Robert Rector | |
|---|---|
 Rector in September 2011 | |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | conservative research fellow |
Robert E. Rector is a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation focused on poverty issues. Rector has written over 300 reports, articles, and commentaries on public policy and has testified before Congress more than 40 times. His writings include the book America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty.
Rector received an undergraduate degree from The College of William & Mary and a masters in political science from Johns Hopkins University. [1]
Rector has worked for The Heritage Foundation since 1984. [2] He is the editor of the 1987 book, Steering the Elephant: How Washington Works, and the co-author of the 1995 book, America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty. [3]
Rector has been a management analyst for the United States Office of Personnel Management and a legislative assistant in the Virginia House of Delegates. [3] From 2001 to 2002, he served as a commissioner of the Millennial Housing Commission. [4]
Rector works on conservative poverty and welfare reform policy. He has testified before Congress and written extensively on the subject. [5] [3]
Rector played a major role in the design and crafting of the welfare reform legislation enacted in 1996, [3] [6] which marked a significant shift in American welfare policy. [7] Early in the reform process, the Wall Street Journal called Rector the “leading guru” behind the Republican position on welfare, stating, “to understand what Republicans are trying to do about welfare, don’t look to Newt Gingrich. Watch Robert Rector.” [8]
Rector promoted work and marriage as primary means to reduce material poverty and improve the well-being of the poor. [9] His writing frequently expresses deep concern over the decline of marriage and rise of non-marital child bearing in low income communities and argues that dependence on welfare has harmed American society by discouraging marriage. He insists that welfare reform should seek to promote married two parent families. [10]
Rector has written frequently on the subjects of welfare and poverty, including the 1992 The Wall Street Journal article "America's Poverty Myth", which asserted that the US Census inaccurately measures poverty, [11] and his 1995 book with William Lauber, America's Failed $5.4 Trillion War on Poverty, which criticized welfare laws in the US for allegedly rewarding breakdowns in family values. [12] His research has found that 99.6% of people whom the Census classifies as poor actually have access to refrigerators. [13]
In 1995, The Wall Street Journal called Rector the "leading guru" behind the Republicans' position on welfare. [14] In 2006, editor Rich Lowry of the conservative National Review called Rector, "the intellectual godfather" of welfare reform. [15]
Rector has been a researcher on immigration policy [16] and has testified before Congress on the subject. [17] In 2006, Rector published a report on the proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act for The Heritage Foundation, stating that passage of the bill would lead to more than 100 million new legal immigrants within 20 years. [18]
With statistical assistance from Harvard Ph.D. and then Heritage Research Fellow Jason Richwine, Rector wrote a report on the fiscal cost of proposed amnesty legislation to the United States. The report was published by the Heritage Foundation on May 6, 2013. [19] Rector and Jim DeMint, a former U.S. Senator and the newly installed Heritage Foundation president, introduced the report in an op-ed article in the Washington Post. [20]
The methods used in the report met with considerable criticism from a number of think tanks and immigration policy analysts across the political spectrum, including Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute, [21] Michael Clemens of the Center for Global Development, [22] and many others. [23]
Later, widespread publicity of past research by study co-author Jason Richwine on race and intelligence and race and crime in the United States, as part of his Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard University under George Borjas, led to a greater backlash against the study. Richwine left Heritage as a result of the controversy. [24] [25] [26]
Rector is a proponent of abstinence education. His advocacy prompted the inclusion of school-program funding for the teaching of abstinence in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. [27] Rector has published research papers for The Heritage Foundation that conclude a delay in the onset of sexual activity is linked to positive life outcomes. [28] He is quoted as an expert on abstinence education by numerous media outlets, including The New York Times . [29] [30] In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called Rector the "architect of the abstinence-only movement." [27]
Immigration has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. In absolute numbers, the United States has by far the highest number of immigrant population in the world, with 50,661,149 people as of 2019. This represents 19.1% of the 244 million international migrants worldwide, and 14.4% of the United States' population. In 2018, there were almost 90 million immigrants and U.S.-born children of immigrants in the United States, accounting for 28% of the overall U.S. population.
The Heritage Foundation is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage's policy study Mandate for Leadership.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed by the 99th United States Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on November 6, 1986.
NumbersUSA is an anti-immigration advocacy organization that seeks to reduce both legal and illegal immigration to the United States. It advocates for immigration reduction through user-generated fax, email, and direct mail campaigns. In November 2022, the organization announced James Massa, a former Cisco executive, as its next chief executive officer following the retirement of founder Roy Beck.
Reforming the immigration policy of the United States is a subject of political discourse and contention. Immigration has played an essential part in American history. Some claim that the United States maintains the world's most liberal immigration policy.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The bill implemented major changes to U.S. social welfare policy, replacing the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program with the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) is an anti-immigration think tank. It favors far lower immigration numbers, and produces analyses to further those views. The CIS was founded by historian Otis L. Graham and eugenicist and white nationalist John Tanton in 1985 as a spin-off of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It is one of a number of anti-immigration organizations founded by Tanton, along with FAIR and NumbersUSA.
Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a progressive American think tank that analyzes the impact of federal and state government budget policies. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, the Center's stated mission is to "conduct research and analysis to help shape public debates over proposed budget and tax policies and to help ensure that policymakers consider the needs of low-income families and individuals in these debates."
Community Change, formerly the Center for Community Change (CCC), is a progressive community organizing group active in the United States. It was founded in 1968 in response to civil rights concerns of the 1960s and to honor Robert F. Kennedy. The organization's stated mission is "to build the power and capacity of low-income people, especially low-income people of color, to change their communities and public policies for the better."
George Jesus Borjas is a Cuban-American economist and the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Economics and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. He has been described as "America’s leading immigration economist" and "the leading sceptic of immigration among economists". Borjas has published a number of studies that conclude that low-skilled immigration adversely affects low-skilled natives, a proposition that is debated among economists.
Christopher Sandy Jencks is an American social scientist.
The economic impact of undocumented immigrants in the United States is challenging to measure, and politically contentious. Research shows that undocumented immigrants increase the size of the U.S. economy/contribute to economic growth, enhance the welfare of natives, contribute more in tax revenue than they collect, reduce American firms' incentives to offshore jobs and import foreign-produced goods, and benefit consumers by reducing the prices of goods and services. Economists estimate that legalization of the undocumented immigrant population would increase the immigrants' earnings and consumption considerably, and increase U.S. gross domestic product.
Timothy Joseph Kane is an American economist who is the President and Founder of The American Lyceum, www.theamricanlyceum.org a 501(c)(3) organization seeking to promote solution-focused, civic debate. Kane was the JP Conte research fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he specialized in immigration reform. He is a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer with two overseas tours of duty. After leaving the service, Kane explored a career in start-up technology firms while pursuing a Ph.D. in economics. After working as a teaching professor of economics, Kane served on the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and was director of the Center for International Trade and Economics at The Heritage Foundation. Kane was also an editor of the 2007 Index of Economic Freedom, co-published by The Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, and is the author of the book Bleeding Talent: How the U.S. Military Mismanages Great Leaders and Why It's Time for a Revolution. Kane co-authored the book, Balance: The Economics of Great Powers from Ancient Rome to Modern America with Glenn Hubbard. Kane's latest book is The Immigrant Superpower: How Brains, Brawn, and Bravery Make America Stronger.
Alexander Nowrasteh is an American analyst of immigration policy currently working at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank located in Washington D.C. Nowrasteh is an advocate of freer migration to the United States. He previously worked as the immigration policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another libertarian think tank. Nowrasteh is a self-described "radical" advocate for open borders to and from the United States. He has published a number of peer-reviewed studies on immigration and co-authored with Benjamin Powell the book Wretched Refuse?: The Political Economy of Immigration and Institutions.
The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) is the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council, a 501(c)(3) organization in the United States dedicated to promoting immigration to the United States and protecting the rights and privileges of immigrants in the United States.
Jason Matthew Richwine is an American political commentator and author. He is best known for his doctoral dissertation titled "IQ and Immigration Policy," and a Heritage Foundation report he co-authored on the economic costs of illegal immigration to the United States which concluded that passing the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 would cost taxpayers more than $6 trillion.
The Vernon K. Krieble Foundation is a private foundation based in the United States. The Krieble Foundation was started by Helen E. Krieble, daughter of Robert H. Krieble, who created the Loctite Corporation. Established in 1984, the foundation's aim is "to further democratic capitalism and preserve and promote a society of free, educated, healthy and creative individuals."
Reihan Morshed Salam is a conservative American political commentator, columnist and author who since 2019 has been president of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He was previously executive editor of National Review, a columnist for Slate, a contributing editor at National Affairs, a contributing editor at The Atlantic, an interviewer for VICE and a fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics.
Melting Pot or Civil War? is a 2018 book about American immigration policy by Reihan Salam
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