Daily Archives: 25 June 2026

False Dichotomy

Posted on by
Reply

The Wall Street Journal‘s editors are at it again. Their lede lays out their (unrecognized) mistake.

The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on President Trump’s birthright citizenship order. Win—or more likely—lose, he might take note that the success of the US men’s national soccer team in this year’s World Cup is the product in part of America’s historically welcoming immigration system and automatic grant of birthright citizenship to children born in the US.

Correcting the decades of misapprehension of the 14th Amendment and “birthright citizenship” wouldn’t at all make us unwelcoming. All the correction would do (sadly, the editors are likely correct about the likelihood of a favorable ruling) is eliminate the automatic citizenship granted to babies whose parents, by their own intent and action, hold themselves outside our nation’s jurisdiction, being present only under our nation’s power.

The editors closed their piece with this bit and no trace of understanding of its irony:

America’s World Cup men’s team shows again how bringing in foreign talent can be a win for the individuals and for the country.

Legal immigrants. Immigrant citizens or sons of immigrants (because FIFA’s national teams are required to be citizens, not hirelings), who vastly outnumber the one birthright citizen on the team.

Legal immigrants, after the end of birthright citizenship, would remain highly welcome and encouraged to come and join our great nation. The fact that one of the players on our national soccer team is a birthright citizen is irrelevant to any of that.

There is a Solution

Posted on by
Reply

Crystal FitzSimons, Food Research & Action Center President, is worried that reduced participation in SNAP is not an indication of reduced need for assistance.

[T]the law’s stricter time limits, administrative hurdles, and pending cost-shift to states, along with inadequate benefits, are pushing eligible households off the program.

She correctly outlined the benefits of SNAP (which, I claim, generalize to welfare programs in general):

When investments are made in SNAP, real progress is made toward lifting people out of poverty. …
When SNAP benefits better align with increasing food costs, more families stay above the poverty line. When barriers increase, the opposite happens.

But she proposed the wrong solution.

Through legislation, Congress should ensure that everyone has the nutrition they need to thrive rather than make it harder for families to put food on the table.

No.

In our federated republican form of government, the member States are responsible, each for its own internal affairs. It’s time for them to stop freeloading off the Federal government—freeloading off the citizens of the other 49 States—and start honoring their own obligations toward their own citizens. Each State has the money. It simply needs to reallocate its spending and stop taking ever more money away from its own citizens in the form of ever rising tax rates.