Retiring Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner laughs during this year’s Presidents’ Tour. Photo: Shealah Craighead

Dear friends,

Today is my last day as president of The Heritage Foundation, and I want to write you one last note in that capacity. We’ve had quite a ride these last three-and-a-half decades, and I leave knowing that Heritage will flourish under my successor, Jim DeMint.

I want to thank you for your generous support, of course, but more importantly, to tell you to remain optimistic about the future. Yes, progressives are on the offensive, aggressively trying to remake our country using a Euro-socialist mold. But this is why we must now redouble our efforts, not lessen or abandon them. Continue Reading »

Ed Feulner

Note: Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner sent the following e-mail this morning to Heritage members and supporters.

Three years ago, I told the Heritage Foundation’s Board of Trustees that I would step down as president in April of 2013. I urged them to set up a formal succession process and begin a national search.

During their nationwide search, the Board looked for a successor who would keep Heritage on its course of growth and innovation, and preserve our widely acknowledged status as an institutional center of the conservative movement. And the Board has found a splendid successor.

I’m delighted to announce that the Board has elected Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina to take over next April as President of The Heritage Foundation. Continue Reading »

Ed Feulner

The following is adapted from remarks Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner delivered Wednesday to Heritage staff.

I imagine that, besieged and belittled on all sides, and confronted with such a formidable array of adversaries – in the White House, Congress, the media and the academy – all determined to undo the Reagan Revolution and establish the Obama Revolution in its stead, many of you may look around in despair and ask: “Where is the cavalry that can come galloping to our rescue and save us from disaster?”

But I have news for you: This time around, we at The Heritage Foundation are the cavalry.

We are the flagship conservative organization that carries on the Reagan legacy.

We are the people conservatives look to stop the Obama Revolution in its tracks.

In large measure, it’s up to us to nobly save, or meanly lose, this great American experiment in democratic self-government. Continue Reading »

I write to tell you to take heart.

Yes, conservatives are disappointed that a President who recklessly spent trillions, expanded government and put many of our values and institutions at risk has won a second term. But many of us have been here before. In Washington, there are no permanent victories or permanent defeats, just permanent battles.

Now is the time to stand up and declare we will continue to fight against big government and for freedom.

We will see unfold over the next four years a crucial battle for the soul of America. This struggle requires committed warriors for the cause. The line must be held against bad policy while we continue advocating conservative solutions. We must fight against the efforts to divide the country through class warfare.

Rest assured this is what The Heritage Foundation is determined to do.

We know that the First Principles reflected in our Constitution made this country great. Those principles are alive and well in the hearts and minds of the American people. We will work harder than ever before to defend them and to see them translated into the right public policies.

President Obama may have won an Electoral College victory, but he knows that he lacks a mandate for changing our nation according to his progressive vision. He is the first re-elected president since World War II not to improve his margin of victory and to get fewer Electoral College votes in re-election.

Let me be clear: The President does not have a mandate.  Continue Reading »

Fellow Americans,

Like you, I am disappointed by the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision. The Court misread and rewrote Obamacare in order to save it. Such contortions are not the proper role of judging. Most Americans are with you and me and deeply dislike this law.

We believe, however, that this is far, far from a time for despair. This decision will energize freedom-loving Americans to once again take matters into their own hands. Our republic has survived and flourished for more than two centuries because men and women—brave, determined, and deeply committed to the cause of freedom—were willing to stand, to march, and to make whatever sacrifices were necessary so that their children would know the blessings of liberty, the hope and opportunity that flow from living in “the land of the Free.”

They will receive this ruling as a clarion call to action. Once again, the people will have to rise to defend a fundamental American concept: that the power of government over individuals must be limited. Continue Reading »

Photo: Flickr/murphydean

Today, I am excited to announce the release of The Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive agenda that sets a new course for the size and scope of the federal government. The new report, “Saving the American Dream: Heritage’s Plan to Fix the Debt, Cut Spending, and Restore Prosperity,” lays out specific policy recommendations in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, health insurance, the tax code and federal spending. Saving the American Dream envisions real solutions for staving off America’s potential decline while strengthening the economy for current and future generations.

We are doing this because we have come to a time of decision in America. For far too long, Congress has been on an unsustainable binge of spending, taxing, and borrowing. Our nation is going broke, and we are passing the costs of these misguided policies to our children and their children. Continue Reading »

Justice has been done. Nearly 10 years since the 9/11 attacks that left more than 3,000 Americans dead, Osama bin Laden was killed by a small team of U.S. military personnel operating under the authority of the Central Intelligence Agency. We first want to congratulate the men and women of our military and intelligence communities, past and present, who worked tirelessly across three Administrations to bring ultimate justice to the man who killed so many. The war on terror, though, is not over.

Bin Laden’s death is the most significant victory in the war on terror since the 9/11 attacks, more important than the arrest of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006. Bin Laden’s elimination vindicates U.S. strategy in the region, started under President George W. Bush, and it will be seen as a major success for the United States, showing the world that America will remain committed to hunting down its enemies as long it takes. Continue Reading »