By Andy Blom, TES Washington Editor
TRUMP HAS COVID-19! And a predictable outpouring of mainstream media bile ensues. If you’re tired of media hysteria and want to know what’s actually being done in Washington, read on… Free Market advocates and organizations are steadfastly ignoring the sensational and doing actual work. Here’s this week’s news …
Wages Up, Taxes Down…Good News from the IRS (and the Census). Well this is nice. Before the pandemic wrecked things, we were on a roll. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) presents Census Bureau data, showing wages grew $4,400 last year, a 6.8% increase — more than during the entire 8 years of the Obama Administration. And the poverty rate declined to a 50 year low. More good news from ATR and the IRS? Middle class Americans were the biggest winners from the Trump tax cuts. And as the Devil is always in the details, the details are full of good news too. Happy reading!
On the Other Hand, Debt. And the Congressional Budget. When it comes to good news the Government giveth and the Government taketh away. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has offered a long term 2020 budget outlook, and not everything is pretty. Blame the Wuhan Flu, but debt is climbing.
Free Trade: Don’t Do it for Them, Do it for Ourselves. The Pandemic has caused a lot of problems, some exacerbated by U.S. tariff policy. Daniel Griswold and Donald J. Boudreaux of The Mercatus Center put forth a thoughtful argument for “A Trade Agreement with Ourselves” — moving toward free trade regardless of what other nations may do. They propose a Tariff Reform Commission and lay out the path, and the reasons, why this is America’s best road to the future. Interesting reading here.
Dark Money? This is almost Pitch Black. We try, here at TES, to stay somewhat non-partisan. But evil is evil whether on the right or the left. With all the calls for investigation of “Dark Money” from the Koch Brothers, it seems nobody was looking at Arabella Advisors. Nobody but Capital Research Center (CRC). And CRC has uncovered a behemoth — a $600 million operation (this year) that has pumped $2.4 billion into elections since 2006. Take a look at Arabella’s money mixing machine and read all about how they’re influencing your vote.
Radical Idea: You and Your Doctor Should be in Charge of Your Healthcare, Not the Government! Gee, you’d think this was obvious. Apparently not to the people pushing ‘Medicare for All’ or Single Payer plans. Now, 80 leaders of the Health Policy Consensus Group have penned an open letter to the American people detailing the advantages in care and cost in personalized health care. Marie Fishpaw and Grace-Marie Turner have the story, and the letter. You’re an American. You might need healthcare. Maybe you should read it.
Help for Workers that Doesn’t Hurt Business. Okay, they’re part of the Government, but nonetheless the RSC (Republican Study Committee) has released a positive plan to empower America’s workers and help them get back to work…without taking a pound of flesh from America’s already hurting businesses. By allowing Americans with 401(k)s to invest in private equity, expanding tax-Advantaged 529 Savings Accounts, creating Universal Savings Accounts, getting able-bodied Americans on Social Security Disability Insurance back to work, and reforming the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the RSC hopes to help the American worker, American business and the American economy on the path to Covid recovery. Americans for Tax Reform has the story here. You can read the whole RSC plan here and 118 RSC policy recommendations here.
Bringing Them Home — Jobs and manufacturing, That Is. It’s not just our troops that are overseas. Decades of high taxes, bad regulations and poor policy drove American companies overseas at the cost of jobs and middle class stability. China’s burgeoning middle class undoubtedly thanks our masters of poor planning. The Trump Administration promised to reverse this trend and has made inroads, but Peter Roff says more, much more, needs to be done. See his call for a big plan here.
Supreme Hypocrisy 1. With luck the circus around nominating and confirming a Supreme Court justice will be tamped down below the ridiculous Kavanaugh show. But maybe not. As the battle gets underway Thomas Jipping of The Heritage Foundation gives us a history of nominations and attempts to block or dishonor nominations — ranging from the simple to the ridiculous — calls for no nominations to be made by Trump, at all, ever, or no nominations allowed by George W. Bush. Fun reading as the battle begins.
Blowing Our Own Horn. Not to boast, but this may be the most important, best story of the week/month/year. If you missed it somewhere else in this issue, be sure to look at The Economic Standard’s white paper on Hydroxychloroquine: https://hcqwhitepaper.com. Thanks.
Andresen Blom is a Washington based policy and political analyst and author who has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Hill, and Politico.
