Author Archives: eehines

A Cost of the Left’s Obstructionism

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This one is our national debt and the interest due on it.

• the average interest rate on debt will exceed the economic growth rate by 2045, sparking the beginning of a debt spiral
• Federal debt held by the public will rise from 100% of GDP in FY2025 to 156% of GDP by 2055
• annual deficits will grow from 6.2% of GDP in 2025 to 7.3% of GDP by 2055

The obstructionism of the Left and their Progressive-Democratic Party isn’t even centered on principle, only on anti-Trumpism and anti-Republicanism and anti-Conservatism.

Potentiating the economic disaster that our debt and associated interest payments portend, those things would accumulate into the loss of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. That, in turn, would feed back negatively into our economy, forcing it onto the vagaries of foreign currencies and currency exchange rates.

This is why the DOGE-led spending cuts must be enacted into law by Congress. This is what the Left’s and their Progressive-Democratic Party’s obstructionism will cost us.

An Activist Judge’s Pseudo-Concurrence

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The 4th Circuit overruled a District Court judge’s injunction barring the Trump administration from shutting down USAID and allowed the closure to go forward (and the SecState Marco Rubio promptly announced the closure and elimination of USAID effective 1 July).

What interests me, though, is what Circuit Judge Roger Gregory wrote in his “concurrence.” He opened insisting that President Donald Trump (R) had

We may never know how many lives will be lost or cut short by the Defendants’ decision to abruptly cancel billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid. We may never know the lasting effect of Defendants’ actions on our national aspirations and goals.
But those are not the questions before the Court today. The question before us is whether Defendants have satisfied their burden for a stay of the district courts injunction pending their appeal to this Court[.]
…
I do, therefore, think that the Executive branch has unconstitutionally invaded the role of the Legislature, upsetting the separation of powers.

Those aren’t the questions before this court, so we have no business addressing them here. But I’m gonna go ahead and do that, anyway, because I gotta have my hype and manufactured hysteria on the record.

Then he closed with this, to give effect to his hype [citations omitted]:

…the Executive has taken many likely unconstitutional actions that, collectively, dismantled an agency, rather than just a single action, does not mean the court cannot render those actions invalid. The sheer number of illegal actions taken necessitates relief that consists of “vast and detailed actions,” to adequately redress the harms caused by the illegal shutdown of a government agency. Rather than “micromanag[ing]” the Executive, the [District] Court was simply attempting to remedy each of the likely illegal actions.
The judiciary is limited to the cases and controversies before it. These Plaintiffs, suing these Defendants, cannot obtain the relief that they seek.

This is the activist judge instructing the plaintiffs in the course of action through which to pursue their own obstruction. This is an activist judge prejudging a future case, and thereby violating his oath of office. This is a judge who insults our judicial system by his presence in it.

The 4th Circuit’s ruling can be read here.

A Gordian Knot Solution

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I have called, often, for the dissolution of the Department of Veterans Affairs on the basis of that agency’s, and now department’s, poor-to-nonexistent quality-level care for our nation’s veterans.

Now we get this. It’s from the end of the Biden administration, but this sort of thing is not unique to that one.

The inspector general report published Thursday confirms that a $2.9 billion supplemental request went unused because the agency failed to account for “prior-year recoveries” in its budget planning. Had the agency taken into account those recovered funds, the inspector general found, its projections “would have shown a reduced risk of a shortfall by year-end.”

And this, more generally:

The OIG review team found that Veteran’s Benefits Administration wasn’t consistently overspending in FY 2024 for either compensation and pension or readjustment benefits accounts, which were the subject of the budget request. “Realized prior-year recoveries,” which are “unspent deobligated funds,” weren’t included in the agency’s calculations, which contributed to the erroneous predictions.
“Had the realized prior-year recoveries been included in the calculations throughout the year, the monthly funding status reports would have shown a reduced risk of a shortfall by the end of the fiscal year,” the watchdog concluded.

Current VA Secretary Doug Collins has inherited this situation and the permeating VA internal culture; he has this:

It’s just a very, a department that is so bureaucratically bogged down that it has trouble doing its main mission, and that is taking care of veterans, and that’s why we’re actually working very hard to streamline processes, to get better help in place, and to have budgets and numbers that we can be accurate

To an extent, I disagree with Collins. It’s not worth the time, effort, money, or other resources to try to untangle this financial mess. It’s time for the Gordian Knot solution. Just get rid of the VA altogether, and convert the department’s current and putative future budgets to vouchers which our veterans can use to visit the doctors, clinics, and hospitals they choose and from which they’ll be able routinely to get timely care. Transfer the VA’s veteran housing mortgage facilities to HUD for execution.

Veteranos Administratio delende est.

My Long-Standing Question

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Holman Jenkins opened his op-ed with this paragraph.

In a different political universe Elon Musk’s DOGE wouldn’t be needed. A competent media would be flogging the public sector to provide taxpayers with effective, cost-efficient service. Programs would be examined for their usefulness. It wouldn’t qualify as wanton cruelty if one were determined to be obsolete, as happens in the private sector every day.

I’ll leave aside Jenkins’ journalistic self-importance in presuming members of the journalism guild to be the ones to define “effective” or “cost-efficient.” I’m interested here in his reference to determined to be obsolete, as happens in the private sector every day. Would that he would apply that to his guild, and answer a question I’ve long asked.

1. ID of “anonymous” sources
2. Explanation of why [journalism] has walked away from journalistic standard of corroborating “anonymous” sources with at least two on the record sources
3. Explanation of why we readers should believe “anonymous” sources actually exist
4. On the premise that at least some of the “anonymous” sources do exist, explanation of why we should believe what the source is claiming, given his fundamental dishonesty as demonstrated by his leak, which came at least in violation of his terms of employment if not his oath of office
5. On claims that the leaker is actually a whistle-blower, explanation of why proof was withheld from readers that he exhausted all of his whistle-blower channels before he leaked
6. Regarding 5 above, provision of that proof
7. Identification of the whistle blower, since he needs no anonymity; whistle-blower laws protect him

To which I add, most importantly, given Item 2 above, what publicly accessible, concretely measurable standard of journalistic integrity do today’s editors and news writers use?

An Irrelevancy

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Greenpeace USA has lost the suit brought against it by Energy Transfer over Greenpeace USA’s role in blocking Energy Transfer’s Dakota Pipeline; the court ruled that Greenpeace USA’s actions in its role were illegal destructions, not free speech. Greenpeace USA then has been ordered to pay $660 million in realized and punitive damages to Energy Transfer.

Greenpeace USA argued throughout the damages assessment process and subsequently that

such a ruling could “shut down Greenpeace USA.”

That argument is indicative of Greenpeace’s cynicism and dishonesty. Whether or not any ruling would bankrupt Greenpeace USA is wholly irrelevant. What is relevant, the only things that are relevant, are these: did Greenpeace USA do the deed(s) alleged? If it did, what is the appropriate award that would make Greenpeace USA’s victim whole, and what constitutes a suitable level of punitive damage? In the latter case, was the damage Greenpeace USA inflicted enough to warrant its bankruptcy?

Notice that the latter criterion is not at all a death penalty. Bankruptcy is a means of reorganizing an entity and its debts (not their cancelation) that allows the entity to recover and prosper. So it is with Greenpeace USA. Which that entity knows full well.