Heard at Heritage

As Heritage Foundation analysts noted in a recent research report, there is bipartisan dissatisfaction with the U.S. foreign assistance programs and calls for them to be overhauled. Unfortunately, these efforts often fall victim to politics wherein various interests stall reforms to protect their preferred priorities, programs, or allocations.For example, recent efforts to eliminate or reduce shipping and purchase requirements on food assistance that would allow the same funds to feed millions more hungry people around the world ran into Congressional resistance. Meanwhile, as the number of countries measuring up to its demanding good governance criteria dwindles, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Corporation has begun to emphasize regional programming.Join us for a robust discussion with our panelists as they share their perspectives on what is wrong with U.S. assistance programs, what should be done to improve them, and where the most promising opportunities are to achieve that objective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Americans love to trash their politicians as corrupt and self-interested, but they don’t agree on a solution. How can America attract good leaders to the thousands of elective offices in the land? In Politicians: The Worst Kind of People to Run the Government, Except for All the Others, Bruce Chapman lays out a bold plan for the changes we need to make in our public life if we are serious about enable worthy leaders to emerge to and to succeed. Drawing on history as well as his own extensive experience in politics and public policy, Chapman challenges the conventional wisdom about politicians, arguing that their chief rivals – the media, bureaucrats, college professors, and even political “reform” groups – are often sources of further political demoralization rather than renewal.Bruce K. Chapman worked on national and local campaigns throughout his life, started a magazine (Advance: A Journal of Political Thought), was an editorial writer for The New York Herald-Tribune, co-authored (with George Gilder)The Party That Lost its Head, and wrote The Wrong Man in Uniform, an early argument for an all-volunteer military. He served on the Seattle City Council in the 1970s, was elected Secretary of State of Washington twice, was chosen Director of the U.S. Census Bureau under President Reagan, and then served as a Deputy Assistant to the President in the White House. In the late 1980s he served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Organizations in Vienna. In 1991, he founded Discovery Institute, a public policy think tank that supports research on science, culture, economics, technology, transportation, national defense, and civic leadership. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Congressional oversight, derived from the implied powers in the U.S. Constitution and conducted since the earliest days of our Republic, is an essential tool in maintaining the separation of powers. In the decades since the New Deal, oversight has taken on additional importance as a needed restraint on the ever-expanding administrative state. During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason referred to this authority when he said that Members of Congress “are not only Legislators but they possess inquisitorial powers. They must meet frequently to inspect the Conduct of the public offices.” This important investigatory role includes the review, monitoring, and close scrutiny of federal agencies, programs, activities, and policy implementation, as well as anywhere that federal tax dollars flow, to ensure faithful compliance with congressional intent.Senator Grassley has been a leading advocate and trailblazer on bipartisan congressional oversight for decades. From his position in the Legislative Branch, he has kept a watchful eye on the other two branches to make sure the federal government works for, by and of the people. Join us for a timely speech by Senator Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on the critical importance and responsibility of congressional oversight. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reverberations from the 2016 Presidential election continue to rattle the national political stage. In Bet You Didn’t See That One Coming, former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich offers his analysis of the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump, the resultant earth-shattering changing of the guard in Washington, how it’s turned establishment politics on its head, and what it all means for the future of the nation.The 24/7 media circus that follows President Trump distracts from the fundamental issue of what his election means for America going forward. Bet You Didn’t See That One Coming explains how Barack Obama’s progressive policies helped ignite the ultimate anti-Obama political warrior – and how a neophyte politician’s new blend of populism, nationalism, and traditional Republican policies is pulling a polarized country back toward the right.Governor Robert L. Ehrlich is a graduate of Princeton University and Wake Forest University School of Law and is a former Governor of Maryland as well as a former United States Congressman and state legislator. He is also the author of Turn This Car Around,America: Hope for Change, and Turning Point, in addition to columns and opinion pieces that have appeared in America’s leading newspapers and periodicals, including The Washington Examiner,The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Times, The Weekly Standard, and National Review. Currently, Governor Ehrlich is a partner at the firm of King & Spalding in Washington, D.C. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Please join us as Congresswoman Jenniffer González-Colón, labor policy experts, and representatives from the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico discuss reforms to help Puerto Rico reach its economic potential by attracting jobs for the 3 million American citizens living on the island. Puerto Rico suffers from one of the lowest labor force participation rates in the world, in part due to heavy-handed labor laws that reduce job opportunities and welfare rules that penalize participation in the formal labor market. Hurricanes Irma and Maria exacerbated Puerto Rico’s labor challenges as workers have flocked to the mainland in search of steady employment and improved living conditions. The panel will analyze how to improve access to good and plentiful jobs in Puerto Rico, in turn helping the economy of Puerto Rico grow and flourish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

America’s child welfare system is overburdened. The opioid crisis is putting thousands more children at risk. In response, some states are recruiting new families to foster and, in some cases, to adopt through partnerships with faith-based agencies and faith communities. Other states are suspending cooperation with child welfare agencies because of their religious beliefs. These disagreements have led to litigation in multiple states and the displacement of thousands of children.As the need for the number of foster and adoptive families increases, America needs solutions that work best for children. Please join us for an address by Governor Bevin followed by a panel discussion on this pressing issue. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A powerful, heartbreaking, and redemptive account of a boy who endured a childhood of poverty and abuse in an American Southwest trailer park named Cloud 9.Abandoned by his father at age two, Rick Sylvester lived with an abusive mother whose struggles as a member of the working poor led her to drugs, alcohol, theft, and prostitution – and eventually attempted suicide. Rick battled depression, anxiety, and PTSD as the chaos, neglect, and unpredictability of his childhood seemed to doom him to follow in his mother's footsteps.Well into adulthood, Rick stumbled through unemployment and divorce, using drugs and alcohol to numb the pain until he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Miraculously, though, he overcame the odds and today is a happy husband and father. How did this happen? Rick's answer is this: "It was the Lord." Ericka Andersen’s new book, Leaving Cloud 9, offers a powerful message of hope to those who are drowning from an undeserved childhood and feeling ignored and hopeless. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us for the release of The Heritage Foundation’s Blueprint for Balance – a detailed policy agenda for Congress to balance the budget without raising taxes, ensure a strong national defense, and protect individual liberty and economic freedom.Heritage experts will review the need for fiscal and policy reforms this year, the opportunities before lawmakers to make their mark on appropriations and the budget process, and what’s next on tax reform. With fiscal year 2019 spending bills in full swing in Congress, lawmakers are setting spending priorities and pursuing policy reforms for next year and the years ahead. At the same time, the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform is holding hearings to identify and recommend reforms to improve the budget process this fall. With $21 trillion in national debt, a projected $800 billion deficit this year, and a budget process that has not worked as intended since 1996, reform is critical to reviving fiscal discipline and preventing a fiscal crisis from undermining economic growth, opportunity, and prosperity for Americans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Reagan’s often mocked strategy of “peace through strength” won the Cold War. Critical to that success were his nuclear deterrent polices. By both modernizing our strategic nuclear deterrence while also initiating what would become a nearly ninety percent reduction in American and Soviet (now Russian) deployed strategic nuclear warheads – he changed the strategic nuclear landscape. Join us as our speakers review not only this history, but also explain how the lessons of the Reagan Presidency and the end of the Soviet empire hold key historical lessons which we can apply to today’s strategic and nuclear challenges. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Islamist terror networks such as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), Boko Haram and al-Shabaab have had consistent success in recruiting local youth. This has helped such groups regenerate their ranks despite a string of military defeats in recent years. An equally troubling modern phenomenon has seen Western children taken by their parents to live under the control of terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. There have also been children born in this territory to Western parents.As the “Caliphate” collapses, many of these families will be returning to Europe. While there has been significant focus on how governments should respond to the threat posed by the adults, the appropriate approach towards the children – who have been relentlessly exposed to ISIS propaganda – is not nearly as developed.These challenges present a unique quandary for governments around the world. What should the response be from the international community? How effective has the response been so far? What programs can draw at risk youth away from Islamist ideology? What should the balance be between promoting religious freedom versus human rights more broadly?Our panel will assess the nature of the threat and suggest appropriate policy responses. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.