Tag Archives: political economy

Foolish

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) has offered legislation, in coordination with Congressman Ro Khanna (D, CA), that is his latest bit of socialism.  His legislation would hit large businesses with a tax equal to 100% of the welfare payments any of their employees might receive while working.

Sanders and Khanna say—and they’re actually serious—that this would pay for the welfare programs involved.

Andy Puzder has a different view of such legislation.

[T]he first step on the path to financial self-sufficiency is finding a job. A tax on employing welfare recipients would discourage employers from hiring them. It would increase the cost of employing such people without an offsetting increase in productivity or employee satisfaction, since the extra payment would go to the government rather than the employee. Companies could avoid the tax simply by hiring people not on welfare, reducing job opportunities for the people most in need of jobs and opportunity.

This is the anti-business—worse, the anti-poor, the anti-single mom, and the anti-just-starting-out youth—position of the Progressive-Democrat Party and their Socialist confreres.

But, hey—votes.  Our youth, our single mothers, our poor, they aren’t human beings needing a start a or hand up in the eyes of the Party.  They’re just votes to be kept trapped in the Progressive-Democrats’ welfare cage.

Responsibility

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The government of Puerto Rico is insisting on some in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The Puerto Rican government is taking a hard line on rebuilding properties decimated by last year’s Hurricane Maria, offering homeowners federal financial assistance only if they move out of flood-prone areas.

It’s about time some politicians stood tall and required some personal responsibility instead of subsidizing its lack with taxpayers’ money.

Talks and Conflicts

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The Saturday Wall Street Journal had a piece that worried about President Donald Trump’s decision to add more tariffs to People’s Republic of China’s goods just prior to another round of trade talks with the PRC.

[T]he decision’s timing risks deepening the already bitter trade fight by starting another tit-for-tat round of tariffs.

And

The tariffs are bound to complicate—if not derail—talks with top Chinese officials, which are currently scheduled in Washington for Sept 27 and Sept 28, say people familiar with the plans.

Another interpretation, carefully ignored by the authors, is that in any conflict, it’s necessary to keep pressure on the opposing side while negotiations occur.  The battlefield shapes the talks, and the talks shape the battlefield–the battlefield encompasses both the talks and the conflict.

He Didn’t Build That

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Our economy had the awe-uninspiring growth rate of 2% per year during ex-President Barack Obama’s (D) time in office.  Now, the Census Bureau has reported that

  • [r]eal median household incomes rose 1.8% to $61,372 between 2016 and 2017
  • the overall poverty rate dropped 0.4 per centage points to 12.3%
  • poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics fell to 21.2% and 18.3%, respectively, the lowest in more than 45 years
  • the share of people earning less than $15,000 declining 0.3 per centage points

Obama didn’t build that.  Those folks also think they’ve reached the point where they’ve made enough money.

On the other hand, Obama, his Progressive-Democrat cronies, and his regulators did create the very low economic baseline against which those per centages are being measured.

The PLO and Peace

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The US is cutting off funding for the PLO, and we’re closing the PLO’s delegation office in DC.  Various apologists for the terrorist organization are up in arms over the Trump administration’s sterner stand.

…the administration that appear to be moving away from the 1993-95 Oslo accords before the administration has explained what it thinks should come next.

Walking away from the Oslo peace framework? That framework doesn’t exist; the PLO walked away from it long ago.  See, for instance, PLO leader Yasser Arafat’s intifada after walking away from the historic and generous Israeli peace offer brokered by Bill Clinton in 2000.

Moreover, neither is the Trump administration required to lay out its strategy vis-à-vis the PLO in public—and thereby let the PLO develop its resistance to it—before it has presented its plan to Israel and the PLO nor is it required to negotiate with the PLO through the press.

Palestinians call move “reckless”

Reckless? What’s reckless is the PLO’s support for Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel.  What’s reckless is the PLO’s paying bounties to surviving families of terrorists killed in PLO and PLO-supported terror attacks.  What’s reckless is PLO’s support for Hezbollah.

Aaron David Miller of the Wilson Center:

They [the Trump administration] are dismantling the traditional American architecture to create a two-state solution

That traditional architecture has worked so well over all these years.  No, it’s time to stop wasting time and resources on that obvious failure and try something else.

Beginning with encouraging the PLO to become interested in peace.