Here is the Heritage Take on the top issues today.
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The CDC and Mask Mandates: Unmasking the Truth – Government officials and the American people depend on legitimate scientific study, and they have shown extraordinary deference to the CDC throughout the past year. This deference rests on the presumption that the agency’s recommendations to shutter businesses, close schools, restrict public worship, and enforce mask mandates have a solid basis in science. That confidence, in many instances, appears to have been misplaced. As the public health emergency abates, Congress, the media, and the American public should heavily scrutinize the agency’s procedures and practices. Heritage experts: Doug Badger and Norbert Michel

Democrats’ Court-Packing Schemes All About Power – The attempt to pack the Supreme Court is the most brazen and obvious effort to do this. It certainly may lead to short term “gains” for the left, but the end result would be that the Supreme Court and other federal courts are subject to constant packing as the political parties take and lose power. Congress already has relinquished much of the legislative burden to independent executive and legislative agencies. It would be shameful and destructive to heap more of this inappropriate role on the courts too. Carrying on in this way will damage the efficacy of the republic and tear away safeguards to our liberty. That may be the point. But Americans who still believe in preserving even a shred of our constitutional system should be contemptuous of those making such a naked power grab. Heritage expert: Jarrett Stepman

Responding to Rep. Massie's Second Amendment For Every Registrable Voter Act – In every other respect, these young adults are considered full-fledged citizens, endowed with all of the rights, privileges, and duties thereof. The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, and these adults are not second-class citizens. These Americans are trusted to vote, to sign legally binding contracts, to get married without permission, and to serve on juries. They can be drafted into the military, and punished criminally to the fullest extent of the law. They are, in every respect, part of "the People." Heritage expert: Amy Swearer

China’s Goals in International Organizations – China has shrewdly applied diplomatic and economic pressure to advance its interests, maximize its benefits, and minimize its costs under the current system. Looking back, it is hard not to conclude that since the mid- to late 2000s, China has been influencing the international system more than it is influencing China. The United States needs to be strategic in its approach. If it tries to counter China everywhere on all things, it will diffuse its influence and waste time on secondary or tertiary priorities. The United States needs to determine where its interests are highest, where Chinese influence most threatens those interests, and concentrate its efforts accordingly. Heritage expert: Brett Schaefer

Biden’s Proposed Education Spending Spree Is Untenable, Unaffordable – Student-centered funding holds institutions directly accountable to the families they serve. The president’s budget request, if implemented, would only saddle future taxpayers with an oppressive tax burden, plunging the United States deeper into debt. Instead of increasing spending (and by extension federal control over education), Congress should give families control over existing education spending. The alternative is strapping future generations with untenable levels of debt for programs that have little demonstrated value. Heritage expert: Jude Schwalbach

Florida Leads Way on Commonsense Occupational Licensing Reform – Laborers don’t need to take a class on “The Metaphysics of Painting” and pay a potentially hefty fee—in every separate county in the state—before covering the outside of your home with whitewash. Won’t localities simply reimpose licensing requirements on those lines of work once the state legislative term ends? No. The state legislature foresaw and prevented that possibility. After all, who knows better how to keep a legislative body from engaging in shenanigans than another legislative body? HB 735 bars cities and counties from readopting their existing requirements or adding new ones that are not materially different from the ones that will have now been ditched. Before you start singing the “Hallelujah” chorus from Handel’s “Messiah,” remember this: Florida’s HB 735 is but a minor reform of one state’s occupational licensing laws. It did not eliminate all unnecessary licensing requirements in the state. Heritage expert: Paul Larkin