretionary spending limits obscure the gimmick-inflated total amount, but it also obscures the unsustainable growth of the largest mandatory benefit programs&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Paul Winfree, “Causes of the Federal Government’s Unsustainable Spending,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3133, July 7, 2016, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/causes-the-federal-governments-unsustainable-spending.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; and interest on the debt.&lt;/p&gt;
  352.  
  353. &lt;p&gt;An annual budget process that focuses on only a fraction of spending allows a wide variety of loopholes around constraints, makes no attempt to align spending and revenue, and is notorious for missed deadlines and the regular threat of government shutdowns is hardly a budget process at all. It is certainly not what the Founding Fathers intended when they established a new nation governed by the Constitution, nor does it do justice to an industrious citizenry.&lt;/p&gt;
  354.  
  355. &lt;p&gt;While there are reform proposals (many of which are listed below) that would rein in discretionary budget gimmicks, it is even more urgent for Congress to overhaul the budget process to make it more comprehensive and prevent the gathering threat of national bankruptcy.&lt;/p&gt;
  356.  
  357. &lt;h3&gt;Moving Beyond Broken Discretionary Budgeting&lt;/h3&gt;
  358.  
  359. &lt;p&gt;The lack of a comprehensive federal budget framework and weak enforcement of rules means that few obstacles can stop opportunistic legislators from adding to the debt burden of future generations for the sake of short-term political gain.&lt;/p&gt;
  360.  
  361. &lt;p&gt;While the fiscal problems facing the nation can seem overwhelming, there are dozens of ways for Congress to improve or overhaul the status quo and end the culture of profligacy that has dominated Washington. The suggestions below are merely a few of the available options.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Matthew Dickerson, “The Budget Process Must Confront the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow,” Economic Policy Innovation Center, September 6, 2024, https://epicforamerica.org/federal-budget/the-budget-process-must-confront-the-challenges-of-today-and-tomorrow/ (accessed January 13, 2025).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  362.  
  363. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Broad Federal Budget Reforms. &lt;/b&gt;Congress could:&lt;/p&gt;
  364.  
  365. &lt;ul&gt;
  366. &lt;li&gt;
  367. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Ensure that the Budget Process Includes All Spending and Revenue.&lt;/b&gt; With most spending and taxes lurching forward year to year with only occasional changes, and non-appropriated spending authorizations passed with no fiscal link to anything else, it should be no surprise that the U.S. has amassed a mountainous federal debt. Rather than haggling over a relatively small portion of federal activity (which incentivizes the use of gimmicks to move spending outside those limits), Congress should regularly review the totality of federal outlays and revenue.&lt;/p&gt;
  368.  
  369. &lt;p&gt;Ideally, this review would involve a binding framework, like how most state budgets and some countries operate. For example, Switzerland’s “debt brake” sets spending and revenue levels in relation to one another and seeks to balance them over a multiyear cycle. In the Swiss system, any attempt to change one side of the ledger in a way that creates deficits requires changing the other side, either immediately or in the near future, to prevent structural deficits.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Romina Boccia, “Needed: An Effective Fiscal Framework to Restrain Spending and Control Debt in the United States,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3374, December 19, 2018, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/needed-effective-fiscal-framework-restrain-spending-and-control-debt-the.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; The Responsible Budget Targets Act (S. 772) is an example of applying this approach to the U.S. budget. A more comprehensive process would require input from more committees, as opposed to the highly centralized status quo. The Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act (H.R. 6953) would divide responsibilities between authorizing committees and appropriators.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Kurt Couchman, “What Is the Comprehensive Congressional Budget Act?” Americans for Prosperity, September 5, 2024, https://americansforprosperity.org/blog/what-is-the-comprehensive-congressional-budget-act/ (accessed January 13, 2025).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  370. &lt;/li&gt;
  371. &lt;li&gt;
  372. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Replace Pay As You Go (PAYGO) with Cut As You Go (CUTGO) and Strengthen Enforcement of the Rule.&lt;/b&gt; The reliance on budget gimmicks, which reached exaggerated levels in FY 2024, is largely a consequence of inadequate rules to prevent deficit spending. Legislation related to spending and tax authorizations is subject to the PAYGO system, which creates a “balance” if legislation adds to deficits. A session of Congress must address the balance to prevent automatic spending cuts known as sequestration. The PAYGO system has profound flaws, including a short reach (most federal spending is exempt from sequestration), the regular use of exemptions to place deficit spending outside the rule, treating tax hikes as doing more good than harm, unnecessary complexity, and even the ability of legislation to erase the standing PAYGO balance altogether.&lt;/p&gt;
  373.  
  374. &lt;p&gt;Congress could replace PAYGO with a CUTGO system, which focuses on addressing deficits by maintaining or reducing spending rather than increasing taxes.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Federal revenues have been within a limited range as a share of the economy for many decades and are projected to remain within that range for the foreseeable future. In contrast, spending has steadily grown and is expected to continue growing relative to the economy. This means that the spending trend is unsustainable and the primary cause of structural deficits. See Winfree, “Causes of the Federal Government’s Unsustainable Spending.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Further, Congress should expand the reach of sequestration cuts, increase the vote threshold needed to waive enforcement, include trust fund deficits on the scorecard, and make appropriations spending subject to the rule. These measures would incentivize members to address wasteful, dysfunctional, and unnecessary programs to reduce CUTGO balances and prevent automatic cuts to more popular or sensitive programs.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Dickerson, “The Budget Process Must Confront the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  375.  
  376. &lt;p&gt;Combining a comprehensive budgetary framework with CUTGO-style enforcement would make the system default toward not just deficit reduction but also toward reducing the burden of government on the American public. Automatic mechanisms such as these are more effective at generating fiscally responsible outcomes than ones requiring that legislators be fiscally responsible with every individual spending bill or provision. Further, such a system would make it possible for Congress to enact an automatic continuing resolution as a backup for failing to pass a budget on time for a given fiscal year, since a potential budgetary imbalance would be addressed by automatic spending cuts.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;While enacting an automatic continuing resolution under current conditions could lead to an even more passive legislative branch, that would not be the case if paired with a budgeting rule that would often cause automatic spending cuts. Legislators would want to either prevent or target the cuts.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  377. &lt;/li&gt;
  378. &lt;li&gt;
  379. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Create Emergency and Disaster Accounts.&lt;/b&gt; Currently, emergency and disaster spending are exempted from budget rules and treated as though the spending does not count. However, there are sure to be real natural disasters every year in a country as large as the United States. Further, deficit spending adds to the national debt regardless of whether it receives special treatment, and various types of emergency spending are responsible for $12 trillion in spending over the past 30 years.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Romina Boccia and Dominik Lett, “Curbing Federal Emergency Spending,” Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 966, January 9, 2024, https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/curbing-federal-emergency-spending-government-spending-grows-excessive-wasteful (accessed October 25, 2024).&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; Congress can address the deficit burden by creating notional accounts for any emergency or disaster spending. Congress would then have a set period, ideally three years to five years, to offset the balance of the notional account. If the offset fails to happen, automatic spending reductions based on the CUTGO system would occur.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; This combination of reforms would not only reduce deficits but would also incentivize Congress to limit emergency and disaster spending to what is necessary.&lt;/p&gt;
  380. &lt;/li&gt;
  381. &lt;li&gt;
  382. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Narrow the Definition of Emergency and Disaster Designations. &lt;/b&gt;The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has a five-part test to determine whether spending can properly be considered an emergency measure, including suddenness, urgency, and being genuinely unforeseen.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; There is no analogous system used to determine what can be done legislatively through emergency declarations. Applying an approach like that of the OMB to spending legislation would prevent abuses seen in the FY 2024 appropriations process. It should also be possible for any Member of Congress to challenge an emergency or disaster designation under a budgetary point of order, with a high threshold required for the designation to survive (at least two-thirds, and ideally three-quarters, of those voting).&lt;/p&gt;
  383. &lt;/li&gt;
  384. &lt;li&gt;
  385. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Eliminate Fake Rescissions.&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt; &lt;/i&gt;Congress should limit the amount of new BA derived from a rescission to the expected reduction in OT, rather than the amount of unused BA. This would bring an end to a long-standing budget gimmick.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ditch, “FY 2024 Appropriations: Budget Gimmicks Masquerading as Spending Cuts.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  386. &lt;/li&gt;
  387. &lt;li&gt;
  388. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Refuse Net Spending Increases Through Budget Reconciliation.&lt;/b&gt; Congress initially used the reconciliation process (which makes it easier for legislation to pass through the Senate) for deficit reduction packages. However, in recent years&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;Congress&lt;b&gt; &lt;/b&gt;has repeatedly abused reconciliation to expand the federal government on a partisan basis. With spending already set to grow to an unsustainable degree, it should be more difficult to add further spending.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Matthew Dickerson, “Improving Budget Rules and Processes to Achieve Policy Outcomes in the 118th Congress,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3740, December 12, 2022, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/improving-budget-rules-and-processes-achieve-policy-outcomes-the-118th.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  389. &lt;/li&gt;
  390. &lt;/ul&gt;
  391.  
  392. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Discretionary-Only Reforms. &lt;/b&gt;Congress could:&lt;/p&gt;
  393.  
  394. &lt;ul&gt;
  395. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Ensure that Appropriations Always Count Toward Discretionary Caps.&lt;/b&gt; The prevalence of discretionary spending outside the appropriations process would be lessened if it reduced the amount of funds available to appropriators, who are typically high-status Members. Congress should couple this reform with the ban on spending increases in reconciliation, which would prevent abusing the reconciliation process for passing partisan appropriations bills.&lt;/li&gt;
  396. &lt;/ul&gt;
  397.  
  398. &lt;p&gt;While the following reforms are not directly related to problems identified earlier in this &lt;i&gt;Backgrounder&lt;/i&gt;, they would improve the health of the appropriations process. Congress could:&lt;/p&gt;
  399.  
  400. &lt;ul&gt;
  401. &lt;li&gt;
  402. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Restore the Ban on Earmark Spending.&lt;/b&gt; Congress banned earmarks in 2011 in the wake of public backlash against both corruption and egregiously wasteful projects. However, earmarking privileges returned for the FY 2022 appropriations process and currently have bipartisan backing in both chambers. Earmarks can have political salience for Members, but since most pertain to hyper-local projects, they have little policy justification, especially at a time of high debt and deficits. Retaining earmarks will make it difficult to trim spending on the handful of programs they flow from.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “Earmark Spending: Bad Fruit from Rotten Trees,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3741, February 27, 2023, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/earmark-spending-bad-fruit-rotten-trees.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  403. &lt;/li&gt;
  404. &lt;li&gt;
  405. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Require Authorization for Appropriations.&lt;/b&gt; Current prohibitions against unauthorized spending are weak, with $516 billion (nearly one-third of the discretionary spending limit) going to such programs and bureaus in FY 2024. Further, many important parts of the federal government have had lapsed authorizations for decades.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;David Ditch, “America Can’t Afford Bloated Federal Government—Literally or Figuratively,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, August 19, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/commentary/america-cant-afford-bloated-federal-government-literally-or.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; One reason for the growth of lapsed authorizations is the steady expansion of the federal government, which makes it difficult for authorizing committees to reauthorize the full slate of activities on a regular basis. However, that is not an excuse for allowing so much spending and so much federal power to operate with minimal legislative input or oversight for years and decades at a time. The current practice also leads to the diminishing of authorizing committees and the centralization of power with appropriators.&lt;/p&gt;
  406.  
  407. &lt;p&gt;Establishing firmer prohibitions against unauthorized appropriations would spur more activity from authorizing committees, provide more opportunities for legislators to do serious legislating, and ensure greater scrutiny of outdated programs. A potential approach would be to automatically cut unauthorized appropriations relative to the previous year, exemplified by H.R. 1518, the Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act.&lt;/p&gt;
  408. &lt;/li&gt;
  409. &lt;/ul&gt;
  410.  
  411. &lt;p&gt;&lt;b&gt;Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Reforms.&lt;/b&gt; Congress could:&lt;/p&gt;
  412.  
  413. &lt;ul&gt;
  414. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Publish Full Scores of Appropriations Legislation.&lt;/b&gt; Currently, the CBO only provides detailed appropriations scoring to a handful of offices. This not only hides gimmicks and unclear fiscal effects from the public, but even from most Members, who are supposed to make informed decisions when voting on legislation.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Dickerson, “Improving Budget Rules and Processes to Achieve Policy Outcomes in the 118th Congress.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
  415. &lt;li&gt;&lt;b&gt;Reform the CBO’s Biased Baseline.&lt;/b&gt; There are many ways in which the CBO baseline creates bias in favor of more spending. For example, emergency spending meant to address a specific problem can cause a long-term increase to the CBO baseline, as will one-off discretionary spending increases made outside the appropriations process. In contrast, time-limited changes to the tax code are typically assumed to go away in the baseline after their statutory expiration. With many budgetary rules based on how legislative changes would affect the baseline, bias in the CBO’s baseline has real-world effects rather than simply being a concern for budget wonks.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ibid.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; H.R. 8979, the No Bias in the Baseline Act, seeks to address this problem.&lt;/li&gt;
  416. &lt;/ul&gt;
  417.  
  418. &lt;h3&gt;Conclusion&lt;/h3&gt;
  419.  
  420. &lt;p&gt;Washington has managed to shirk its duty to perform responsible budgeting for decades thanks to the trend of declining interest rates and low inflation. Those times are gone.&lt;span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Ditch and Greszler, “The End of Business as Usual.”&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"&gt;&lt;span class="annotation-link"&gt;REF&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; An enduring rise in the cost of financing the national debt coupled with large structural deficits and public concerns about the cost of living will make it increasingly difficult for officials to continue treating fiscal problems as an inconvenience.&lt;/p&gt;
  421.  
  422. &lt;p&gt;Finding a solution to this looming crisis is a leadership opportunity both for individual legislators and for Congress as a whole, which badly needs to earn back the confidence of the American public.&lt;/p&gt;
  423.  
  424. &lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;David Ditch&lt;/b&gt; is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget at The Heritage Foundation.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  425. </description>
  426.  <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 13:53:21 -0500</pubDate>
  427.    <dc:creator>David Ditch</dc:creator>
  428.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/budget-and-spending/report/death-discretionary-budgeting</guid>
  429.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  430. </item>
  431. <item>
  432.  <title>If Prosecutors “Followed the Science” As They Claim, We’d Have Less Crime, Not More</title>
  433.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/if-prosecutors-followed-the-science-they-claim-wed-have-less-crime-not</link>
  434.  <description>&lt;p&gt;“Follow the science” is a common chorus among progressives. But often they, not those they moralize against, are the real science deniers.&lt;/p&gt;
  435.  
  436. &lt;p&gt;Take progressive prosecutors. Many, like &lt;a href="https://da.lacounty.gov/media/news/district-attorney-george-gascon-outlines-reforms-made-during-first-100-days-office-promises-more" target="_blank"&gt;George Gascon in Los Angeles&lt;/a&gt;, tout their soft-on-crime policies as “data driven” or “scientifically backed.”&lt;/p&gt;
  437.  
  438. &lt;p&gt;Yet this is a complete hoax. These prosecutors cite studies that are misleading, non-replicable, non-peer-reviewed, or entirely disproven.&lt;/p&gt;
  439.  
  440. &lt;p&gt;But the most damning proof that they are science deniers, not science followers, is the simple fact that crime, especially violent crime, has risen dramatically in their jurisdictions.&lt;/p&gt;
  441.  
  442. &lt;p&gt;Of course, none of this has stopped them—and their media cheerleaders—from repeating the “data and science” incantation &lt;em&gt;ad nauseum&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  443.  
  444. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/report/the-progressive-prosecutor-data-and-science-hoax"&gt;The Progressive Prosecutor “Data and Science” Hoax&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  445.  
  446. &lt;p&gt;The problem isn’t the use of data or science to support prosecutorial policies. District attorneys have collected data for decades. That’s unsurprising given that the &lt;em&gt;raison d’être&lt;/em&gt; of every elected prosecutor is public safety—a goal that data collection significantly furthers.&lt;/p&gt;
  447.  
  448. &lt;p&gt;But instead of using data to protect the public, progressive prosecutors (or, more accurately, rogue prosecutors) collect data as a weapon against opposing viewpoints. They use it to justify recommending shorter sentences, to prevent the prosecutors under them from seeking more than one charge in many cases, and to seek low or no bail in others.&lt;/p&gt;
  449.  
  450. &lt;p&gt;In other cases, rogue prosecutors use data to make prosecutorial decisions based on race and class rather than on public safety. They then reward assistant DAs who implement these progressive agendas—and punish those who dissent.&lt;/p&gt;
  451.  
  452. &lt;p&gt;Fair and Just Prosecution (FJP), the front group for the progressive prosecutor movement, recommends that prosecutors should “adopt performance standards that reflect your values… encourage desired outcomes by adopting metrics like reducing incarceration, pretrial detention, and recidivism…. Include these measures in promotion decisions.”&lt;/p&gt;
  453.  
  454. &lt;p&gt;FJP cautions rogue prosecutors not to consider a defendant’s arrest history when deciding whether to offer them bail, because it “reinforce(s) patterns of racial disparity.”&lt;/p&gt;
  455.  
  456. &lt;p&gt;To support these soft-on-crime actions, rogue prosecutors rely on two main studies—neither of which is either factual or replicable.&lt;/p&gt;
  457.  
  458. &lt;p&gt;In the first study, the chief judge of Cook County, Illinois (home of Chicago), reduced the cash bail amounts in his circuit, which led to more defendants being released before trial. In 2019, the chief judge issued a report stating that “the increased release of defendants from jail did not increase the threat to public safety in Cook County.”&lt;/p&gt;
  459.  
  460. &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, the exact opposite was true.&lt;/p&gt;
  461.  
  462. &lt;p&gt;In a lengthy expose, the Chicago Tribune detailed the study’s flawed methodology and faulty conclusions. Among other things, the Tribune reported, the judge undercounted murders, limited his definition of “violent crime” to six offenses, and only counted the first new charge against released defendants, even when those defendants were charged with multiple new crimes.&lt;/p&gt;
  463.  
  464. &lt;p&gt;A Wake Forest University law review article (written by a retired federal judge and former federal prosecutor) also noted that the study failed to control for many other factors and ignored confounding variables.&lt;/p&gt;
  465.  
  466. &lt;p&gt;These authors found that “the number of crimes committed by pretrial releasees appear(ed)… to have significantly increased.” In fact, “the number of released defendants charged with committing new crimes increased by about 45 percent…(and) the number of pretrial releasees charged with new violent crimes increased by about 33%.”&lt;/p&gt;
  467.  
  468. &lt;p&gt;The second study cited by rogue prosecutors has been similarly discredited.&lt;/p&gt;
  469.  
  470. &lt;p&gt;The study contended that “marginal non-prosecuted misdemeanor defendant(s)” were 53% less likely to face criminal complaints in the next two years than similar defendants who were prosecuted. After this study’s release, then-DA of Suffolk County (home of Boston) used it to support her decision not to prosecute non-violent misdemeanors.&lt;/p&gt;
  471.  
  472. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime"&gt;Why Are Prosecutors Choosing To Protect Criminals at the Expense of Their Victims?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  473.  
  474. &lt;p&gt;But this study, like the Chicago bail study, made crucial errors.&lt;/p&gt;
  475.  
  476. &lt;p&gt;Instead of examining all criminal defendants in Suffolk County or even all misdemeanor offenders, the study only considered first-time misdemeanor offenders. But the pertinent question is not whether the first-time misdemeanor offenders will re-offend; many will not, regardless of whether they’re prosecuted. The real issue is whether the whole group of people that the DA decided to let off the hook—a group that includes repeat offenders—would likely re-offend.&lt;/p&gt;
  477.  
  478. &lt;p&gt;In other words, the study examined only the most favorable subset of the data and ignored the data most likely to refute its hypothesis. It also failed to distinguish between cases that were charged, cases that were diverted to a non-punitive forum for resolution, and cases that were dropped.&lt;/p&gt;
  479.  
  480. &lt;p&gt;Worse, the study used data that’s inaccessible and irreplicable.&lt;/p&gt;
  481.  
  482. &lt;p&gt;Data and science aren’t the problem. The problem is the way rogue prosecutors use both words. Saying the words “data” and “science” repeatedly may sound credible, but after pulling back the curtain, one discovers that rogue prosecutors’ appeals to “data and science” are nothing more than a smokescreen—a “data and science” hoax.&lt;/p&gt;
  483. </description>
  484.  <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 11:58:25 -0500</pubDate>
  485.    <dc:creator>Charles Stimson</dc:creator>
  486.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/if-prosecutors-followed-the-science-they-claim-wed-have-less-crime-not</guid>
  487.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  488. </item>
  489. <item>
  490.  <title>Trump’s Foreign Policy: What To Expect From MAGA 2.0</title>
  491.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/trumps-foreign-policy-what-expect-maga-20</link>
  492.  <description>&lt;p&gt;After the disastrous foreign affairs failures of the Biden administration, many Americans were left wondering how a Trump administration could possibly correct course. Well, it’s finally Trump time, so here’s what one should expect.&lt;/p&gt;
  493.  
  494. &lt;p&gt;In many ways, today’s Donald Trump resembles the one we saw in 2016. Now, as then, Trump is neither an isolationist nor an imperialist; rather, he pursues an America-first policy tempered by realism and the understanding that sometimes one must break a few eggs to make an omelet.&lt;/p&gt;
  495.  
  496. &lt;p&gt;Similarities aside, though, the Trump of 2025 is not the same as the Trump of 2016. Today’s Trump is one of the most battle-tested leaders on the world stage, and he’s bringing that experience to bear on changing world circumstances.&lt;/p&gt;
  497.  
  498. &lt;p&gt;While America faces the same enemies—Russia, Iran and China—those enemies are weaker than ever because of their own reckless imperial overreach. Moscow struggles to make headway on its fronts in Ukraine and beyond, Iran is stuck watching Israel take down its minions, and China faces economic woes and a tarnished global brand.&lt;/p&gt;
  499.  
  500. &lt;p&gt;All this weakness gives Trump space to accomplish his foreign policy agenda.&lt;/p&gt;
  501.  
  502. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/why-trump-blew-away-bidens-wind-energy-fantasy-day-1"&gt;Why Trump Blew Away Biden’s Wind Energy Fantasy on Day 1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  503.  
  504. &lt;p&gt;First on the table is killing the Green New Deal—a completely unrealistic, unachievable policy that only benefited America’s enemies. While Iran and Russia sold fossil fuels and China bought them at cut-rate prices (and cornered the market on the sale of green technologies), the rest of the world was heading for energy poverty.&lt;/p&gt;
  505.  
  506. &lt;p&gt;Trump plans to change all that by heading up a global campaign for reliable, affordable, abundant energy. In declaring a national energy emergency, he paved the way for America to unleash its vast oil supply more cheaply and efficiently than ever—a policy that will enable the U.S. to compete in and transform the global energy market.&lt;/p&gt;
  507.  
  508. &lt;p&gt;Next, Trump will restore the long-standing American tradition of peace through strength. He’s already instructed his new secretary of Defense to this end, ordering him to implement more bayonet drills and fewer drag shows. He’s warned America’s enemies to stop warmongering or risk facing consequences for their actions.&lt;/p&gt;
  509.  
  510. &lt;p&gt;Even before taking office, Trump’s team helped negotiate a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel. Now he’s working to secure a similar peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.&lt;/p&gt;
  511.  
  512. &lt;p&gt;Trump believes in putting America first, and he knows that wars (in addition to the harm they cause to innocents) are bad for business—and that means they must stop.&lt;/p&gt;
  513.  
  514. &lt;p&gt;Similarly, Trump is putting an end to America’s endless bankrolling of other countries, demanding instead that those countries step up and start pulling their own weight. He’s informed NATO members that they need to start contributing 5% of their GDP to national defense instead of relying on the U.S. to take care of them.&lt;/p&gt;
  515.  
  516. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/the-birthright-citizenship-clause-too-many-forget-trump-right-question"&gt;The Birthright Citizenship Clause Too Many Forget, but Trump Is Right To Question&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  517.  
  518. &lt;p&gt;Instead of throwing taxpayer money around, Trump says it’s time to start throwing America’s weight around. That means no more underwriting the U.N.’s globalist agenda—unless, of course, it’s in America’s best interests to do so.&lt;/p&gt;
  519.  
  520. &lt;p&gt;Nor does Trump plan to continue allowing weaknesses and backdoors in America’s own backyard. Trump’s "new Monroe Doctrine" isn’t about establishing American imperialism, but rather about ensuring American safety.&lt;/p&gt;
  521.  
  522. &lt;p&gt;Trump seeks to secure strategic waypoints like Greenland, encourage Canada to defend the Free North, and prevent China from obtaining control of the Panama Canal. That’s not building a wall around America—it’s mowing the grass and trimming the hedges.&lt;/p&gt;
  523.  
  524. &lt;p&gt;Finally, Trump plans to put American growth first. That means tax cuts for American workers, tariffs for American enemies, and encouragement for American allies to invest in the American economy. He’s already announced significant Saudi investment in the United States (to the tune of $600 billion), and the pressure’s on for other allies to follow suit.&lt;/p&gt;
  525.  
  526. &lt;p&gt;All told, Trump’s foreign policy sends the message that America’s back and better than ever. Friends should step up, and enemies should watch out.&lt;/p&gt;
  527. </description>
  528.  <pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2025 09:25:57 -0500</pubDate>
  529.    <dc:creator>James Carafano</dc:creator>
  530.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/trumps-foreign-policy-what-expect-maga-20</guid>
  531.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  532. </item>
  533. <item>
  534.  <title>Media Recycles Teachers Union Rhetoric To Attack School Choice. Here’s the Truth.</title>
  535.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/media-recycles-teachers-union-rhetoric-attack-school-choice-heres-the-truth</link>
  536.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Groundhog Day is still a week away, but you wouldn’t know it from the likes of the Charleston &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier&lt;/em&gt;. Like the film in which Bill Murray lives the same day over and over again, the editors there are rehashing tired—and disproven—claims against the benefits of parent choice in education.&lt;/p&gt;
  537.  
  538. &lt;p&gt;This recurring trope arrives just in time for National School Choice Week, which offers an opportunity to set the record straight. Again.&lt;/p&gt;
  539.  
  540. &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier&lt;/em&gt;’s latest attack on education choice is in response to a new proposal from South Carolina lawmakers to offer education savings accounts to state children.&lt;/p&gt;
  541.  
  542. &lt;p&gt;This proposal comes after a state supreme court decision last year that struck down an education savings account program due to claims the accounts used state funds to support private vendors in violation of South Carolina’s constitution.&lt;/p&gt;
  543.  
  544. &lt;p&gt;As the Institute for Justice &lt;a href="https://ij.org/case/south-carolina-esas/"&gt;explains&lt;/a&gt;, education choice policies like these are protected by the U.S. Constitution. Even if that weren’t the case, though, the similarities between South Carolina’s accounts and those in Arizona and elsewhere were enough for parents and policymakers to see the court had whiffed on its swing against the accounts.&lt;/p&gt;
  545.  
  546. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/education-choice-crossroads-survey-arizona-families-who-use-empowerment"&gt;Education Choice at a Crossroads: A Survey of Arizona Families Who Use Empowerment Scholarship Accounts&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  547.  
  548. &lt;p&gt;The decision denied hundreds of students the chance to find education opportunities apart from assigned schools. The ruling left parents like &lt;a href="https://nextstepsblog.org/2024/09/commentary-lawmakers-should-consider-oklahoma-funding-model-after-south-carolina-high-courts-rejection-of-esas/"&gt;David Warner&lt;/a&gt;, who I interviewed last year, feeling as though “the light has gone out” and his family might “be… left in the dark again.”&lt;/p&gt;
  549.  
  550. &lt;p&gt;Now, state lawmakers are attempting to help students who had their options taken from them by enacting a new program that will serve even more children.&lt;/p&gt;
  551.  
  552. &lt;p&gt;But the editors of the &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier&lt;/em&gt; denounce the program, saying &lt;a href="https://www.postandcourier.com/opinion/editorials/sc-senate-school-vouchers/article_af47fb24-cfa5-11ef-959e-4fe28d224a3f.html"&gt;“school vouchers are bad enough”&lt;/a&gt; because they lack “accountability,” impose additional taxpayer burdens, and disproportionately benefit the rich.&lt;/p&gt;
  553.  
  554. &lt;p&gt;This argument echoes the views of special interest groups who claim parent choice options do not have enough accountability. Yet this ignores provisions in the new proposal that would disburse account funds quarterly. Policymakers will have the opportunity to determine if misspending has occurred and suspend accounts if needed.&lt;/p&gt;
  555.  
  556. &lt;p&gt;Education savings accounts in other states operate similarly. As the Goldwater Institute has tirelessly explained, no amount of misspending is appropriate, but the amount of funds used for ineligible expenses is trivial compared to the total sum of disbursements. This stands in stark contrast to traditional schools, where officials are not held to the same standard and incidents of misspending often continue for years.&lt;/p&gt;
  557.  
  558. &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier&lt;/em&gt; is also wrong in its claims that education choice programs increase taxpayer spending.&lt;/p&gt;
  559.  
  560. &lt;p&gt;Education savings account spending per child is often significantly lower than spending in assigned schools. For example, South Carolina lawmakers are proposing $8,500 for each account—slightly more than half the &lt;a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_236.65.asp?current=yes\"&gt;$14,500 spent per child&lt;/a&gt; in traditional public schools. Goldwater has reported similar savings figures for Arizona and in other states with account options.&lt;/p&gt;
  561.  
  562. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/congress-need-not-panic-debunking-fears-fiscal-cliff-school-districts-face-esser"&gt;Congress Need Not Panic: Debunking Fears of a “Fiscal Cliff” as School Districts Face ESSER Spending Deadline&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  563.  
  564. &lt;p&gt;Nor are claims that education choice options only help the rich any better founded. According to Goldwater’s own Matt Beienburg, Arizona ESA account holders come from all across the income &lt;a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-anti-esa-double-standard/"&gt;spectrum&lt;/a&gt;, just like their public school peers. In my research in &lt;a href="https://www.johnlocke.org/research/a-culture-of-personalized-learning/"&gt;North Carolina&lt;/a&gt;, I found that half of account holders there live in neighborhoods where the median household income is within $10,000 of the statewide median.&lt;/p&gt;
  565.  
  566. &lt;p&gt;The &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier&lt;/em&gt;’s arguments—no accountability, more taxpayer spending, and benefits for the rich—are simply a rerun of teachers’ union and other special interest group talking points.&lt;/p&gt;
  567.  
  568. &lt;p&gt;The National Education Association (NEA) &lt;a href="https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/action-center/our-issues/vouchers?_gl=1*1oqepr1*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ.."&gt;says&lt;/a&gt; vouchers “steal scarce funding from public schools,” even though taxpayer spending on traditional schools has increased largely unabated for decades and currently &lt;a href="https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_236.75.asp?current=yes"&gt;stands&lt;/a&gt; at more than $16,300 per student.&lt;/p&gt;
  569.  
  570. &lt;p&gt;Unions also claim private school scholarships discriminate against children with special needs. However, the account programs in Arizona and Florida (which have two of the largest account systems in the U.S.) began as options designed exclusively for children with unique needs.&lt;/p&gt;
  571.  
  572. &lt;p&gt;Recycling union position statements against “vouchers” when education choice has moved on to fully customizable options is not serious opposition. With outdated arguments out of the way, the &lt;em&gt;Post and Courier &lt;/em&gt;and others can finally consider why National School Choice Week celebrates the research and experiences demonstrating that choice is essential for student success in school and in life.&lt;/p&gt;
  573. </description>
  574.  <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 14:24:55 -0500</pubDate>
  575.    <dc:creator>Jonathan Butcher</dc:creator>
  576.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/media-recycles-teachers-union-rhetoric-attack-school-choice-heres-the-truth</guid>
  577.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  578. </item>
  579. <item>
  580.  <title>Why Trump Blew Away Biden’s Wind Energy Fantasy on Day 1</title>
  581.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/why-trump-blew-away-bidens-wind-energy-fantasy-day-1</link>
  582.  <description>&lt;p&gt;A new administration means a chance to see how many campaign promises come to fruition. So far, President Trump has held up his end of the bargain.&lt;/p&gt;
  583.  
  584. &lt;p&gt;In one of his first actions as president, Mr. Trump kept his “no windmills” promise by issuing a memorandum temporarily stopping offshore wind energy leasing on federal waters and halting approvals, permits and loans for all wind projects pending a comprehensive review.&lt;/p&gt;
  585.  
  586. &lt;p&gt;It’s time to say goodbye to the Biden administration’s push for wind energy, a plan that risked steering America toward an unreliable energy path.&lt;/p&gt;
  587.  
  588. &lt;p&gt;Reliable energy is essential for powering American industries, especially with the explosive growth of data centers driven by artificial intelligence. However, wind turbines are unreliable, as output fluctuates based on unpredictable weather rather than consumer demand.&lt;/p&gt;
  589.  
  590. &lt;p&gt;Wind power operated at full capacity only 33% of the time in 2023, dipping to 26% during the summer. In contrast, weather-independent sources—nuclear, natural gas and coal—operate at 93%, 60% and 42% of their full capacity, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;
  591.  
  592. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/wind-turbines-not-green-not-reliable"&gt;Wind Turbines: Not Green, Not Reliable&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  593.  
  594. &lt;p&gt;Wind turbines’ unreliability means that they require backup. This reality effectively forces consumers to unnecessarily pay thrice: once for wind energy, again for backup power, and renewable energy subsidies.&lt;/p&gt;
  595.  
  596. &lt;p&gt;This dramatically increases consumers’ costs. One metric, the Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity, estimates that wind energy costs at least twice as much as nuclear energy and seven times as much as natural gas.&lt;/p&gt;
  597.  
  598. &lt;p&gt;Countries dependent on wind power pay the price for its unreliability and high cost.&lt;/p&gt;
  599.  
  600. &lt;p&gt;In Britain, for example, when a recent drop in temperatures drove up power demand, wind generation could not keep up, plummeting from 40% of the electricity mix early in the morning to below 10% for the rest of the day.&lt;/p&gt;
  601.  
  602. &lt;p&gt;In response, gas plants charged exorbitant prices to remain profitable as their operating hours decreased because of renewables; one station sold power for more than $6,000 per megawatt hour.&lt;/p&gt;
  603.  
  604. &lt;p&gt;Ultimately, these high costs were passed on to British consumers, who already pay some of the highest electricity prices globally.&lt;/p&gt;
  605.  
  606. &lt;p&gt;This is exactly the sort of energy crisis that Mr. Trump hopes to avoid.&lt;/p&gt;
  607.  
  608. &lt;p&gt;This is just one of many examples disproving the rosy narrative promoted by renewable advocates that wind power is cheap. Likewise, portraying wind turbines as “green” is another misleading notion.&lt;/p&gt;
  609.  
  610. &lt;p&gt;Proponents of wind power say turbines are environmentally friendly because they harness the wind to generate carbon-free electricity.&lt;/p&gt;
  611.  
  612. &lt;p&gt;However, turbines impose non-generation costs on the environment, which wind advocates often overlook or ignore. Wind farms require 10 times the amount of critical minerals as natural gas power plants and 1.6 times as much as nuclear power plants.&lt;/p&gt;
  613.  
  614. &lt;p&gt;Wind farms also require vast expanses of land. For wind farms to generate the same amount of electricity as a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor, they require about 100 times more land.&lt;/p&gt;
  615.  
  616. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/trump-energy-plan-will-avoid-europes-energy-disaster"&gt;Trump Energy Plan Will Avoid Europe’s Energy Disaster&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  617.  
  618. &lt;p&gt;On these lands, wind turbines kill 1 million birds a year, according to the American Bird Conservancy. In the seas, offshore wind activities often inflict “Level B harassment” on marine mammals, disrupting their natural behavioral patterns.&lt;/p&gt;
  619.  
  620. &lt;p&gt;National defense concerns further complicate the case for wind turbines.&lt;/p&gt;
  621.  
  622. &lt;p&gt;In November, Sweden rejected 13 proposed offshore wind projects in the Baltic Sea because wind farms would reduce the military’s reaction time to a potential missile attack by 50% and interfere with sensors critical for detecting submarines. Other countries, including Estonia, Japan and Taiwan, have expressed similar concerns.&lt;/p&gt;
  623.  
  624. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Trump has valid reasons for opposing subsidies for wind and other renewables, which (in the form of production tax credits and investment tax credits) are projected to cost U.S. taxpayers over $400 billion from 2025 through 2034.&lt;/p&gt;
  625.  
  626. &lt;p&gt;It’s illogical to continue funding renewable subsidies that will lead America toward European energy scarcity. Instead of continuing Biden’s heavily subsidized, unreliable energy plan, the Trump administration should pursue energy deregulation and eliminate subsidies for all energy sources.&lt;/p&gt;
  627.  
  628. &lt;p&gt;This would create a level playing field where the most competitive energy sources—wind, solar, nuclear and natural gas—can power America’s future.&lt;/p&gt;
  629. </description>
  630.  <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 14:10:08 -0500</pubDate>
  631.    <dc:creator>Austin Gae</dc:creator>
  632.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/why-trump-blew-away-bidens-wind-energy-fantasy-day-1</guid>
  633.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  634. </item>
  635. <item>
  636.  <title>Trump’s Border Ground Game Is Off to a Fast Start. To Guarantee Change Congress Must Do 3 Things</title>
  637.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/trumps-border-ground-game-fast-start-guarantee-change-congress-must-do-3</link>
  638.  <description>&lt;p&gt;We’re only a week into President Donald Trump’s second term, and the executive orders have been flying out of the White House like unidentified &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/video/6365875807112" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;drones&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from a New Jersey hanger—particularly on border matters. Let’s take stock.&lt;/p&gt;
  639.  
  640. &lt;p&gt;The trees felled for Trump’s blitz of directives shouldn’t obscure the forest, which is a clash of two ideologies.&lt;/p&gt;
  641.  
  642. &lt;p&gt;On the left is President Joe Biden’s globalist acceptance of mass migration, coordinated by the U.N. and paid for by rich nations.&lt;/p&gt;
  643.  
  644. &lt;p&gt;On the right is the perspective championed by Trump, which holds that sovereign nations with secure borders decide who enters their countries, and on what terms.&lt;/p&gt;
  645.  
  646. &lt;p&gt;Trump’s ground game makes sense with that big picture in mind. It’s two-fold: undo the policies that drew illegal migrants in, and ramp up the moribund process of removing those already here.&lt;/p&gt;
  647.  
  648. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/5-lies-biden-used-break-the-borderand-how-trump-can-fix-it"&gt;5 Lies Biden Used To Break the Border…and How Trump Can Fix It&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  649.  
  650. &lt;p&gt;The Biden administration accepted that mass migration from the Third World to the First was unavoidable—even desirable. Their strategy was to create what they called "safe, orderly, lawful pathways," euphemisms which disguised allowing mass illegal entry via unauthorized parole programs. They combined this with releasing aliens caught entering illegally at the border into an endless, desultory asylum process.&lt;/p&gt;
  651.  
  652. &lt;p&gt;They flew these aliens all over the country and diverted federal funds to support them. To make certain few would ever be removed, they crippled interior enforcement through &lt;a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.ice.gov/doclib/news/guidelines-civilimmigrationlaw.pdf__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yo3KdGr3qyIaQv4tx6L2r5EaJdiV0K5blM0TLtnnk5rDc5xdwK7-VGTUgWprgo9F0APS9YqNXOcq5_Gon8_9oek0oxII4FUP%24" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;procedural limitations&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and red tape. The final stage would surely have been to extort a mass amnesty from Congress.&lt;/p&gt;
  653.  
  654. &lt;p&gt;The toll from the last four years is breathtaking. Over 11 million people were encountered trying to enter the U.S. illegally. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mayorkas-tells-border-patrol-agents-illegal-immigrants-released-into-us-sources" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;once admitted&lt;/a&gt; that DHS was releasing more than 85% of them. I saw it for myself in Arizona, California, and Texas.&lt;/p&gt;
  655.  
  656. &lt;p&gt;Inadmissible aliens were let in from 180 countries, with 1,000% &lt;a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/foreigndesknews.com/us/u-s-sees-1000-surge-in-migrants-from-afghanistan-china/__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yo3KdGr3qyIaQv4tx6L2r5EaJdiV0K5blM0TLtnnk5rDc5xdwK7-VGTUgWprgo9F0APS9YqNXOcq5_Gon8_9oek0o6uXuRc1%24" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;increases&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; from Afghanistan, China, and even less friendly places. Over 542,945 &lt;a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/nationwide-encounters__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yo3KdGr3qyIaQv4tx6L2r5EaJdiV0K5blM0TLtnnk5rDc5xdwK7-VGTUgWprgo9F0APS9YqNXOcq5_Gon8_9oek0o7Ia72zL%24" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;unaccompanied alien children&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; were let in, and unprecedented numbers of &lt;a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/www.dhs.gov/archive/news/2019/01/07/mythfact-known-and-suspected-terroristsspecial-interest-aliens__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yo3KdGr3qyIaQv4tx6L2r5EaJdiV0K5blM0TLtnnk5rDc5xdwK7-VGTUgWprgo9F0APS9YqNXOcq5_Gon8_9oek0o0HMXbSM%24" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;Special Interest Aliens&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; and people on the terrorism watch list. For most of these people, the U.S. had no verifiable identification, let alone criminal history back home. This resulted in &lt;a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/datavisualizations.heritage.org/immigration/border-insecurity-and-lax-law-enforcement-lead-to-preventable-crime/index.html__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!yo3KdGr3qyIaQv4tx6L2r5EaJdiV0K5blM0TLtnnk5rDc5xdwK7-VGTUgWprgo9F0APS9YqNXOcq5_Gon8_9oek0o-j8evYE%24" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;u&gt;preventable crimes&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/a&gt; that we will continue to see for years.&lt;/p&gt;
  657.  
  658. &lt;p&gt;Americans saw the results, and a majority voted for Trump to secure the border and enforce immigration laws. What he’s implementing now is a strategy along multiple lines of effort to turn off the magnet attracting illegal migrants, stop funding the influx, and ramp up enforcement.&lt;/p&gt;
  659.  
  660. &lt;p&gt;In a nutshell, the aim is to deter, detain, and (if so ordered) deport illegal migrants, rather than process them in and punt them into an endless legal process quagmire.&lt;/p&gt;
  661.  
  662. &lt;p&gt;In his Monday executive actions, Trump declared an invasion at the southern border—and an emergency, for good measure. He called Mexican cartels terrorists and called for "maximum" vetting for visa applicants. He ordered wall-building restarted. He ended the parole programs Biden used to bring in 75,000 off-the-books inadmissible aliens every month.&lt;/p&gt;
  663.  
  664. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/heres-how-republicans-should-follow-through-their-tough-talk-immigration"&gt;Here’s How Republicans Should Follow Through With Their Tough Talk on Immigration&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  665.  
  666. &lt;p&gt;Trump has ended catch-and-release at the border and unchained ICE from onerous process rules. He instructed agencies to deprive uncooperative "sanctuary" jurisdictions of federal funds.&lt;/p&gt;
  667.  
  668. &lt;p&gt;Though this has been an incredible week of action, much more needs to be done. The government will be fighting scores of lawsuits from activists, naturally. But to make Trump’s achievements lasting, Congress will need to change some laws.&lt;/p&gt;
  669.  
  670. &lt;ol&gt;
  671. &lt;li&gt;At the very least, they should aim to cap immigration parole so it can never again be perverted to bypass our refugee process. To meet the detention requirement of existing law, plus the new Laken Riley Act, they should fund more beds for illegal aliens during their court process.&lt;/li&gt;
  672. &lt;li&gt;Congress should also end government funding of the U.N. entities and "non-profit" NGOs who’ve been fed billions to facilitate illegal mass migration.&lt;/li&gt;
  673. &lt;li&gt;Congress could amend the laws that incentivize smuggling children into the U.S. and then require states to educate them. They could also cut illegal aliens off from federal welfare.&lt;/li&gt;
  674. &lt;/ol&gt;
  675.  
  676. &lt;p&gt;Some of that is too much to hope for. Congress has other big fish to fry. But this week, it’s hard to imagine that more progress could have been made on border security in so little time. And only once the border is secure will discussion of legal immigration reform be palatable to the public.&lt;/p&gt;
  677. </description>
  678.  <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 13:50:22 -0500</pubDate>
  679.    <dc:creator>Simon Hankinson</dc:creator>
  680.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/trumps-border-ground-game-fast-start-guarantee-change-congress-must-do-3</guid>
  681.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  682. </item>
  683. <item>
  684.  <title>The Birthright Citizenship Clause Too Many Forget, but Trump Is Right To Question</title>
  685.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/the-birthright-citizenship-clause-too-many-forget-trump-right-question</link>
  686.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Few of President Donald Trump’s new executive orders have caused as much alarm as the one on birthright citizenship.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  687.  
  688. &lt;p&gt;That order prohibits federal agencies from issuing or accepting citizenship documents for children born in the U.S. when neither parent is a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of the child’s birth.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  689.  
  690. &lt;p&gt;Critics paint it as flagrantly unconstitutional, including a misinformed federal judge in Seattle who issued a temporary injunction against it last week. But the new policy fits squarely within the text and original meaning of the 14th Amendment.&lt;/p&gt;
  691.  
  692. &lt;p&gt;For the first century following the 14th Amendment’s ratification, few legal scholars would have batted an eye at a directive like Trump’s. If anything, they’d have been more confused as to why the federal government started issuing passports to the U.S.-born children of illegal aliens, tourists, and “temporary sojourners” in the first place.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  693.  
  694. &lt;p&gt;Contrary to popular belief, the 14th Amendment doesn’t say that all people born in the U.S. are citizens. It says that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens.&amp;nbsp;That second, critical, conditional phrase is conveniently ignored or misinterpreted by advocates of “universal” birthright citizenship.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  695.  
  696. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-experts-applaud-president-trumps-executive-order-expanding-school-choice"&gt;Heritage Experts Applaud President Trump’s Executive Order Expanding School Choice&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  697.  
  698. &lt;p&gt;This was intended to constitutionalize the protections of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which provided that “all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power” would be considered citizens.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  699.  
  700. &lt;p&gt;The change in language didn’t reflect a desire on Congress’s part to abrogate the statutory definition or adopt universal birthright citizenship. In fact, the Civil Rights Act remained valid law for another 70 years, with courts and legal scholars alike assuming that it was perfectly consistent with the citizenship clause.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  701.  
  702. &lt;p&gt;That’s because the sponsors of the 14th Amendment made it clear that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S. means owing your political allegiance to the U.S., and not to another country. Children born to aliens are citizens of their parents’ native land, and thus owe their allegiance to, and are subject to the jurisdiction of, that native land.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  703.  
  704. &lt;p&gt;Legislative history shows that Congress intended the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate permanent race-based barriers to citizenship—not to bestow citizenship on everyone born within the geographical confines of the United States. Congress didn’t intend birthright citizenship to apply to the U.S.-born children of those who owed only a limited allegiance to the United States.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  705.  
  706. &lt;p&gt;Even modern proponents of “universal birthright citizenship” admit that the children born on U.S. soil to diplomats or tribally affiliated Native Americans don’t obtain birthright citizenship. In fact, they and their children were only made citizens through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924—legislation that wouldn’t have been necessary if the 14th Amendment adopted common law rules of universal birthright citizenship.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  707.  
  708. &lt;p&gt;While critics of Trump’s order claim that universal birthright citizenship is “the settled law of the land,” the Supreme Court has never definitively addressed this issue.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  709.  
  710. &lt;p&gt;The first time the nation’s highest court opined on the meaning of the citizenship clause—in the famous Slaughter-House cases of 1872—it stated that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” excluded “children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.”&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  711.  
  712. &lt;p&gt;The court confirmed this understanding in 1884 in&amp;nbsp;Elk v. Wilkins, denying birthright citizenship to an American Indian because he “owed immediate allegiance to” his tribe and not the United States.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  713.  
  714. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/trump-deals-heavy-blow-dei-hopefully-its-lethal"&gt;Trump Deals a Heavy Blow to DEI—Hopefully It’s Lethal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  715.  
  716. &lt;p&gt;Most legal arguments for universal birthright citizenship ignore these early cases and point to the 1898 decision U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark. However, that decision simply held that U.S.-born children of lawful permanent residents are U.S. citizens.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  717.  
  718. &lt;p&gt;Further, that decision concerned the constitutionality of acts that created a class of lawful permanent residents who, just like Black people under Dred Scott, were perpetually excluded from citizenship based solely on their race—exactly the situation the 14th Amendment was designed to prevent.&amp;nbsp; &amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  719.  
  720. &lt;p&gt;Our nation’s current immigration and nationality laws no longer create this type of permanent race-based barrier to citizenship. Today, the federal statute defining citizenship (8 U.S.C. § 1401) simply repeats the language of the 14th Amendment, including the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”&lt;/p&gt;
  721.  
  722. &lt;p&gt;That language retains the same meaning today as it had when it was drafted and ratified. It doesn’t evolve to mean something else just because previous administrations erroneously interpreted it more expansively.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  723.  
  724. &lt;p&gt;As a result, the president has the authority to direct federal agencies to act in accordance with the original meaning of the 14th Amendment, and to issue government documents and benefits only to those individuals who are truly subject to United States jurisdiction.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  725.  
  726. &lt;p&gt;Far from being an attempt to rewrite the Constitution or “end birthright citizenship,” Trump’s order is a much-needed and long-overdue course correction, reversing a decades-long policy that was never constitutionally mandated in the first place.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  727. </description>
  728.  <pubDate>Thu, 30 Jan 2025 11:19:54 -0500</pubDate>
  729.    <dc:creator>Amy Swearer, Hans von Spakovsky</dc:creator>
  730.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/the-birthright-citizenship-clause-too-many-forget-trump-right-question</guid>
  731.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  732. </item>
  733. <item>
  734.  <title>Here’s How Republicans Should Follow Through With Their Tough Talk on Immigration</title>
  735.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/heres-how-republicans-should-follow-through-their-tough-talk-immigration</link>
  736.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Each day Republican leadership debates about how, and when, to proceed with the budget reconciliation process is another day the American people are forced to wait for President Trump’s agenda to kick into high gear.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  737.  
  738. &lt;p&gt;Americans need our leaders to act with the urgency that this moment demands. The safety and security of Americans must be placed first.&lt;/p&gt;
  739.  
  740. &lt;p&gt;The number one priority for Congress right now must be to ensure that every illegal alien who has invaded our country is detained and deported or leaves quickly on their own accord.&lt;/p&gt;
  741.  
  742. &lt;p&gt;Trump’s team, led by Border Czar Tom Homan, is ready to do its job. During Trump’s first term, ICE removed illegal aliens at a rate of 32% of the aggregate number of encounters, but that rate fell to 3.5% under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  743.  
  744. &lt;p&gt;Congress now needs to throw its full support behind the administration so that they can track, arrest, detain and &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/deportation-flights-begin-trump-sends-strong-clear-message-white-house" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;deport all 20 million illegal aliens&lt;/a&gt; that the American people elected Trump to evict.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  745.  
  746. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt; &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/report/how-the-president-can-use-the-us-military-confront-the-catastrophic-threat"&gt;How the President Can Use the U.S. Military to Confront the Catastrophic Threat at the Border with Mexico&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  747.  
  748. &lt;p&gt;Conducting the largest deportation operation in American history will require Congress to take more action—and provide ICE with funds on a historic scale.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  749.  
  750. &lt;p&gt;Implementing Trump’s plan will require ICE to have at least 100,000 detention beds, 12,000 more ICE agents, 4,000 more OPLA attorneys, 1,000 EOIR immigration judges, and 1,000 ICE mission support staff to help expand air operations and handle higher levels of turnover in deportation facilities.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  751.  
  752. &lt;p&gt;Democrats will try to make the price tag seem like too high a cost to pay, but in the past four years they have spent billions on non-governmental organizations to facilitate bringing millions of illegal aliens here. &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/380m-from-dhs-given-states-ngos-support-migrants" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Repurposing NGO funds&lt;/a&gt; for immigration enforcement and cutting state and federal welfare subsidies for illegal aliens will save Americans even more money annually.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  753.  
  754. &lt;p&gt;Plus, America’s sovereignty and every American life is priceless. If any representative disagrees, then Heritage Action is going to make sure that they explain why to their constituents.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  755.  
  756. &lt;p&gt;In addition to funding ICE on a historic scale, Congress also has a crucial role to play when it comes to putting pressure on illegal aliens to self-deport. A good place to start would be cracking down on employers who hire illegal aliens instead of paying Americans an honest wage.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  757.  
  758. &lt;p&gt;Requiring businesses to use an &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tool-stop-illegal-immigrant-employment-comes-senate-border-crisis-rages" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;electronic verification system&lt;/a&gt; to confirm their employees’ work eligibility would largely fix this problem, but if some illegal aliens slipped through the cracks, Congress has still more tools at its disposal.&lt;/p&gt;
  759.  
  760. &lt;p&gt;An unused tool is Congress’s ability to tax remittances, the money illegal aliens earn in America and then send back to their home country. According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, our country loses more than $150 billion annually in remittances—which is roughly equivalent to the annual output of America’s entire mining industry (excluding oil and gas).&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  761.  
  762. &lt;p&gt;To disincentivize illegal aliens from remaining here, Congress should pass a law that requires money transfer services to demand proof of legal status or face a 50% tax on any outgoing transfers. This tax revenue can then be repurposed toward deportation operations or finishing the border wall.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  763.  
  764. &lt;p&gt;Another tool that would save Americans money and incentivize illegal aliens to leave our country is &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mike-lee-looks-halt-welfare-illegals-going-under-biden-key-budget-process" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Sen. Mike Lee&lt;/a&gt;, R-Utah, and Congressman Chip Roy’s, R-Texas, America First Act, which would permanently prevent aliens from accessing America’s welfare benefits.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  765.  
  766. &lt;p&gt;Last year, the Center for Immigration Studies estimated that illegal aliens received $42 billion in benefits paid for by American taxpayers in 2021 alone. Since then, the Biden administration has allowed millions more illegal aliens into our country, which means that figure has almost certainly increased.&lt;/p&gt;
  767.  
  768. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/report/responding-crimes-committed-aliens"&gt;Responding to Crimes Committed by Aliens&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  769.  
  770. &lt;p&gt;In July 2024, the Congressional Budget Office released a score finding that the Biden administration’s failure to secure the border will increase America’s debt to the tune of $300 billion over the next 10 years because of alien access to federal welfare programs.&lt;/p&gt;
  771.  
  772. &lt;p&gt;And this doesn’t even account for the billions in taxpayer dollars that go to support the tremendous burden illegal immigrants put on other state and local resources like public schools. With that in mind, Congress should also require school districts to collect enrollment data by immigration status and pass legislation that requires public schools to &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/first-fox-red-state-suing-biden-admin-unleashing-chaos-schools-through-open-border" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;charge tuition for illegal alien children&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  773.  
  774. &lt;p&gt;Finally, Congress should pass a law that requires American banks to confirm an applicant’s legal status before issuing a home loan. No illegal alien should be able to live out the American dream of owning a home when so many of our fellow citizens can hardly afford to pay the rent.&lt;/p&gt;
  775.  
  776. &lt;p&gt;If aliens can’t get a job, can’t send money back to their families, can’t access welfare, can’t send their children to schools for free, and can’t buy a home, then many of them will leave on their own. This will make ICE’s job easier and save Americans even more money.&lt;/p&gt;
  777.  
  778. &lt;p&gt;Republicans in Congress loved to beat the drum for border security and mass deportation when they were raising money on the campaign trail. Now, it is time for them to follow through and put Americans first.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  779. </description>
  780.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 15:39:55 -0500</pubDate>
  781.    <dc:creator>Kevin D. Roberts, PhD</dc:creator>
  782.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/heres-how-republicans-should-follow-through-their-tough-talk-immigration</guid>
  783.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  784. </item>
  785. <item>
  786.  <title>We Must Move Fast To Avert a National Electricity Crisis</title>
  787.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/we-must-move-fast-avert-national-electricity-crisis</link>
  788.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Years of misguided climate policy have pushed America to the brink of an electricity crisis.&lt;/p&gt;
  789.  
  790. &lt;p&gt;Fossil fuel plants are retiring faster than renewable sources can replace them, at the same time as electricity demand is soaring from AI data centers and the push to electrify everything from vehicles to appliances. Congress and the new administration will have to move fast to avert what could be years of soaring prices and dangerous blackouts.&lt;/p&gt;
  791.  
  792. &lt;aside&gt;
  793. &lt;p&gt;The scale of the looming capacity shortfall is staggering. Coal plants representing &lt;a href="https://www.csis.org/analysis/epa-power-plant-rule-amid-demand-growth#:~:text=The%20United%20States%20has%20roughly,emissions%20from%20the%20electricity%20sector." rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"&gt;more than 15 percent of America’s electrical generation&lt;/a&gt; are expected to close by 2032, just as demand is &lt;a href="https://www.americanexperiment.org/u-s-energy-demand-to-rise-15-in-next-5-years/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"&gt;expected to climb&lt;/a&gt; by at least 15 percent. That’s a potential shortfall of 30 percent of the 1,200 Gigawatts of generation capacity that could be needed by 2030, the equivalent of 400 average-sized nuclear plants.&lt;/p&gt;
  794.  
  795. &lt;p&gt;Nonsense, say environmentalists. Despite the retirement of 8.5 GW of coal capacity last year, the nation’s grid grew by 8.4 GW because of the addition of 13.3 GW of solar and 4.3 GW of battery capacity. Shouldn’t that solve the problem?&lt;/p&gt;
  796.  
  797. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/energy/report/time-us-energy-dominance-unlocking-americas-oil-and-gas-potential-through-innovation"&gt;Time for U.S. Energy Dominance: Unlocking America’s Oil and Gas Potential through Innovation and Policy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  798.  
  799. &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, no. The new renewable capacity is a mirage. Solar plants produce just 24 percent of their nominal capacity on average, much less during the winter, and often nothing at all, depending on the weather. Utility-scale batteries can maintain their maximum output for no more than a few hours. In contrast, most natural gas, coal and nuclear plants can operate above 90 percent capacity and can be ramped up and down as needed.&lt;/p&gt;
  800.  
  801. &lt;p&gt;Despite soaring demand, the grid is actually contracting in terms of projected energy availability. Grid operators are now warning that large swathes of the country will fall below minimum reserve margins starting in summer 2025.&lt;/p&gt;
  802.  
  803. &lt;p&gt;To meet the new demand, America will need hundreds of new gas and nuclear plants. Yet investment in such plants has virtually vanished. Indeed, data center developers are increasingly looking to build their own power plants, avoiding the grid altogether.&lt;/p&gt;
  804.  
  805. &lt;p&gt;The main reason is the Inflation Reduction Act’s renewables subsidies. Most utilities have to purchase electricity from whoever is offering it cheapest. With the tsunami of subsidized solar power being dumped on the grid in the middle of the day, large coal, natural gas and nuclear plants can’t recoup their costs. That has made investing in such plants highly unattractive, which in turn is wrecking the economics of America’s electricity supply.&lt;/p&gt;
  806.  
  807. &lt;p&gt;That is a main reason why electricity is getting more expensive as more renewables are dumped onto the grid, as &lt;a href="https://www.wsj.com/opinion/green-electricity-costs-a-bundle-wind-solar-data-analysis-power-prices-259344f4" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Bjorn Lomborg noted&lt;/a&gt; recently in the Wall Street Journal.&lt;/p&gt;
  808.  
  809. &lt;p&gt;Congress should repeal the IRA as soon as possible, and at the very least ensure that these subsidies expire in a few years unless renewed. This could be done through “budget reconciliation,” which requires only a simple majority in Congress, but it will require members and senators to resist the allure of free money for their favorite constituents.&lt;/p&gt;
  810.  
  811. &lt;p&gt;In the meantime, the new administration should require gird operators to maintain reserve margins based on projected energy availability under stress test scenarios, rather than nominal capacity, which is not a meaningful metric for variable sources like solar, wind and battery. Federal regulators should also require grid operators to prioritize reliability, for example by requiring renewable plants to provide for dispatchable backup for the power they offer.&lt;/p&gt;
  812.  
  813. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/trump-energy-plan-will-avoid-europes-energy-disaster"&gt;Trump Energy Plan Will Avoid Europe’s Energy Disaster&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  814.  
  815. &lt;p&gt;Another major constraint on investment in the power plants we actually need is state renewable energy mandates. Such mandates have no measurable influence on climate, but they force people in resource-rich New York and California to pay 76 percent and 113 percent more for residential electricity, respectively, than those in resource-poor Florida.&lt;/p&gt;
  816.  
  817. &lt;p&gt;To compensate for their social cost, such mandates should trigger a federal surcharge (or a loss of IRA tax credits) on renewable projects where a state’s electricity rates exceed the national average by more than, say, 30 percent. That is another measure that could pass through reconciliation.&lt;/p&gt;
  818.  
  819. &lt;p&gt;Inefficient permitting is another problem. Due to the hydra-headed nature of the federal bureaucracy, America has the slowest, costliest and riskiest process for permitting major infrastructure projects in the world. It deprives American communities of urgently needed infrastructure and is a major drag on America’s industrial and technological might.&lt;/p&gt;
  820.  
  821. &lt;p&gt;The new administration should look to international best practices, such as Denmark’s one-stop permitting agency and Australia’s single permit application for projects of national importance. Expanding general permits for projects that can self-certify without lengthy government preapproval could further reduce delays.&lt;/p&gt;
  822.  
  823. &lt;p&gt;Litigation reform is also needed to prevent small local groups from stalling nationally important projects with endless lawsuits. Requiring plaintiffs to post bonds to cover potential losses from unwarranted delays is yet another idea that could pass in budget reconciliation.&lt;/p&gt;
  824.  
  825. &lt;p&gt;President Trump has pledged to tackle the looming electricity scarcity crisis. Now Congress must be ready to do its part.&lt;/p&gt;
  826. &lt;/aside&gt;
  827. </description>
  828.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 14:38:10 -0500</pubDate>
  829.    <dc:creator>Mario Loyola</dc:creator>
  830.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/energy/commentary/we-must-move-fast-avert-national-electricity-crisis</guid>
  831.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  832. </item>
  833. <item>
  834.  <title>DEI, a Euphemism for Discrimination, Is on the Way Out</title>
  835.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/dei-euphemism-discrimination-the-way-out</link>
  836.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Shortly after his swearing in, President Donald Trump reinstated his ban on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the federal government. The move was a much-needed correction to former President Joe Biden’s platform of racial preferences and discrimination.&lt;/p&gt;
  837.  
  838. &lt;p&gt;It also mirrors stances that elected officials across the country were already taking.&lt;/p&gt;
  839.  
  840. &lt;p&gt;Even before Trump’s inauguration, the new heads of state in Indiana and West Virginia had &lt;a href="https://apnews.com/article/west-virginia-governor-religious-vaccine-exemptions-dei-8665e89daf101e42cc372de56d699c38" target="_blank"&gt;passed broad orders&lt;/a&gt; eliminating DEI in their respective states. The expediency of these orders is as impressive as their breadth: West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrissey and &lt;a href="https://www.wbiw.com/2025/01/13/mike-braun-sworn-in-as-indianas-52nd-governor-in-state-inauguration-ceremony-today/" target="_blank"&gt;Indiana&lt;/a&gt; Gov. Mike Braun were both sworn in on &lt;a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/patrick-morrisey-sworn-as-37th-governor-of-west-virginia" target="_blank"&gt;January 13&lt;/a&gt;, and DEI was gone &lt;a href="https://apps.sos.wv.gov/adlaw/executivejournal/readpdf.aspx?DocID=97521" target="_blank"&gt;the next day&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  841.  
  842. &lt;p&gt;This speed demonstrated a broader desire on the part of the newly elected leaders to meet voter expectations. But it also reflected a recognition that state-facilitated DEI offices and anti-bias training programs violate both civil rights law and U.S. Supreme Court rulings.&lt;/p&gt;
  843.  
  844. &lt;p&gt;Braun’s executive order in Indiana specifically ordered state offices to “adhere to the decision in &lt;em&gt;Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College,&lt;/em&gt;” the High Court’s opinion from 2023 that ruled against the use of race in college admissions.&lt;/p&gt;
  845.  
  846. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/trump-deals-heavy-blow-dei-hopefully-its-lethal"&gt;Trump Deals a Heavy Blow to DEI—Hopefully It’s Lethal&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  847.  
  848. &lt;p&gt;That ruling had more to say about civil rights than just striking colleges’ use of racial preferences, though. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”&lt;/p&gt;
  849.  
  850. &lt;p&gt;Accordingly, Braun’s &lt;a href="https://www.in.gov/gov/files/EO-25-14.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;order&lt;/a&gt; requires state officials to review DEI positions and departments across state agencies, and forbids the use of taxpayer dollars for programs that use racial preferences (such as quotas for hiring based on race). The order also abolished DEI trainings and ended requirements for job applicants to submit DEI statements (otherwise known as “loyalty oaths”).&lt;/p&gt;
  851.  
  852. &lt;p&gt;The executive &lt;a href="https://apps.sos.wv.gov/adlaw/executivejournal/readpdf.aspx?DocID=97521" target="_blank"&gt;order&lt;/a&gt; in West Virginia was even more sweeping.&lt;/p&gt;
  853.  
  854. &lt;p&gt;There, Gov. Morrissey ordered a review of DEI offices and positions, calling for state officials to submit a plan to eliminate these departments within 90 days. Morrissey’s order also ended the use of taxpayer spending on DEI activities.&lt;/p&gt;
  855.  
  856. &lt;p&gt;State policymakers cannot seem to remove DEI fast enough.&lt;/p&gt;
  857.  
  858. &lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="https://www.usg.edu/regents/assets/regents/documents/board_meetings/BoR_November_12_2024_Agenda_%28public%29_final_2.pdf" target="_blank"&gt;University of Georgia&lt;/a&gt; Board of Regents ended the practice of accepting DEI statements in admissions decisions before their current students had even left for Thanksgiving break last year. &lt;a href="https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=67963&amp;amp;code=bog" target="_blank"&gt;University of North Carolina&lt;/a&gt; officials did the same last spring.&lt;/p&gt;
  859.  
  860. &lt;p&gt;Policymakers in nearly a dozen other states have adopted similar policies. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds approved a legislative proposal last year prohibiting DEI on college campuses—a prohibition that led the Iowa University Board of Regents to &lt;a href="https://www.amestrib.com/story/news/education/2025/01/16/did-the-regents-remove-dei-references-from-its-strategic-plan/77743446007/" target="_blank"&gt;change&lt;/a&gt; its strategic plan and remove DEI from its guiding documents.&lt;/p&gt;
  861.  
  862. &lt;p&gt;But these are just the examples in education.&lt;/p&gt;
  863.  
  864. &lt;p&gt;The private sector is watching closely as lawmakers act against DEI, and many companies are acting to anticipate &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/restoring-equality-employment-sinking-the-dei-ship" target="_blank"&gt;legal challenges&lt;/a&gt; to corporate DEI operations. The Society for Human Resource Management, the world’s &lt;a href="https://www.shrm.org/home" target="_blank"&gt;largest&lt;/a&gt; association for HR professionals, has moved away from use of the term “equity” in its promotional materials. Walmart, McDonald's, Meta and &lt;a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/microsoft-shuts-down-diversity-equality-and-inclusion-dei-team/ar-BB1q9CZ9" target="_blank"&gt;Microsoft&lt;/a&gt;—along with other Fortune 500 companies—have all scuttled or otherwise trimmed DEI offices in the last six months.&lt;/p&gt;
  865.  
  866. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://https/www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/how-the-nukes-were-queered-case-study-dei-political-and-bureaucratic-weapon"&gt;How the Nukes Were Queered: A Case Study in DEI as a Political and Bureaucratic Weapon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  867.  
  868. &lt;p&gt;According to the news site &lt;a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/01/16/dei-rollback-companies-amazon-meta-mcdonalds" target="_blank"&gt;Axios&lt;/a&gt;, McDonald’s officials and those of other corporations cited the &lt;em&gt;Students for Fair Admissions&lt;/em&gt;’ decision in their move to cut DEI programs. Smart. State attorneys general have consistently been warning companies about their use of racial preferences in hiring and HR policies. The new executive orders from governors will only heighten the attention on DEI’s racial discrimination.&lt;/p&gt;
  869.  
  870. &lt;p&gt;Now the federal government is taking decisive anti-DEI—and pro-meritocracy—actions again.&lt;/p&gt;
  871.  
  872. &lt;p&gt;During his first term, Trump issued an &lt;a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-combating-race-sex-stereotyping/" target="_blank"&gt;executive order&lt;/a&gt; blocking diversity training in the federal workforce. Biden’s administration countered this, pushing “equity” throughout federal offices so voters should have anticipated the second Trump administration would move quickly on DEI. Some Washington DEI officials had already headed for the door, as the FBI &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-closed-dei-office-december-agency-says" target="_blank"&gt;closed&lt;/a&gt; its DEI office at the end of last year.&lt;/p&gt;
  873.  
  874. &lt;p&gt;These changes have all come at a rapid clip. The executive orders in West Virginia and Indiana, along with the new strategy from Iowa’s Board of Regents and Meta’s &lt;a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/01/13/meta-is-ending-their-dei-programs--replacing-them-with-dei-programs/" target="_blank"&gt;decision&lt;/a&gt; to cut DEI, all occurred within days of each other. McDonald’s DEI cuts came just before them.&lt;/p&gt;
  875.  
  876. &lt;p&gt;Last year, companies were said to be &lt;a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/11/22/how-corporate-america-may-be-quiet-quitting-dei.html" target="_blank"&gt;“quiet quitting” DEI&lt;/a&gt;. Things aren’t so quiet anymore.&lt;/p&gt;
  877. </description>
  878.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 13:50:05 -0500</pubDate>
  879.    <dc:creator>Jonathan Butcher</dc:creator>
  880.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/dei-euphemism-discrimination-the-way-out</guid>
  881.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  882. </item>
  883. <item>
  884.  <title>Abortion “Shield” Laws: The Next Front In The Battle For Life</title>
  885.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/abortion-shield-laws-the-next-front-the-battle-life</link>
  886.  <description>&lt;p&gt;When it overruled Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Supreme Court eliminated the biggest legal obstacle to advancing the pro-life cause. But our fight has never been a fight against Roe v. Wade. It’s a fight for life—one that is only just beginning.&lt;/p&gt;
  887.  
  888. &lt;p&gt;In&amp;nbsp;&lt;em&gt;Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization&lt;/em&gt;, the Supreme Court said that regulating abortion belonged in the hands of the people and their elected representatives. Since then, nearly half the states have passed pro-life laws of different kinds—while others have doubled down on their pro-abortion policies.&lt;/p&gt;
  889.  
  890. &lt;p&gt;Pro-abortion states and activists, however, are not content with legally protecting abortion where they live. They are now passing so-called abortion “shield” laws designed to undermine the ability of pro-life states to enforce their own laws.&lt;/p&gt;
  891.  
  892. &lt;p&gt;Normally, states cooperate with each other when, for example, it comes to returning individuals to where they have committed crimes. This cooperation is required by the Constitution, and by multiple agreements that most states have signed.&lt;/p&gt;
  893.  
  894. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/report/abortion-shield-laws-undermine-interstate-comity-and-medical-practice-and-raise"&gt;Abortion “Shield” Laws Undermine Interstate Comity and Medical Practice and Raise Constitutional Questions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  895.  
  896. &lt;p&gt;Abortion shield laws break from that tradition, potentially causing irreparable damage to the interstate comity that has characterized the United States for so long.&lt;/p&gt;
  897.  
  898. &lt;p&gt;But abortion shield laws also undermine traditional medical practice, which has long considered the location of medical care to be that of the patient, not the doctor.&lt;/p&gt;
  899.  
  900. &lt;p&gt;In 2022, for example, the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), the board representing state medical and osteopathic boards, adopted a policy stating that the “practice of medicine occurs where the patient is located.” This is true, the FSMB said, even when a patient receives telemedicine: the state of care is the state in which the patient is located.&lt;/p&gt;
  901.  
  902. &lt;p&gt;But states such as California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Vermont, and Washington have passed laws reversing this principle so that the laws of an abortionist’s state apply.&lt;/p&gt;
  903.  
  904. &lt;p&gt;This poses extreme risks, especially now that a majority of abortions are caused by drugs rather than surgery. It allows abortionists to mail abortion drugs into pro-life states while claiming that a completely different state’s laws apply—even though women receive, use, and (in case of complications) are treated for those drugs under the laws of their home state.&lt;/p&gt;
  905.  
  906. &lt;p&gt;Abortion advocates know this is both nonsensical and dangerous.&lt;/p&gt;
  907.  
  908. &lt;p&gt;The primary authors of this abortion shield strategy&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/02/Cohen-76-Stan.-L.-Rev.-317.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;acknowledge&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;that “[s]tandard telehealth practice considers medical care to have occurred where the patient is located.” They also concede that “there are important reasons for defining care as occurring where the patient is located,” and that “shifting the location of care is a significant departure from the standard of care, the provisions of state medical practice acts, and the guidance of professional organizations.”&lt;/p&gt;
  909.  
  910. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/designer-embryos-and-kids-born-the-dna-throuple-parents-understanding-the-depraved"&gt;Designer Embryos and Kids Born From the DNA of Throuple Parents: Understanding the Depraved New World of EPS and IVG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  911.  
  912. &lt;p&gt;They even admit that “the state where the patient resides typically has the strongest interest” and best means of protecting the safety of the resident patient.&lt;/p&gt;
  913.  
  914. &lt;p&gt;Yet while abortion activists know all of this, for them, nothing comes close to matching the importance of maximizing abortion in this country. Nothing, not even protecting women’s health, can compete with killing unborn children.&lt;/p&gt;
  915.  
  916. &lt;p&gt;Thus, they turn a blind eye while doctors prescribe and provide abortion drugs to patients they will never see in person—and whom they will not treat in the case of resulting complications.&lt;/p&gt;
  917.  
  918. &lt;p&gt;The pro-life cause requires not only passing laws that protect the unborn but also being able to enforce those laws. These abortion shield laws have the same objective as the Supreme Court did in Roe v. Wade: forcing abortion upon states that oppose it. The March for Life calls us to fight for life on these new fronts, meaning it’s not outdated—it’s more important than ever.&lt;/p&gt;
  919. </description>
  920.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 12:55:49 -0500</pubDate>
  921.    <dc:creator>Thomas Jipping</dc:creator>
  922.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/abortion-shield-laws-the-next-front-the-battle-life</guid>
  923.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  924. </item>
  925. <item>
  926.  <title>Cracking Down on Illegal Immigration Would Raise Wages for Lower-Income Americans</title>
  927.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/cracking-down-illegal-immigration-would-raise-wages-lower-income</link>
  928.  <description>&lt;p&gt;President Trump signed so many executive orders on his first two days in office that many Americans were naturally left wondering how his policy changes would affect their everyday lives. One such question looms particularly large: If we deport illegal aliens, who will take their place in working low-skilled jobs?&lt;/p&gt;
  929.  
  930. &lt;p&gt;Many seem to think that the economy is completely dependent on illegal aliens working low-skilled jobs.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-labor-market-impact-of-deportations/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;According&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;to the Brookings Institution, for example, deportations would lead to job losses among illegal aliens and U.S. natives alike. The deportation of the former would reduce consumer demand, causing industries to scale back operations.&lt;/p&gt;
  931.  
  932. &lt;p&gt;Similarly, the Center for American Progress argues that deporting unauthorized workers would immediately reduce the nation’s gross domestic product by 1.4% and ultimately reduce it by 2.6%, with cumulative GDP losses over 10 years amounting to $4.7 trillion. This policy, they argue, would both reduce national employment significantly and lead to a loss of almost $900 billion in federal revenue over the same period.&lt;/p&gt;
  933.  
  934. &lt;p&gt;But Vice President J.D. Vance offered a different view in an October&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/12/magazine/jd-vance-interview.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;interview&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;with The New York Times.&lt;/p&gt;
  935.  
  936. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/more-2-million-workers-are-missing-who-are-they-and-how-are-they"&gt;More Than 2 Million Workers Are Missing. Who Are They, and How Are They Affecting the Economy?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  937.  
  938. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Vance argued against the notion that the U.S. relies on illegal immigrants for construction. Rather, he suggested, plenty of Americans are both willing and capable of taking such jobs if they were offered at living wages.&lt;/p&gt;
  939.  
  940. &lt;p&gt;He also dismissed the idea that deportations would worsen the housing crisis, instead contending that removing illegal immigrants would free up housing supply, thereby potentially lowering prices.&lt;/p&gt;
  941.  
  942. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Vance also emphasized that many currently unemployed men could be drawn back to the labor market with the removal of competition from illegal aliens, who are often willing to work for low wages and few benefits.&lt;/p&gt;
  943.  
  944. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Vance’s explanation points to a much deeper truth: The labor market functions much like the market for goods. If apples cost more, more farmers likely would choose to grow apples. Similarly, if construction jobs paid higher wages, more Americans would likely pursue those positions.&lt;/p&gt;
  945.  
  946. &lt;p&gt;As Mr. Vance pointed out, there have always been Americans willing to build houses. The key is offering wages that align with the labor demand to engage the available workforce effectively.&lt;/p&gt;
  947.  
  948. &lt;p&gt;The same holds true for other roles often filled by illegal immigrants—roles such as maid, cook, maintenance worker or janitor. Currently, illegal immigrants’ willingness to work for below-market pay drags down wages for domestic workers, deterring those who would otherwise seek such positions.&lt;/p&gt;
  949.  
  950. &lt;p&gt;Compelling research exists to support this position.&lt;/p&gt;
  951.  
  952. &lt;p&gt;For example, some&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022199698000695" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;research&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;suggests that illegal immigrants decrease wages and opportunities for U.S. natives even in industries not traditionally considered low-paying.&lt;/p&gt;
  953.  
  954. &lt;p&gt;Many illegal immigrants naturally find employment in lower-paying, or “secondary sector” jobs. Initially, this can stimulate growth in primary sector jobs for native workers. Businesses may expand to capitalize on the availability of cheaper labor, indirectly boosting demand for higher-skilled native employees.&lt;/p&gt;
  955.  
  956. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/report/how-the-president-can-use-the-us-military-confront-the-catastrophic-threat"&gt;How the President Can Use the U.S. Military to Confront the Catastrophic Threat at the Border with Mexico&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  957.  
  958. &lt;p&gt;However, as the number of illegal immigrants increases, some may transition into higher-paying “primary sector” roles. Over time, this may cause increased competition for primary sector jobs, potentially displacing native workers or decreasing available wages and opportunities.&lt;/p&gt;
  959.  
  960. &lt;p&gt;For many—especially those with only a high-school degree—this means a substantial decrease in wages. Economists have&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigrants-actually-hurt-the-us-economy.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;estimated&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;this decrease of wages at anywhere between 0.4% and 7.4%.&lt;/p&gt;
  961.  
  962. &lt;p&gt;Fortunately, Mr. Trump’s policies seem likely to provide some much-needed relief.&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/9.13.23_camarota_testimony_help_subcommittee_hearing_on_open_borders_and_workforce.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;Research&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;suggests that Mr. Trump’s work to decrease illegal immigration in his first term coincided with a 3.2% real increase in median weekly wages for U.S.-born workers without a bachelor’s degree. At the same time, American labor force participation increased.&lt;/p&gt;
  963.  
  964. &lt;p&gt;Mr. Trump has publicly said that his priority is deporting illegal immigrants with criminal convictions (of which an&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.migrationpolicy.org/news/unauthorized-immigrants-criminal-convictions-who-might-be-priority-removal" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;estimated&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;820,000 reside in the U.S.). The research suggests that removing these immigrants would not just improve public safety. It also would lead to increased wages for native workers working blue-collar jobs.&lt;/p&gt;
  965.  
  966. &lt;p&gt;While some argue deporting illegal immigrants may harm the economy, the data suggests there’s more to the story. By cracking down on illegal immigration, we could increase wages and employment opportunities for lower-income American workers, better enabling Americans of all backgrounds to achieve the American dream.&lt;/p&gt;
  967. </description>
  968.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:39:22 -0500</pubDate>
  969.    <dc:creator>Alexander Frei</dc:creator>
  970.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/jobs-and-labor/commentary/cracking-down-illegal-immigration-would-raise-wages-lower-income</guid>
  971.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  972. </item>
  973. <item>
  974.  <title>Trump Deals a Heavy Blow to DEI—Hopefully It’s Lethal</title>
  975.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/trump-deals-heavy-blow-dei-hopefully-its-lethal</link>
  976.  <description>&lt;p&gt;Demonstrating the primacy of the issue, President Donald Trump spent his first two days in office issuing three &lt;a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3296403/trump-orders-all-federal-dei-staff-put-on-leave/" rel="noopener" target="_blank" title&gt;executive orders&lt;/a&gt; and a memo that dealt heavy blows to the practices of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government, federal contractors, and among grantees.&lt;/p&gt;
  977.  
  978. &lt;p&gt;Let’s hope the blows prove to be lethal.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  979.  
  980. &lt;p&gt;The president, for his part, was clear how he felt about DEI practices, not just by taking so many actions so quickly but also by excoriating DEI as “dangerous, demeaning, immoral, and illegal.”&lt;/p&gt;
  981.  
  982. &lt;p&gt;With three EOs he signed in his first 48 hours and a memo his Office of Personnel Management issued Tuesday, Trump revoked the slew of race- and sex-based preferences that former President Joe Biden had introduced, then detailed how precisely DEI would be dismantled. The OPM memo put all federal DEI officials on paid leave as they wait for their offices to be closed.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  983.  
  984. &lt;p&gt;The memo, which came as guidance to one of three EOs, instructed agency heads to do the following by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 22:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  985.  
  986. &lt;blockquote&gt;
  987. &lt;p&gt;Send a notification to all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices, and programs.&lt;/p&gt;
  988. &lt;/blockquote&gt;
  989.  
  990. &lt;p&gt;The private sector had already led the way, starting to distance itself from these practices beginning in 2021, and practically running away from them in the past year. Yet the immense federal apparatus under Biden had remained a renegade bulwark of these racist practices.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  991.  
  992. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/trumps-dismantling-dei-deeper-and-bigger-you-even-know"&gt;Trump’s Dismantling of DEI Is Deeper and Bigger Than You Even Know&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  993.  
  994. &lt;p&gt;The press will emphasize the firing of the DEI bureaucrats—NPR led with the story Wednesday morning—but Trump was only undoing what Biden wrought.&lt;/p&gt;
  995.  
  996. &lt;p&gt;Indeed, Trump began his administration by rescinding an EO that Biden had signed on his first day in office on Jan. 20, 2021, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”&lt;/p&gt;
  997.  
  998. &lt;p&gt;That fateful Biden act ended up deeply impacting his four years in office. His EO 13985 mandated all federal departments and agencies to submit “Equity Action Plans” that minutely detailed how they were implementing the practices.&lt;/p&gt;
  999.  
  1000. &lt;p&gt;Like the tentacles of an octopus, that first-day Biden EO reached everywhere. The federal apparatus issued “action plans,” and appointed “chief diversity officers” and other DEI bureaucrats. “That ends today,” Trump wrote in one of his three EOs dealing with DEI in his first two days.&lt;/p&gt;
  1001.  
  1002. &lt;p&gt;On Inauguration Day 2025, Trump began taking a pickax to the head of the octopus, by revoking Biden’s EO 13985 with &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/initial-rescissions-of-harmful-executive-orders-and-actions/"&gt;the first EO&lt;/a&gt; of his second term, &lt;a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/initial-rescissions-of-harmful-executive-orders-and-actions/"&gt;Initial Rescissions Of Harmful Executive Orders And Actions&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
  1003.  
  1004. &lt;p&gt;With a simple stroke of one of his famous sharpies, Trump later in the day signed a second EO eliminating DEI itself. “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” decrees that all these practices, bureaucracies and positions come to an end within 60 days as far as the federal government is concerned.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  1005.  
  1006. &lt;p&gt;In it, he directed “each agency, department, or commission head” to coordinate with the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management to take the following actions:&lt;/p&gt;
  1007.  
  1008. &lt;p&gt;“Terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions (including but not limited to ‘Chief Diversity Officer’ positions); all ‘equity action plans,’ ‘equity’ actions, initiatives, or programs, ‘equity-related’ grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1009.  
  1010. &lt;p&gt;On his second day in office, Trump signed yet a third EO, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity. It repealed several old EOs, even one issued by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, that entrenched racial discrimination in the federal government, its contractors, and its grantees.&lt;/p&gt;
  1011.  
  1012. &lt;p&gt;The Biden administration issued its Equity Action Plans in April 2022. It was, as I and other Heritage Foundation colleagues &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-05/BG3710.pdf"&gt;wrote in a paper&lt;/a&gt; at the time, “part of the unprecedented push for color-conscious policies that it has sought since President Joe Biden’s first day in office.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1013.  
  1014. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/how-the-nukes-were-queered-case-study-dei-political-and-bureaucratic-weapon"&gt;How the Nukes Were Queered: A Case Study in DEI as a Political and Bureaucratic Weapon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1015.  
  1016. &lt;p&gt;The 25 plans, we explained, violated federal civil rights laws against discrimination. Additionally, and underscoring the radicalness of the Biden administration, my co-authors and I discovered that operatives from the main organization of Black Lives Matter, founded by Marxists to fundamentally transform America, had helped the Biden Administration draft the equity action plans.&lt;/p&gt;
  1017.  
  1018. &lt;p&gt;The Trump administration obviously reached the same conclusion about the illegality of the plans and of all of DEI. This is why Trump’s order started out by noting that “The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’, into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1019.  
  1020. &lt;p&gt;The Trump EO requires that all of the different federal agencies and departments provide the director of OMB—a position for which Trump has nominated Russ Vought, who held the same position in the first term—with a list of DEI or “environment justice positions, committees, programs, services, activities, budgets, and expenditures in existence on November 4, 2024.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1021.  
  1022. &lt;p&gt;The reason for that specific date is that the American people on the following day elected Donald Trump president, and his new administration is well aware that bureaucrats intent on subverting the will of the voters may have relabeled these positions, committees, programs, etc. since the election.&lt;/p&gt;
  1023.  
  1024. &lt;p&gt;None of this is to say that DEI is dead. But it surely is in intensive care.&lt;/p&gt;
  1025. </description>
  1026.  <pubDate>Tue, 28 Jan 2025 11:21:04 -0500</pubDate>
  1027.    <dc:creator>Mike Gonzalez</dc:creator>
  1028.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/civil-rights/commentary/trump-deals-heavy-blow-dei-hopefully-its-lethal</guid>
  1029.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  1030. </item>
  1031. <item>
  1032.  <title>Going on Offense</title>
  1033.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/religious-liberty/commentary/going-offense</link>
  1034.  <description>&lt;p&gt;We can use the next four years to advance Catholic education and secure it for decades.&lt;/p&gt;
  1035.  
  1036. &lt;p&gt;Our Lord &lt;a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2016&amp;amp;version=NABRE" rel="noopener" target="_blank"&gt;promises&lt;/a&gt; that the “gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church. With these words, Jesus not only reassures us that He will never abandon his Church to evil, but He also extolls us to go on offense for the Kingdom of God. Saint Paul later calls on Christians to do the same thing. “Do not be conquered by evil,” he writes, “but conquer evil with good.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1037.  
  1038. &lt;p&gt;In the wake of Donald Trump’s recent victory, the Church in America needs to be reminded of these words, and it would do well to heed them. This is especially true in the realm of Catholic education. For too long Catholic education in the United States has been stuck in a defensive posture, timidly defending its most basic rights while slowly secularizing and giving ground to radical progressives. This diffident approach has produced poor results and only invited further aggressiveness from the enemies of the Church.&lt;/p&gt;
  1039.  
  1040. &lt;p&gt;In the past four years, Democrats in Washington have pushed far beyond the Obama-era policies of demanding contraception coverage in Catholic healthcare plans and mandating that Catholic schools open their bathrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex. Most notably, the Equality Act that progressives attempted to pass would have effectively ended Catholic education as we know it. By making it illegal to discriminate because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” the Equality Act would have allowed gay or transgender employees and students to sue Catholic institutions simply for standing by Catholic teaching, thus forcing many schools to abandon their faith or close their doors.&lt;/p&gt;
  1041.  
  1042. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/liberal-educations-antidote-indoctrination"&gt;Liberal Education’s Antidote to Indoctrination&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1043.  
  1044. &lt;p&gt;The fight for the religious freedom to provide truly Catholic education, hire faithful teachers and staff, and reject immoral practices like abortion and bodily mutilation is also ongoing in the states and the private sector. In Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, for example—where the Equality Act is the law of the land—Catholic schools like St. Joesph’s outside Lansing and Sacred Heart of Jesus outside Grand Rapids are &lt;a href="https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/10/gretchen-whitmer-and-the-progressive-disdain-toward-catholics"&gt;fighting&lt;/a&gt; for their lives in the courts.&lt;/p&gt;
  1045.  
  1046. &lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, progressive activists are convincing more and more big corporations and athletic associations to put pressure on Catholic schools that refuse to comply with the latest pro-abortion, LGBT, or DEI policies. In 2020, for example, the Human Rights Campaign &lt;a href="https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2020/12/15/religious-schools-must-accept-gender-identity-lgbt-activists-tell-biden/"&gt;lobbied&lt;/a&gt; hard for Biden’s Department of Education to “tighten” its accreditation policies and encourage agencies to refuse accreditation to any Catholic schools that didn’t enforce “nondiscrimination policies” or meet “scientific curriculum requirements.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1047.  
  1048. &lt;p&gt;Though the political and legal threats are great, they are not insurmountable. Indeed, despite them, there are good reasons to be hopeful. Since 2022, for example, ten states have &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/school-choice-revolution-helps-homeschoolers-too"&gt;passed&lt;/a&gt; universal education choice initiatives, which allow parents to use their children’s taxpayer-funded education dollars for the school of their choice, or even help cover certain homeschool expenses. These laws, in turn, have been a boon to Catholic schools, especially the burgeoning Catholic classical school movement. Since 2019, more than 264 new classical schools have been &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/why-americas-kids-need-learn-the-founders-classical-schooling"&gt;founded&lt;/a&gt;, and existing ones saw enrollments surge. And the momentum for classical education is only growing. According to some estimates, the classical school enrollment of 677,500 students this year is expected to more than double to 1.4 million by 2035.&lt;/p&gt;
  1049.  
  1050. &lt;p&gt;Under these circumstances, Donald Trump’s recent victory offers not only a respite from the federal government’s total onslaught on Catholic education, but also a unique opportunity to advance our cause and secure the future of Catholic education for generations to come.&lt;/p&gt;
  1051.  
  1052. &lt;p&gt;What does this look like in practice? For starters, it means dismantling the Department of Education, as President Trump has &lt;a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-push-dismantle-education-department-gets-momentum-house-gop"&gt;promised&lt;/a&gt;. Next, the incoming administration should seek to expand school choice with as little regulation as possible, get rid of common core standards as well as other career- and college-focused standards, and &lt;a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/12/04/time-washington-protect-daughters/"&gt;restore&lt;/a&gt; the original meaning of Title IX. Finally, the president-elect could take action to deregulate teacher preparation and de-link school accreditation and student aid from Title IX policies. The Cardinal Newman Society has helpfully &lt;a href="https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Policy-Priorites-for-Catholic-Education.pdf"&gt;provided&lt;/a&gt; details on how President Trump can make many of these changes and offered several more specific actions that the incoming administration can take to protect Catholic education.&lt;/p&gt;
  1053.  
  1054. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/gender-ideology-state-education-policy"&gt;Gender Ideology as State Education Policy&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1055.  
  1056. &lt;p&gt;But it’s not just the White House that needs to seize this opportunity. Catholic educators across the country should use the next four years to aggressively expand their operations, deepen their commitment to Catholic teaching, and fortify themselves against future attacks. Indeed, we should use every moral means at our disposal—from lobbying to lawfare—to push back against the radical Left.&lt;/p&gt;
  1057.  
  1058. &lt;p&gt;In this fight, The Heritage Foundation stands ready to support you. As a proud partner of The Cardinal Newman Society, we provide essential &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/protecting-your-right-serve-how-religious-ministries-can-meet-new-challenges"&gt;guidance&lt;/a&gt; to Catholic schools on how to protect their religious freedom and confront contemporary challenges without shying away from their beliefs. We also have extensive &lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/curricula-resource-initiative/resources-teachers-and-students/resources-teachers"&gt;resources&lt;/a&gt; for Catholic teachers and administrators, from a curriculum library to school models. And for all parents and students, we &lt;a href="https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/education/choose-college-with-confidence/"&gt;offer&lt;/a&gt; data-driven college recommendations so you can choose a school with confidence.&lt;/p&gt;
  1059.  
  1060. &lt;p&gt;In conclusion, we must remember that our religious freedom doesn’t come free. God invites us to join Him in His suffering, but also in His triumphant victory. When we refuse to take an active role in securing our freedom, we are effectively rejecting that invitation.&lt;/p&gt;
  1061.  
  1062. &lt;p&gt;The next four years are critical for securing the future of Catholic education in the United States for the next 40 years. Despite facing more serious attacks than ever before, with Donald Trump’s victory we have a unique opportunity to go on offense. Now is the time for action. In the words of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton: “When so rich a harvest is before us, why do we not gather it? All is in our hands if we will but use it.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1063. </description>
  1064.  <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jan 2025 16:41:10 -0500</pubDate>
  1065.    <dc:creator>Kevin D. Roberts, PhD</dc:creator>
  1066.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/religious-liberty/commentary/going-offense</guid>
  1067.      <enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
  1068. </item>
  1069. <item>
  1070.  <title>Designer Embryos and Kids Born From the DNA of Throuple Parents: Understanding the Depraved New World of EPS and IVG</title>
  1071.  <link>https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/designer-embryos-and-kids-born-the-dna-throuple-parents-understanding-the-depraved</link>
  1072.  <description>&lt;p&gt;If the last two decades have taught us anything, it is that the slippery slope is indeed slippery. What society once naturally recoiled from—designer babies, artificial wombs, and the termination of disabled children—is today the source of misguided compassion. Nowhere is this more obvious than in assisted reproductive technology. The desire to overcome the natural limitations of procreation has led researchers to develop startling new technologies.&lt;/p&gt;
  1073.  
  1074. &lt;p&gt;The first, embryonic polygenetic screening, allows scientists to test how multiple genes interact and predict an embryo’s likelihood for conditions such as hearing loss, obesity, or insulin resistance. Similarly, genetic researchers claim this technology can discern an embryonic child’s personality traits such as kindness, creativity, and his/her intellectual aptitude.&lt;/p&gt;
  1075.  
  1076. &lt;p&gt;The second technology, &lt;em&gt;in vitro&lt;/em&gt; gametogenesis (IVG), genetically modifies human cells into viable egg and sperm—regardless of the person’s sex or age. This means that one man could father a child he is 100% related to or two women could be the genetic parents of the same child.&lt;/p&gt;
  1077.  
  1078. &lt;p&gt;Such technologies subvert God’s good design for human procreation and undermine the inherent worth and dignity of each child. Indeed, as Joshua Mitchell &lt;a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/when-supplements-become-substitutes"&gt;argues&lt;/a&gt;, technology can either be a &lt;em&gt;substitute&lt;/em&gt; for the human person or it can &lt;em&gt;supplement&lt;/em&gt; human flourishing. When it comes to reproductive technology, embryonic polygenetic screening and IVG are attempts to &lt;em&gt;substitute&lt;/em&gt; the human person. In this article, I hope to give a brief overview of two new technological developments that Christians ought to oppose: embryonic polygenetic screening and &lt;em&gt;in vitro&lt;/em&gt; gametogenesis.&lt;/p&gt;
  1079.  
  1080. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Technology as a Substitute: Embryonic Polygenetic Screening and IVG&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1081.  
  1082. &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Embryonic Polygenic Screening&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1083.  
  1084. &lt;p&gt;Embryonic polygenic screening is a new technology that allows prospective parents to test an embryo’s genetic makeup with unprecedented detail. Unlike traditional preimplantation genetic testing that only looks for specific single-gene disorders or sex, polygenic screening looks at how multiple genes interact to assess an embryo’s risk for more complex conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
  1085.  
  1086. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/commentary/frozen-embryos-court-decision-got-it-right-serious-issues-remain"&gt;Frozen Embryos: Court Decision Got It Right, but Serious Issues Remain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1087.  
  1088. &lt;p&gt;New companies, like &lt;a href="https://www.orchidhealth.com/"&gt;Orchid&lt;/a&gt;, use this technology and give each embryo(s) a polygenic risk score that shows an embryo’s chances of developing a range of health outcomes. Parents are given a polygenic “score” that shows an embryo’s likelihood of developing heart disease, insulin resistance, or even hearing loss. This score, of course, entirely overlooks the role of “nurture” in favor of the embryo’s genetic “nature.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1089.  
  1090. &lt;p&gt;This desire for a healthy child, however, may quickly give way to a dystopian world where parents can select embryos based on their potential IQ or personality traits. As an undercover report published in &lt;a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/oct/18/us-startup-charging-couples-to-screen-embryos-for-iq"&gt;The Guardian&lt;/a&gt; shows, another genetic testing company, Heliospect Genomics, may go so far as to allow parents to choose children with “dark triad” traits, “a reference to Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy.” (Hannah Devlin et al., “US Startup Charging Couples to ‘Screen Embryos for IQ,’” The Guardian, October 18, 2024.)&lt;/p&gt;
  1091.  
  1092. &lt;p&gt;Not only does this technology reject the inherent worth and dignity of each child, but it gives parents a false sense of control and security from the natural vulnerabilities of childbearing. As I explore in a recent essay for &lt;a href="https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/08/95623/"&gt;Public Discourse&lt;/a&gt;,&lt;/p&gt;
  1093.  
  1094. &lt;blockquote&gt;
  1095. &lt;p&gt;It is here that we see the most pernicious examples of Silicon Valley’s genuine, but misguided, compassion. &lt;a href="https://x.com/noor_siddiqui_/status/1379868487183527936"&gt;Noor Siddiqui&lt;/a&gt; recounts her own mother’s experience as part of her inspiration for launching Orchid’s advanced genetic analysis operation. When Siddiqui was only in high school, she watched as a rare degenerative retinal disease slowly destroyed her mother’s eyesight. This condition, while not life-threatening, altered her mother’s life and left a lasting impact on Noor.&lt;/p&gt;
  1096.  
  1097. &lt;p&gt;Her solution? The creation of advanced polygenic technology that allows parents to weed out embryos who may develop similar, or worse, conditions. The irony of this, of course, is that this technology does not &lt;em&gt;heal &lt;/em&gt;the unhealthy embryos—it destroys them. If such technology had been available and desirable to Siddiqui’s grandparents, it is very possible that neither she nor her mother would have been born. At the end of the day, is the desire for the healthiest child worth the cost of all those whose lives will be deemed unworthy?&lt;/p&gt;
  1098.  
  1099. &lt;p&gt;In the name of their children living their healthiest life, this technological worldview has trained many in Silicon Valley to view the human person as individual parts or raw material whose genetic makeup predetermines their values, beliefs, capabilities, and identity. Nurture plays a secondary, or unimportant, role in the development of each child. Such conclusions, which ignore both religious insights and sociological findings, enable parents to free themselves from the personal responsibility of stewarding their child’s development. At the same time, it heightens their self-imposed responsibility to create and select genetically superior children.&lt;/p&gt;
  1100. &lt;/blockquote&gt;
  1101.  
  1102. &lt;p&gt;Embryonic polygenetic screening is a prime example of technology as a substitute, rather than a supplement, for human flourishing. Instead of pursuing treatments that may heal or improve a child’s health, such technology merely discards embryos with potential health problems.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
  1103.  
  1104. &lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;In Vitro Gametogenesis&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1105.  
  1106. &lt;p&gt;The legal structure that governs IVF—namely, that anyone has the right to create and parent a child—sets the legal precedent that emerging reproductive technologies such as &lt;em&gt;in vitro&lt;/em&gt; gametogenesis (IVG) will fulfill biologically.&lt;/p&gt;
  1107.  
  1108. &lt;p&gt;With IVG, doctors can &lt;em&gt;reprogram any human cell&lt;/em&gt; &lt;em&gt;into viable egg or sperm&lt;/em&gt;. In 2016, Japanese researchers Katsuhiko Hayashi and Mitinori Saitou made history when they announced that they had conceived mice from &lt;a href="file://users/Emma.Waters/Downloads/By%202016,%20Japanese%20researchers%20shocked%20the%20world%20by%20transforming%20skin%20cells%20from%20a%20mouse%E2%80%99s%20tail%20into%20functional%20egg%20cells.%20Once%20the%20researchers%20fertilized%20and%20implanted%20these%20lab-grown%20eggs%20into%20female%20mice,%20they%20oversaw%20the%20birth%20of%20%E2%80%9Cgrossly%20normal%E2%80%9D%20pups,%20marking%20a%20pivotal%20moment%20in%20the%20development%20of%20in%20vitro%20gametogenesis%20(IVG)%20and%20a%20radical%20shift%20in%20how%20scientists%20understand%20procreation."&gt;genetically modified skin cells&lt;/a&gt;. Many mice appeared grossly normal and were able to naturally conceive their own pups. While researchers have not successfully replicated this with human DNA, Japanese and American scientists are working on it.&lt;/p&gt;
  1109.  
  1110. &lt;p&gt;Scholars estimate that science is anywhere from ten to twenty years away from such treatments being available for human use. As &lt;a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/09/27/1201956964/a-reproduction-revolution-is-on-the-horizon-vitro-gametogenesis-or-ivg"&gt;NPR’s Rob Stein said&lt;/a&gt;, IVG is “IVF 2.0… a revolutionary technology [that is] life-altering for those with infertility.” Indeed, the motivation for developing this technology is two-fold. Hayashi and Saitou, for example, cite their desire to help women who, due to cancer, injury, age, or an at-birth defect, are unable to produce viable eggs. In the United States, researchers at &lt;a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/07/15/1184298351/conception-human-eggs-ivg-ivf-infertility"&gt;Conception&lt;/a&gt; hope to use this technology to enable same-sex couples to achieve joint biological parenthood.&lt;/p&gt;
  1111.  
  1112. &lt;p&gt;Taken together, procreation would no longer require a distinct man and woman with healthy gametes to create a child: cells from an embryo, child, elderly person, single adult, or group of adults could be used to create viable embryos. Worse, skin cells could be taken from people without their knowledge or consent, including from those who are dead.&lt;/p&gt;
  1113.  
  1114. &lt;p&gt;As Dr. Sonia Suter of George Washington University &lt;a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5033438/#:~:text=This%20technology%20would%20allow%20same,individuals%20procreate%20together%2C%20producing%20children"&gt;highlights&lt;/a&gt;, IVG would enable:&lt;/p&gt;
  1115.  
  1116. &lt;ul&gt;
  1117. &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Same-sex couples&lt;/strong&gt; to have children biologically related to both partners;&lt;/li&gt;
  1118. &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Single individuals&lt;/strong&gt; to create offspring without needing another genetic contributor; and&lt;/li&gt;
  1119. &lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;“Multiplex” parenting&lt;/strong&gt; to emerge, where multiple individuals contribute genetic material to one child.&lt;/li&gt;
  1120. &lt;/ul&gt;
  1121.  
  1122. &lt;p&gt;Such technology, if applied to procreation, would fundamentally alter the Bible’s “package deal” of marriage, sex, and procreation where children are received as a gift within the bond of man-woman marriage. Indeed, it is hard to read the Old or New Testament without stumbling across long generational lists where the Bible describes who begets who begets who. Such verses do not merely serve as a historical reference but reflect a person’s inherent desire to know who they are and from whom they come.&lt;/p&gt;
  1123.  
  1124. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/the-reopening-the-american-heart"&gt;The Reopening of the American Heart&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1125.  
  1126. &lt;p&gt;With IVG, generational identity could be lost as multiple generations of embryos are created—and destroyed—within the span of a week. It will be children, unmoored from traditional relationships with their mother, father, and ancestors, who pay the price for our reproductive “progress.”&lt;/p&gt;
  1127.  
  1128. &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conclusion&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
  1129.  
  1130. &lt;p&gt;The future belongs to those who use technology to further reveal God’s good design for human flourishing. This reflects the Cultural Mandate in &lt;a href="https://www.esv.org/verses/Genesis%201%3A28/" target="_blank"&gt;Genesis 1:28&lt;/a&gt;, where God calls man and woman to fruitfully steward His creation—a call that necessarily involves the technological development of tools. Indeed, it is no coincidence that God’s people begin as priests in a garden and end as co-rulers in the eternal city of God.&lt;/p&gt;
  1131.  
  1132. &lt;p&gt;When men and women champion technologies that affirm or restore the human person—from ultrasounds, life-saving surgeries in utero, and beyond—they actively work to further God’s kingdom on earth. Likewise, when researchers pursue technologies that substitute or destroy the human person—even with the best of intentions—their efforts will ultimately crumble, at great cost to those harmed. Christians must be equipped to defend a biblical anthropology, especially concerning children and the creation of new life. Dystopian developments in reproductive technology will continue to threaten the lives and dignity of unborn children, including those who do not exist yet. Thus, Christians must equip themselves with proper knowledge, understanding, and godly wisdom to thwart these developments in favor of life-giving alternatives.&lt;/p&gt;
  1133. </description>
  1134.  <pubDate>Mon, 27 Jan 2025 13:45:47 -0500</pubDate>
  1135.    <dc:creator>Emma Waters</dc:creator>
  1136.    <guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/designer-embryos-and-kids-born-the-dna-throuple-parents-understanding-the-depraved</guid>
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  1142.  

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