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Can We All Get Along? Yes, By Letting the States Decide.
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- By Stephen Moore
At the time of this writing, the outcome of the presidential race is pretty close to being a coin flip. So what I write is not in any way influenced by who will win in November, since that is unknowable.
What is a virtual certainty is that on Nov. 6 roughly half the country will be full of joy, and the other half will be in a deep depression likely to last throughout the next four years.
Don't be surprised if the anger and despair of the losing party spills over into prolonged violent protests -- especially in the streets of the major cities. Politics in America is now -- regrettably -- a contact sport.
Whoever wins, America will be further ripped down its seams. Red- and blue-state America will even be more polarized. Don't be surprised if half the country is near rebellion against the policies of either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump.
Is Washington Distorting the Numbers?
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- By Stephen Moore
We all know that math scores have been scandalously trending downward for many years, but the folks in the government should at least be able to count.
We're finding more and more evidence that the statistics the government is releasing to the public are increasingly suspect and unreliable. It seems like the errors are not random but perhaps manipulated for political advantage. Judge for yourself.
Let's start with crime statistics. Former President Donald Trump said in the debate that crime is out of control, and Vice President Kamala Harris countered by citing government statistics from the FBI indicating that crime rates are falling.
When It Comes to Tech Policy, Biden and Harris Put America Last
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- By Stephen Moore
The Wall Street Journal noted last week that American shareholders will lose tens of billions of dollars in investment income from their stock holdings in Silicon Valley companies like Google and Apple if several European Union sham lawsuits prevail.
These are generally suits alleging that America's dominant tech companies are acting like monopolists. Or, to borrow a term, our tech companies are "price gouging." Many of these companies are now above $2 trillion in their market cap. Every pension fund in America expands in size and benefits paid out to workers when these companies expand.
Hey Kamala, Where Are Your Spending Cuts?
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- By Stephen Moore
In 1982 the federal budget deficit rose above $100 billion for the first time (those were the good old days!), and then-President Ronald Reagan agreed to an infamous budget deal with then-House Speaker Tip O'Neill. Democrats would agree to $3 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. Reagan foolishly agreed to the deal. The taxes went up. The spending cuts never materialized.
Reagan used to fume for the rest of his presidency, "I'm still waiting for those $3 of spending cuts."
Back then Democrats at least pretended they would cut spending. Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis pledged in 1988 that he would "only raise taxes as a last resort."
Hey, Washington: Keep Your Hands Off the Internet
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- By Stephen Moore
Everyone these days -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- seems to want the feds to regulate internet access, prices and online content. They want the Federal Communications Commission to be the referee in terms of who gets connected to the internet and what can and can't be said.
But three recent events highlight why this is a dangerous idea, and why an internet free of government regulation and policing is the best policy.
The first event was the recent 6th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that wisely struck down FCC's illegal power grab to regulate internet access. The Biden-Harris administration has wanted to treat the internet as a regulated utility -- a "common carrier" -- despite falling costs and the fact that well over 90% of Americans already have access to high-speed internet. All of this WITHOUT any government interference, thank you. Private companies from Google to Apple to AT&T and Verizon have created near-universal access to gain more customers, and an Unleash Prosperity study has found that federal rules have actually impeded internet connections.
Biden-Harris Have a Sixth Sense the Economy Is in Trouble -- They're Probably Right
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- By Stephen Moore
Democrats and the media are in a quandary to explain why Americans so underappreciate all that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have done for the economy. Or, should I say, TO the economy.
They act as if these are the salad days for American families, with inflation falling and jobs aplenty. For now.
So why are Americans so dour? A recent Pew poll found that only 22% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Natural Gas Is Now Cheaper Than Water
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- By Stephen Moore
Among the great mythologies of recent years, one stands out above the rest, is that the world is in a "great energy transition." Actually, the world IS in a dramatic energy transition. But it isn't the one the Left wants it to be.
Despite hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars thrown at wind and solar power, we still get less than 10% of our energy from green sources. The needle really hasn't moved at all over the past two decades. The more the government spends, the less we get per taxpayer dollar thrown at it. That's the very definition of a falling stock.
Just Who Is the Real Middle-Class President?
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- By Stephen Moore
President Joe Biden talked incessantly about his "from the middle class out" economic strategy. Given his record, it would have been more accurate to call it the "middle class down and out" plan. Inflation has eroded away any income gains under Biden's presidency.
Now Vice President Kamala Harris has her own riff on this theme. Her campaign motto is "building up the middle class." It isn't exactly "Make America Great Again," but Dems don't have a lot of time to come up with anything catchier, given that Kamala was reluctantly chosen as the 8th inning relief pitcher for Old Joe, who had long ago lost his fastball.
Biden's Rent Control Schemes Will Backfire on Renters -- They Always Do
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- By Stephen Moore
It's clear why President Joe Biden desperately wants to bring down housing prices and rent. With mortgage interest rates double what they were when former President Donald Trump took office, mortgage payments have roughly doubled since 2020, and rents are up in many cities by more than 30%.
So much for the dream of homeownership. And just finding an affordable rental unit larger than a dorm room is getting harder all the time.
Biden blames "greed-flation" for the high rental costs. He's now proposed a two-pronged plan to combat rising rents. First, he wants to reinstate rent controls in major metro areas and impose financial punishments on landlords if they raise rents by more than 5% a year. And second, he wants to make it illegal for landlords to use computer algorithms for setting prices.
Where Does Joe Biden Rank Among America's Worst Presidents?
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- By Stephen Moore
President Joe Biden's time in the White House is mercifully coming to an end. He's now officially a lame duck with six months to go.
Biden was a victim here of a corrupt Democratic machine (with a complicit media) that thought it could pull off a grand election-year deceit despite Biden's failing cognitive abilities. The establishment and a compliant media convinced millions of primary voters that he was of sound mind and ready to serve four more years. This lust for power put America in danger. How could they be so unpatriotic?
So where will Biden stand in the history books? He wasn't a failed president because of his declining cognitive abilities. It was his policies that wrecked America.
Some 40 Years Later: A Nation STILL at Risk
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- By Stephen Moore
School's out for the summer, so now it is time to examine the state of our education system.
By any objective measure, our school performance is fair or poor for most children. Math scores hit a 20-year low. ACT scores dropped to a 30-year low last year. In dozens of schools throughout the country, not one child is reading or practicing math at grade-level proficiency. Not one!
Some of this poor performance is due to the unforgivable mistake of shutting down our schools during COVID-19 -- despite children being less vulnerable to the virus.
Biden Housing Scheme Could Ignite Another 2008 Mortgage Crisis
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- By Stephen Moore
Politicians in Washington have very short memories, so they repeat the same mistakes over and over.
It was only 17 years ago that the "subprime" mortgage crisis torpedoed the economy and sent the financial markets into the biggest tailspin since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs. One of the matches that lit that bonfire was Freddie Mac and its cousin, Fannie Mae, offering generous, taxpayer-guaranteed mortgage insurance to risky borrowers on loans with low down payments.
It all blew up in the faces of the taxpayers even though the Washington experts said the chances of these mortgages going bust and taxpayers taking a loss was less than one in a thousand.
Hey Joe: Where Are All the EV Charging Stations?
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- By Stephen Moore
The Biden administration has spent tens of billions of dollars on green energy, yet last year the U.S. and the world used record amounts of fossil fuels.
That would seem to be prima facie evidence that this "great transition" to renewable energy has so far been an expensive policy belly flop.
The evidence is everywhere. Americans aren't buying electric vehicles any more than they were before President Joe Biden was elected. Even with record federal subsidies, car companies are losing billions of dollars making EVs that people don't want. Wind and solar still account for less than 10% of American energy, and across the country hundreds of communities are saying "not in my backyard" to ugly, spacious solar and wind farms. And of course, electric bills and gas prices at the pump are 30% to 50% higher, even though we were promised the green revolution would save us money.
5 Reasons to Make the Trump Tax Cut Permanent
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- By Stephen Moore
No issue defines the diametrically opposite economic philosophies of Joe Biden and Donald Trump than their position on the Trump tax cuts. Trump wants to make those tax cuts permanent; Biden has repeatedly promised to tax America back to prosperity by repealing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But there are so many factual errors swirling around regarding the Trump tax cuts that it's a wonder that the "truth screeners" on the internet haven't flagged this all as "disinformation."
So, as a public service I will help do their job for them and review "just the facts, ma'am," using the official government data, on how after five years the tax cuts have impacted jobs, the economy, tax fairness and the simplicity of the tax code.
Biden 2.0 -- Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid
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- By Stephen Moore
Could a second Biden term be more injurious to the economy than his first term? It seems unimaginable given the first three years gave us 20% inflation, a $2,000 loss in average real incomes for the middle class, 6 million added illegal immigrants, a war on American energy that has caused gas prices to rise by more than 40% to $3.64 a gallon, the collapse of our many major cities, another $6 trillion added to the national debt, the unaffordability of new homes, and the chaos on college campuses.
So what's the encore to that abysmal performance? What will Bidenomics 2.0 look like if it comes to that?
That '70s Show -- Is Biden Taking America Back to the Age of Jimmy Carter?
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- By Stephen Moore
Everything that is happening in our fractured nation today seems so worrisomely reminiscent of America's last lost decade -- the 1970s.
For those who don't remember, the late 1970s under part-time President Gerald Ford and then much worse under President Jimmy Carter was one economic and national security setback after another.
The witches' brew of high inflation of 7% to 10% by 1979 and ever-increasing tax rates -- which rose as high as 70% -- drove the economy into a ditch. Real family incomes cratered under Carter because inflation rose so much faster than family take-home pay. Homes became unaffordable, with interest rates on mortgages skyrocketing up to 17%. Gas prices tripled. Carter blamed "Big Oil" and "invested" in pipe-dream green energy alternatives that all went bankrupt.
Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at Freedom Works. He is also author of the new book: "Govzilla: How The Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy." To find out more about Stephen Moore and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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