Think Tanked

Heritage's Feulner: 2011 is for Hispanic Conservatives

Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner argues that just as 2010 was the year of the conservative voter, 2011 will be the year of the Hispanic conservative. No doubt that's part of the reason Heritage recently launched Libertad.org, a Spanish version of the Heritage site. Their plans to launch the site must have only been encouraged by the 2010 election results. 

Take when Francisco Canseco mounted a serious challenge to Ciro Rodriguez's congressional seat in Texas' 23rd district. An Oct. 28 New York Times article described Canseco as "a wealthy lawyer and developer who has allied himself with the anti-tax movement known as the Tea Party." You know, those people. Rodriguez, meanwhile, was described as being "from the working-class streets of south San Antonio." Canseco was there to "split the Latino vote and carry the banner for white conservatives angry at President Obama's economic and health care policies." This may come as a shock to the Times, but conservatives, white or otherwise, are not alone in disagreeing with the president's policies.

Conservative solutions have universal appeal. Small government, a strong defense, individual freedom -- these principles attract voters of every age, race and economic background.

And yes, that includes Hispanics. They're part of the reason Canseco unseated Rodriguez. They helped turn Marco Rubio into a senator in Florida, Brian Sandoval into the first Hispanic governor of Nevada, and Susana Martinez into the first Hispanic governor of New Mexico.

Tweet of the Day: Heritage's Conn Carroll Finds the White House on Wall Street

Tweet of the Day: Heritage's Rory Cooper on Healthcare

Heritage Tells Arne Duncan to Think It Through on NCLB

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan wrote in the Washington Post this week that we can expect the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind, despite the distaste for it among educators and parents.

Heritage's Lindsey Burke points out that it might be time for Duncan to step back and take a broader view--and keep a couple of principles in mind.

In any debate over NCLB, policymakers should keep two guiding principles in mind:

1. Washington-centric education reform has been tried for more than four decades and has failed. More money and more federal programs are not the answer to improving education. The United States spends more than $10,000 per pupil per year, and per-pupil expenditures have nearly tripled since 1970. Yet reading ability has stagnated, achievement gaps persist, and graduation rates have idled. Federal intervention has not improved America’s schools.

2. It’s time for a fundamentally different approach to education reform, one that empowers those closest to students. Distant, unelected bureaucrats in Washington are the farthest from students, yet they create much of the red tape local schools have to deal with. Education reform should begin to restore federalism in education by allowing states to bypass federal bureaucracy and use their share of federal education funding to meet their students’ needs and to act as laboratories of reform and innovation.

There is an alternative to NCLB that would go a long way in achieving these conservative principles: the Academic Partnerships Lead Us to Success (A-PLUS) plan, introduced in various iterations in recent years. Such a proposal would promote greater state and local control in education by allowing states to consolidate funding from dozens of federal education programs, bypass all the red tape, and direct resources to the most pressing education needs among their students. The A-PLUS plan also requires accountability through state-level testing and transparency about results for parents and taxpayers.

Heritage's Conn Carroll Goes After Politico on Nuclear Power

Heritage Foundation Assistant Director of Strategic Communications Conn Carroll is none too happy with the "lamestream media" and Politico, in particular, after Politico's Darius Dixon's piece today, "Can the tea party go nuclear?"

Carroll writes at the Heritage blog:

The premise of the piece is that conservative plans to jump start nuclear power plant construction conflict with Tea Party plans to shrink the size and role of the federal government since today’s nuclear power industry is dependent on federal loan guarantees. This is two thirds right. Yes, the Tea Party does want to “to cut spending and pull back the hand of government.” Yes, the nuclear power industry “depends on subsidies, loan guarantees and other federal funds.” But that doesn’t mean that more federal loan guarantees and subsidies are the only way to revive our domestic nuclear power industry. In fact, expanding the existing loan guarantee program would simply remove incentives to decrease costs, stifle innovation, suppress private-sector financing solutions.

The best policy for reviving our nuclear power industry is completely consistent with a Tea Party vision of governing. Specifically, the federal government should: limit the loan subsidies of Energy Policy Act of 2005 to existing law; avoid creating a government-dependent nuclear industry; remain committed to scientific conclusion on Yucca Mountain; introduce market principles into nuclear waste management reform; and focus the government on key responsibilities like establishing predictable and effective regulation that will ensure safety and security.

Heritage Compares Reagan & Obama Recoveries

Heritage Foundation's Conn Carroll has post up at the Heritage blog comparing the degrees of success in recession recoveries by the Reagan and Obama administration.

No two recessions are the same. And no two recoveries are going to be exactly the same either … especially when the presidents that preside over them have diametrically opposed philosophies about what government can or should do. But as Ronald Reagan once said: “Shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while?”

As the chart [below] shows, the stark reality is that the economic recovery under President Barack Obama has been much weaker than the recovery under President Ronald Reagan. At this stage of the Reagan recovery, unemployment had fallen more than three full points, from 10.8% to 7.7%. By contrast, under the Obama recovery unemployment has actually risen almost a half a percent from 9.4% to 9.8%.

If you're curious about the explanations Carroll offers for the differences, check out "Reagan Recovery vs. Obama Recovery in Pictures."

Heritage Launches Libertad.org Spanish Site

Today, the Heritage Foundation has launched a new Spanish language website, Libertad.org, intended to give Spanish-speaking Americans access to the top-flight research and informed, conservative commentary that has helped Heritage build a center-right majority in the nation as a whole," according to Heritage Vice President for Communications Mike Gonzalez in a released statement.

The site will reportedly carry translated content from the main Heritage site, as well as content specifically geared toward Hispanics that will include blogs, audio and video in Spanish. And no website would be complete without a full array of social media options with the hope of giving "conservative, free market-oriented Hispanics the opportunity to meet, exchange views and form online communities of their own," said Gonazales.

"Surveys show that vast majorities of Hispanic Americans already embrace conservative attitudes, such as the desire for smaller government and less regulation," Gonzalez noted.  "They also cherish personal freedom and free enterprise -- the promise of which drew them and their forebears to this country in the first place," he added.  "Heritage Libertad will provide the hard facts and conservative analysis too often ignored by the liberal-dominated media currently serving the Hispanic community."

Heritage joins the Cato Institute in small government think tanks that wish to reach Spanish-speaking audiences. In 1998, Cato launched ElCato.org.

For regular updates, follow Libertad.org editor Izzy Ortega on Twitter.

Lunch with Heritage

From Heritage:

Join us Friday at Noon ET right here on The Foundry for a live chat on New START that is up for ratification in the Senate. Joining us will be Homeland Security expert James Carafano. Dr. Carafano is the Director of the Allison Center for Foreign Policy here at Heritage. He has written extensively on the treaty and what it means for national security. There are a lot of flaws with the treaty and Dr. Carafano will answer questions you have for it.

Join us Friday at noon ET for our Lunch With Heritage online chat about the START Treaty.

Here is more information on the New START

Questions CNN Did Not Ask About New START

Senate Must Do More Homework on New START

Is the Center for American Progress Sniffing Out the Heritage Foundation's Funding Sources?

Dave Weigel has an interesting post up over at Slate capturing a conservative think tank sentiment that the Center for American Progress is doing some snooping around their money. Individuals from places like the Heritage Foundation are accusing CAP of attempting to compile information on who their donors are.

Weigel is careful to note, however, that the conservative think tanks may not be drawing the right conclusion from CAP's activity.

Funding issues are among the most sensitive for think tanks. Nearly all attempt to figure out where the others are getting their funding from and nearly none are forthcoming with that information. To my knowledge, only the Center for a New American Security and the New America Foundation make their funder lists available on their sites (which, coincidentally, is what makes CNAS a regular target for criticism on funding matters--transparency be damned).

The Heritage Foundation is one of the more unusual cases, however, by offering a membership to individuals. As of this post, Heritage boasts a membership base of 701,000. Even if all the members took only the basic membership at $25.00 a year, it means an annual revenue of $17, 525,000. I've attempted, with no luck, to obtain information on the distribution of membership levels that range from the $25 basic membership all the way up to the President's Club at $1,000+ per year. Speaking of which, it was noted earlier this year that Heritage President Ed Feulner draws the largest salary of think tank leaders at nearly $1 million a year.

I've contacted the Center for American Progress for comment on the accusations and will update here once I get a response.

VIDEO: Mitch McConnell at the Heritage Foundation

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is the talk of think tank (and other) topics today for his presentation at the Heritage Foundation. For background on today's McConnell somewhat controversial presentation, click here.