...and deservedly so.
The Heritage Foundation is so off the rails when it comes to free markets and liberty that the man, who wrote Defending the Undefendable where he defended pimps and slumlords, can' t find a reason to defend the Washington think tank:
The Heritage Foundation has become the new hiring hall for the Trump Administration, filling key vacancies, providing the foot soldiers for the Trump revolution, and sending the left into a full-tilt panic. With the recent retirement announcement of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, and the possible upcoming needed replacement for Ruth Bader Ginsburg (she is 85), this connection will likely prove even more important..-RW
So why aren’t right-thinking right-wingers celebrating? Call it Heritage hypocrisy.
The Heritage Foundation may claim to be fighting the good fight for “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values and a strong national defense,” but for those who really believe in individual liberty and small government, the Heritage Foundation agenda is liberty lite, a thin conservative façade applied to Main Street Republicanism.
It is not just that the Heritage Foundation has failed to call for the total elimination of any government department, not one. And for all of its chest-beating about economic liberty, it grows very shy about taking apart the engine of state economic engineering: the minimum wage law, tariffs, welfare, and business bailouts.
But the essence of Heritage Foundation conservatism comes into focus with Obamacare. That program, the stake in the heart of conservativism, can trace its roots to Stuart Butler’s 1989 Heritage Foundation Lecture #218, “Assuring Affordable Health Care For All Americans,” So much for Adam Smith’s invisible hand at work.
When the foundation has decided to show some conservative muscle, its targets have been governmental weaklings: the Job Corps and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, both of which Heritage wants to see gone. That is not a record any conservative organization would want to brag about, especially one that has been in this business ever since 1973. The Heritagers talk the free-enterprise talk, but are largely missing in action when it comes to what should be the conservative agenda: the parting of the government from market interference.
--- The Heritage Foundation may claim to be fighting the good fight for “free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional values and a strong national defense,” ---
ReplyDeleteIndeed all but one --strong national "defense"-- of those goals is consistent with the ideal of individual freedom, but Heritage's attacks on immigration, using bogus statistics not unlike the CIS obviates all.
--- The Heritagers talk the free-enterprise talk, but are largely missing in action when it comes to what should be the conservative agenda: the parting of the government from market interference. ---
Not one peep out of them against tariffs or anti-immigration propaganda. They're not for free markets, just like Trumpistas are hostile towards Markets and Individual Right.