Tag Archives: political economy

Selfish

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And from that, a Texas bill that would create universal/State-wide school choice—paid for by Education Savings Accounts of $10,500 per K-12 student—is on the brink of failure to pass. Much progress has been made, courtesy of Governor Greg Abbott (R) having convened a special session of the Texas legislature for the purpose. However, here we are on the last day of that session (as I write), and the failure brink is caused by a few rural Republican representatives.

The bill would let any Texas parent withdraw his student child from a public school that parent deemed unsuitable or failing to educate his son or daughter and transfer him/her to a different school (typically charter, voucher, or private) more to his liking.

However.

…some rural Republicans have joined Democrats in resisting ESAs. Their claim is that because their districts have few private schools, education choice doesn’t help their constituents.

Be clear on that. Because a rural Republican’s constituents wouldn’t be helped by universal school choice (I’m eliding the questionability of that claim), no one anywhere in Texas should be allowed that choice.

How very Progressive-Democrat of these selfish rural…Republicans. In the event, Abbott has committed to extending the current special session or calling a new special session, if his school choice bill does not pass in the current session.

Poison Pill

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The Republican-led House of Representatives is set to vote on a stand-alone aid bill for Israel Thursday or Friday (as I write on the preceding Wednesday), a bill whose spending is paid for by reallocating monies from elsewhere—here by reclaiming money allocated for an IRS expansion from the Progressive-Democratic Party-passed Inflation Reduction Act.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY) is crying foul over that. That pay-for provision constitutes

poison pills that increase the deficit and help wealthy tax cheats avoid paying their fair share.

Imagine that. The Progressive-Democratic Party—because Schumer, a senior leader of Party, is typical of Party members—thinks actually covering expenses rather than just spending away without regard for where the money will come from is a poison pill.

This is what the Progressive-Democratic Party and its Congressional and Presidential members and candidates stand for.

Federalism and State Taxes

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A Wall Street Journal editorial opens with this:

One great benefit of America’s federalist Constitution is policy competition among the states. Voters in Florida don’t have to live under New York’s laws, and Americans and businesses can vote with their feet by moving across state lines.

The editors proceeded to a description of State-level tax laws and the mobility of us Americans and our businesses in leaving States with high taxes in favor of States with, often markedly, lower taxes. But that lede overstates the case.

Federalism applies, often, with State taxes, but State-level business regulations are a different matter. It’s only necessary to see the outsize impact on our auto industry, for instance, or our pork industry, that California’s regulations have on vehicle requirements and on how hogs must be raised to see the lack of federalism in our regulatory environment.

With specific regard to California’s fuel requirements, there’s this from the Federal government’s EPA:

The Clean Air Act allows California to seek a waiver of the preemption which prohibits states from enacting emission standards for new motor vehicles.

The Federal government has long granted that waiver, and during the Biden administration, the feds made their latest move—overtly to refuse to rescind the waiver, effectively nationalizing a State regulation at the expense of federalism.

On the California’s hog-raising regulation, the Supreme Court upheld that regulation, which mandated the minimum space in which hogs must be raised, anywhere in the United States, in order for them to be marketable in California. The Court nationalized this State-level regulation—again at the expense of federalism.

If we’re going to preserve our federalist structure of governance, federalism must be restored to State regulations, as well as State-level taxes. Don’t look for any of that to happen under any Progressive-Democratic Party-dominated Federal government, though.

Bidenomics is so Successful….

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Here are a couple of measures of Progressive-Democrat President Joe Biden’s economics ideology and his policies that flow from it. The Agriculture Department says that

From 2021 to 2022, there were statistically significant increases in food insecurity and very low food security for nearly all subgroups of households described in this report[.]

Statistically significant. In concrete numbers, that saccharinely put “increase” was from 33.8 million Americans were living in food-insecure households in 2021 to 44.2 million in 2022 (2023 numbers aren’t available yet). That’s a 30% increase in the number of American families at nutritional risk.

Here’s another measure. The Census Bureau says that

poverty made the fastest rise in a half century under Biden, with 15.3 million more Americans falling below the poverty level.

The Know Betters in the White House, though, insist that everything is just coming up Aces because of the Biden ideology and policy set.

Us ordinary Americans just should not believe our lying eyes or our rudely growling stomachs.

Mistaken Emphasis

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It’s in the lede of this Just the News article.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA) faces his first major tests as leader of the chamber in passing a federal budget that can please his party and still pass the Democratic Senate as well as aid for Ukraine and Israel.

It’s certainly true that Johnson and the Republican caucus in the House face tight deadlines (artificially tight, stemming as they do from an irrational fear of a partial government closure, but that’s a separate matter). But it’s on the obstructionist Progressive-Democratic Party-run Senate to work with Republicans to pass the House’s budget.

That includes, too, necessary aid for Ukraine and Israel, and for the Republic of China. The Johnson-led House already has passed an Energy Department appropriations bill that cuts $857 billion (over a period of time) from that department. Similar cuts in six of the seven remaining appropriations bills free up a bunch of money for a serious defense restoral and buildup and for aid for those three critical nations, while still executing an overall serious spending cut.

It’s important to note, too, that the “no blank check” position of many Republicans, which most of the press (not JtN presently) spins as Republican opposition to further aid for Ukraine, does not actually mean no further money for such aid. On that matter, here’s Johnson:

We all do [support aid for Ukraine]. We’re going to have conditions on that so we’re working through it.

Those conditions have centered on audit trails (most of which already are in place) tracing the money and equipment from their origin to their arrival at the front.

Such audit trails should be required on all spending that Congress enacts, with an attached requirement that the audits be thorough and have deadlines for their production. Further, spending should be suspended in those areas and on those programs where audits are late or incomplete—with no excuses for their tardiness or incompleteness. There also must be sanctions on the auditors, their supervisors, and the Cabinet Department and Agency heads where there is evidence of audit pencil-whipping.