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Elections Have Consequences For 'Trump Country' Too

Elections Have Consequences For 'Trump Country' Too

The flooding in Texas is cataclysmic. It was a hellscape as dozens, many of them girls from a summer camp, were swept to their deaths. Such tragedies spawn questions over whether the National Weather Service could have better warned the public. But this one is different in that the Trump administration is shrinking the weather service and vows to draw down the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Add to such losses the closing of rural hospitals due to Medicaid cuts and farmers suffering at the hands of Trump's trade war. It's a good guess that Trump doesn't worry much about Trump Country. In any case, he's not running again for president and so doesn't need its voters. Now that his super-rich supporters on Wall Street and in Palm Beach have their tax cuts, he may see the job as largely done.

One may have mixed feelings about some programs Trump wants to cut. I don't discount the three ugly siblings of fraud, waste and abuse often found in them. Taxpayers shouldn't have to cover rebuilding in flood zones.

I don't live in hurricane alley, tornado alley or in flash flood alley. But FEMA should have a role in providing food, water, shelter or other emergency services at times of crisis.

While I'm OK with helping fellow Americans trying to recover from natural disasters, I'm not OK with Trump's gaslighting America about where the money goes.

In February, Trump accused New York City of "massive fraud" for using FEMA money to house migrants. He accused hotels that provided temporary shelter of "making a fortune." This produced cries of outrage all over MAGA country.

But here are some facts about FEMA:

The five states receiving the most FEMA dollars per person tend to be Florida, Louisiana, Alaska, Tennessee and Oklahoma. Known as FEMA's "frequent fliers," they are all red states.

Let's look at total FEMA spending on direct financial assistance to residents. From 2015 through April 2024, Florida led the nation with payouts totaling $2.5 billion. It was closely followed by Louisiana's $2.4 billion and Texas getting $2.3 billion, according to data from the Carnegie Disaster Dollar Database.

By contrast, Illinois received only about $300 million during that period. As for money FEMA spent housing migrants in New York City, that totaled a mere $81 million.

What about Democrat-run California? Deep blue California was the fourth top beneficiary, at $3.7 billion. That's understandable given the state's exposure to wildfires, earthquakes, flooding and mudslides — also its far higher population.

Trump says that responsibility for disaster management should be left mostly with state governments. He wants FEMA to be "phased out" after the 2025 hurricane season. Governors would then coordinate any response. If they can't, Trump said, "they shouldn't be governor."

This vision seems plucked out of Project 2025, the blueprint for a second Trump term. It calls for "reforming FEMA emergency spending to shift the majority of preparedness and response costs to states and localities instead of the federal government." It also wants to end most of the Department of Homeland Security's grant programs. That would include work on disaster response and recovery.

One difference between California and many other states suffering a series of natural calamities is that California is rich. It can more easily pick up the costs. So could Texas.

Hundreds of FEMA employees have already been let go. Hundreds of scientists are gone from the National Weather Service. That includes several at the San Angelo office, which covers some of the hardest hit areas.

There's too much pain here to sternly lecture Trump country on its false notions of where federal money goes. One can simply repeat that familiar line: "Elections have consequences."

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Elon Musk

If Musk Is Really Worried By Deficits, He Should Back Democrats

Elon Musk warned that if Republicans passed their big domestic policy bill, he would form a new "America Party" to primary those who voted for it. He doesn't need a new party. He has his old one, the Democrats.

Many Democrats have grown to intensely dislike Musk, and they have their reasons. His prancing around with a chainsaw as he gleefully fired thousands of valued federal employees was ugly. But his most damaging act was spending nearly $300 million to get Donald Trump reelected.

As it happens, the right doesn't like Musk, either. Trump's serial abuse of him is something to behold. When Musk opposed his "big beautiful" bill, Trump let loose on Truth Social. "Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back to South Africa," Trump bellowed. "No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production ... BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!"

Look, Musk is a weird guy. He's been a genius at building new companies, making him the richest person on earth. But his understanding of human behavior is sketchy, especially with a personality as diabolical as Trump's. By putting Musk at the head of DOGE, Trump made him the fall guy for unpopular budget cuts.

A longtime Democrat, Musk was turned off by the woke thing. It's true that Democrats let some activists' obsession with transgender issues and use of pronouns get out of hand. The reality is that most Democrats are moderate.

If Musk wants to exert power in primary races, he'd have more impact in Democratic primaries. Removing fringe leftists from the national stage would do a world of good for Democrats, helping the party regain control of Congress. In sum, Musk could use his smarts, money and control of X to support the Democratic mainstream.

Trump has argued that Musk is angry because the bill ends federal subsidies for electric vehicles. Why the man who built up Tesla went over to the anti-EV side mystifies to this day. But Trump was correct in noting that "Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate."

Fact check time: There is no EV mandate, never was. The subsidy was to encourage people to buy EVs. No one had to. It was also to help domestic automakers compete in a world that is rapidly moving to electric vehicles.

Musk's association with Trump has trashed Tesla sales in this country and in Europe. A reconnection with the worldwide campaign for green energy could make Teslas cool again. In any case, a return to the environmental fold — which the eccentric Musk could pull off — would become a spectacular turnaround.

Musk's description of the massive bill as "the biggest debt increase in history" is accurate. It's odd how little Americans recognize that Democrats have been better at controlling deficits and growing the economy than Republicans.

Democrat Bill Clinton was the only president to balance the budget in over half a century. Republican George W. Bush ran through the surpluses, leaving Barack Obama with the Great Recession and a deficit of nearly $2 trillion. (This and the numbers that follow are in today's dollars.) By his last year, Obama brought deficits down to $759 billion.

Trump in his first term oversaw an almost $1 trillion deficit before COVID, almost $4 trillion in his last year. Joe Biden brought deficits down to $1.87 trillion by his last year — and that was after big investments in America's infrastructure and chip manufacturing.

Today's budget monstrosity is projected to increase budget deficits by roughly $4 trillion over the next decade.

Musk should return to the Democratic Party, and Democrats should welcome him.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Blocking Vaccines, RFK Jr. Guarantees 'A Lot Of Americans Are Going To Die'

Blocking Vaccines, RFK Jr. Guarantees 'A Lot Of Americans Are Going To Die'

Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican from Louisiana, is also a doctor. He put up resistance last February to Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "Bobby," as Trump likes to call him, has long cast doubts on the safety of vaccines that have saved millions from death or serious disease while causing almost no problems.

Kennedy is an ignoramus on such matters and has a few loose screws besides. But Cassidy ultimately gave in, presumably to escape MAGA's wrath. He gave Kennedy the deciding vote for confirmation.

Cassidy is back, however. As leader of the Senate's health committee, he tried but failed to delay a committee meeting to consider RFK Jr.'s nutty move to fire all 17 members of the panel that advises on the use of vaccines in the United States. Kennedy's eight replacements, Cassidy wrote, "do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology." Another concern was that a director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which takes guidance from the panel, had not yet been put in place.

Kennedy's manipulative line is that "a clean sweep is needed to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science" — a confidence that he and fellow crackpots have done their best to undermine with junk science. Kennedy has falsely accused the fired experts of having conflicts of interest with companies developing vaccines. That problem does not exist because of stringent oversight.

It's truly rich that Kennedy would accuse anyone of a conflict of business interests. He currently takes a cut on money extracted in lawsuits against drug companies.

Cassidy may have been moved by the resignation of Dr. Fiona Havers from the CDC. A senior physician overseeing virus surveillance, Havers warned early this month that "people are going to die" if Kennedy's new vaccine advisory panel takes over.

Another reason given for Cassidy's attempt to slow down approval of the panel — formally known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — is that Kennedy had promised during the confirmation process that he would not change ACIP. Guess Bobby was lying.

Trump earned credit in his first term for the Operation Warp Speed program that sped the development of a vaccine against COVID. And so why did he name a vaccine "skeptic" (the nice word) to run the incredibly important HHS?

I have theories. One is that Trump simply enjoys Kennedy's wackiness. He is colorful with those stories of a whale head strapped on his car, the dead bear cub left in Central Park and the worm eating his brain. In sum, Bobby amused him. Trump told him to "go wild" at HHS.

Little sleep would be lost if some rubes and woo-woo Californians suffer illness and death because they believed the conspiracies fostered by medical quackery? Americans able to distinguish expertise from TikTok baloney would know to get their shots. Stuff happens to the ill-informed or, to use one of Trump's favorite terms, "stupid people."

The tragedy goes beyond Americans dying because they were talked out of a vaccine shown to be overwhelmingly safe. The vaccine-bashing also slows the development of protections against future health threats. The Trump administration's undermining of medical expertise — and cuts in research money — will slow down advancements in messenger RNA vaccines, T-cell work and other medical miracles that have begun to smite formerly incurable diseases.

Yes, people will die. They already have. An analysis of CDC data concluded that perhaps 250,000 Americans who had access to shots and didn't get them died unnecessarily from COVID.

This is the America we live in. The well-informed will survive. Others are on their own.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Trump Wants 'Illegal' Workers -- For Himself, At Least

Trump Wants 'Illegal' Workers -- For Himself, At Least

Donald Trump recently wrote on Truth Social: "Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace."

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Trump is heavily invested in two of those three businesses. He's proven himself very good at looking out for Number One.

That's much easier than formulating an immigration policy to meet the needs of employers while ensuring decent wages for all workers. Many of these "very good" workers would have been admitted to this country legally, if we had carefully written immigration policy. The lack of said policy is a major driver of illegal immigration.

Consider also the weirdness of singling out two industries for lax immigration enforcement. Suppose an undocumented worker tending almond trees in California's Central Valley chooses to start a window-washing business in Bakersfield. Is he now slated for deportation?

Border czar Stephen Miller is putting on a show of force that is both nasty and ineffectual. The wannabe warlord says he wants to arrest 3,000 migrants a day, apparently any migrants. His enforcers have been pulling people with pending asylum cases and valid work permits off worksites.

Few will argue against booting out undocumented aliens who have committed crimes, other than being here illegally. Barack Obama did a better job of that than Trump has. MAGA's obsession with the Southern border, already calmed by Joe Biden before leaving office, ignores nearly half the dilemma. An estimated 42% of undocumented immigrants now in the U.S. arrived legally but overstayed their visas.

Meanwhile, organizers of the "No King" rallies did a masterful job. They broadly named the event to take much of the focus away from the sometimes-abusive activities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Americans have diverse opinions on what immigration policy should look like while there is growing anger at Trump's caudillo act and personal lawlessness.

That combined with Trump's toxic personality and chaotic politics resulted in small crowds honoring the U.S. Army's 250-year anniversary. That was too bad. The anniversary marked centuries of faithful service and sacrifice to the country. That was inevitable when Trump made the celebration an adjunct to his 79th birthday.

Trump set the scene by holding that unseemly political rally featuring himself at Fort Bragg. The Trump brand of vulgarity further diminished the Army's parade by including an official broadcast shouting out "Special thanks to our sponsor — Coinbase." Coinbase operates a huge exchange for cryptocurrency, one of Trump's shadowy avenues for amassing more wealth.

The "No Kings" planners, who put together big gatherings in every state, wisely kept the protests outside Washington. That avoided conflict with the Army/Trump birthday parade. Many of the "No Kings" rallies turned joyful with a here-comes-summer feel.

A few hours after calling to exempt farm and hospitality workers from harsh immigration enforcement, Trump blamed Biden for the problem Biden went far in solving. Trump himself has employed an illegal workforce, most famously the construction workers who built Trump Tower.

Immigration chaos is too useful politically and too personally enriching for Trump to end. Nor does the Republican-controlled House have the courage to act. Republicans memorably refused to vote on a bipartisan bill that would have gone far in strengthening enforcement.

Americans don't want open borders. They also recognize that many of the people who came through these open borders without the proper documentation are, indeed, otherwise very good people. Also that they are taking jobs it's hard to find Americans to fill.

Don't expect sane immigration reform in the Trump era. That requires hard work.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Best-Selling, Liberal-Bashing 'Abundance' Is Abundantly Clueless

Best-Selling, Liberal-Bashing 'Abundance' Is Abundantly Clueless

The hot-selling book Abundance is written by liberals who bash liberals, or more precisely, try to make them feel guilty. Sure, authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson shed some blame on conservatives for why America doesn't build as easily as it used to. But it's those liberals in expensive cities, the authors insist, who are callously driving less-than-rich families to move elsewhere.

Klein and Thompson argue that Democrat-run "superstar" cities have failed to provide enough affordable housing because of all their building rules and regulations and pesky zoning ordinances that make it harder to build. The chief culprits are San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and, as always, New York City. The comparisons made against them are ludicrous.

A sample complaint: "The Austin metro area led the nation in housing permits in 2022, permitting 18 new homes for every thousand residents. Los Angeles's and San Francisco's metro areas permitted only 2.5 units per thousand residents."

Where do we start? Let's start with the not-insignificant matter of buildable land. The population density of San Francisco is five times that of Austin. Even sprawling Los Angeles has nearly three times as many people per square mile as Austin does.

Another sampling: Houston "is not facing the crises of homelessness and housing affordability seen in the superstar cities of many blue states." Why? In 2023, the Boston metro area issued 10,500 new housing permits, while Houston issued almost 70,000.

Boston has nearly four times the number of people per square mile as Houston. And Boston Harbor borders a big, blue-gray body of water. The land to its east is Portugal. Of course, buying and building in Boston is harder to do — and more expensive.

Really, all the so-called superstar cities getting roasted in Abundance — San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles — are bounded by water whereas Austin and Houston can easily expand into open country. The authors speak a lot about "bottlenecks" impeding progress. I'd say that the Pacific Ocean is a significant bottleneck to Los Angeles building out. Wouldn't you?

Houston has no zoning laws, so you can put almost anything anywhere. That's the Houston way. (This dynamic metropolis might rightly bristle being left out of the list of superstar cities.) Urban Texas has some fine old neighborhoods that locals treasure, but there's a lot more history to protect in the older cities.

Let Houston be Houston, Boston be Boston and LA be unlike either.

This is a big country. The four ultra-costly superstar cities combined take up a minuscule 0.025% of the total U.S. landmass. Let's not insult the thousands of smaller cities and towns by portraying the glitzy coastal metros as the only places where opportunity beckons. Fortunes can be made anywhere. Silicon Valley was almost all fruit orchards into the 1950s.

A needed update: Austin's heralded building boom is over for now. Austin's growth, fueled by the pandemic, now limps along with sky-high office and apartment vacancy rates.

Klein and Thompson speak in that confident wonky voice, arms outstretched with futurama visions of shared prosperity. If only Americans, Democrats especially, would get out of the way.

"Democrats cannot simultaneously claim to be the party of middle-class families while presiding over the parts of the country they are leaving." They predictably single out liberal California, noting "California's most populous cities are run by Democrats."

As it happens, Democrats also preside over Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

Abundance operates on the assumption that liberals can be shamed for wanting to preserve landmarks, intimate Main Streets and tenements with old shops at the bottom. Pass the guilt by. Liberals, joined by their conservative neighbors, have every right to slow down the bulldozers.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

The Real Problem With Politicians Like Joni Ernst

The Real Problem With Politicians Like Joni Ernst

What do you do about Joni Ernst? The Republican senator from Iowa is being mocked by liberal media and beyond for her snarky response to a question about cuts in Medicaid: "We all are going to die."

That clumsy remark has been skewered for its insensitivity, but its greater significance lies in the bigger issue. Ernst answers to Donald Trump and no one else.

She is not alone in this. Bowing down to Trump's demands and caving in to MAGA threats have turned several Republicans against the people who voted for them.

Elon Musk has just called Trump's tax-and-spending bill a "disgusting abomination," thus freeing more Republicans to express their doubts. Some House members now express regrets about voting for it. Their excuse is that they didn't quite read it.

Think about that. They regard not doing their job as less politically damaging than owning up to their vote.

More than one in five Iowans receive Medicaid benefits. Rural hospitals will be especially hard hit by the cuts, but so will other medical centers serving large Medicaid populations. Even before the Republican House voted to chop over $700 billion from the program, 28 Iowa hospitals were at risk of closing, according to Becker's Hospital Review.

As the Senate considered the nomination of Pete Hegseth for Defense secretary, Ernst was riding high as one of the holdouts. A handful of other Senate Republicans wouldn't go along, giving Ernst the power to ditch a candidate known for sexual assault, drunkenness and abuse of corporate funds. Worse, Hegseth had little experience relevant to heading the department tasked with defending America from foreign attack. He was just a pretty boy on Fox News.

A combat veteran, Ernst made some impassioned objections to the appointment. But when the MAGA brigade threatened her reelection with a primary challenge, she forgot all about national security.

She explained her decision to cave as follows: "I will be supporting President Trump's pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth." In other words, she was doing it for Trump.

American soldiers risk their lives for the country. Ernst was one. But then she changed shape into a politician who wouldn't even risk reelection, that is, a job, for the country.

In her service to Trump, she turned out to be not very good at politics either. Ernst's attempted recovery from her unfortunate "we are all going to die" comment was a not-very-clever video on Instagram, foolishly staged in a cemetery. Screwing her face up in a look of pain, she apologized for any misunderstanding. Then she made a failed stab at humor, saying, "I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the Tooth Fairy as well."

She further insulted the audience by stating, "I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this Earth." That also diverted attention from the issue at hand. The voters weren't demanding immortality, just medical care that would enable them to live longer, healthier lives.

If she really wanted fuller recovery from some awkward moments Ernst could have looked straight at the camera and say, "You know? I'm going to vote against a bill that would deprive so many of my constituents of the most basic health care." And if she wanted to nail down her conservative bona fides, she should have added, "I'm also not voting for tax cuts that blow up federal deficits by trillions."

Chances are excellent that she will vote for whatever Trump wants. That's the real problem with Joni Ernst. It's not a stray comment. It's straying from her duty to her constituents and the country.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board. 

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Elon musk

Behind Elon Musk's Rift With His Presidential 'Buddy'

Elon Musk may have thought that dropping more than $250 million into Trump's reelection campaign would have bought permanent affection from the president. No, it was a show of obeisance that labeled Musk as one to be played. Besides, in Trump's dog-eat-dog view of wealth, the far-richer Musk may have needed cutting down to size.

Trump knows about human nature. Musk, for all his awesome faculties, does not. Like Heracles brought down by trusting a scheming wife, Musk suffered the fatal flaw of assuming that Trump was truly on his side.

At first it looked like Musk's hopes would be met. Stock of the tech mogul's crown jewel Tesla soared on the belief that Trump would grandly reward his enterprises. It's now down 29 percent from its December high.

Musk didn't get that his union with Trump would repel Tesla buyers. They tend to be the better educated and environmentally aware. Trump proceeded to drive a stake in the U.S. electric vehicle market that Musk had launched. Trump's toxic comments about Europe, made worse by his tariff machinations, deep-sixed Tesla sales there.

Did Musk think he was being rewarded with a big government job as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE? What Trump did was make Musk the face of unpopular budget cuts.

And so, while Trump was out front vowing not to touch Medicaid, Musk's team found large sums to chop from the program. When the Republican House tax and spending bill cut about $880 billion over 10 years from the program, Trump warmly applauded.

Last Friday, Trump held a bon-voyage press conference for Musk in the Oval Office. Trump patted Musk on the head as he left DOGE to save his wounded businesses. The enduring visual was of an unsmiling Musk with a black eye caused by who-knows-what.

The very next day, Trump delivered more disrespect by announcing the withdrawal of his nomination of Musk's pick to head NASA, his pal Jared Isaacman. As an explanation, Trump cited Isaacman's "prior associations," that is, his contributions to Democratic campaigns.

Musk's enthusiastic endorsement apparently no longer counted for much. Perhaps realizing that he had once again been dissed, Musk "bravely" posted a contrary view on his X website: "It is rare to find someone so competent and good-hearted" as Isaacman.

There's something sad about that. It may be hard to summon tears for the world's richest man, a guy who coldly backed big reductions in life-saving humanitarian aid. But one must also account for his inability to guess how others would react, a genuine handicap that prevented Musk from accurately sizing up Trump. He simply couldn't imagine how the public would respond to DOGE's more savage cuts.

Musk says that he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a condition tied to difficulty understanding social cues and unwritten social rules. We can well believe it. He suffered at the hands of an abusive father. Bullied in school, he was sent to a hospital after a group of boys pushed him down a staircase.

As Musk returns to his limping businesses, the Tesla board seems unsure what to pay him. Investors had become highly irritated by Musk's disappearance into MAGA land. As pay consultant Alan Johnson put it, the board must require that Musk start "to run it like a real company."

It's hard to see how Tesla can recover from its founder's toxic links with Trump and fascistic movements in Europe. As for SpaceX, foreign governments are already canceling contracts.

As he sent Musk into the sunset, Trump clearly wanted to keep the door open for more play. "He's going to be back and forth, I think."

Feeling sorry for Musk is not impossible.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board. 

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

'More Than A Little Stupid': Republicans Try To Kill Renewable Energy

'More Than A Little Stupid': Republicans Try To Kill Renewable Energy

Wyoming is the second windiest state, after Nebraska. It's obvious why the wind power industry is investing $10 billion there. And it's hard to see why any state politician would oppose this. But some have. Wyoming is one of those fossil-fuel producing states in which so-called conservatives feel obligated — or are paid — to stop competition from clean energy. Texas is another.

Wyoming State Sen. Larry Hicks proposed a temporary ban on renewable energy projects. "It does one thing: puts a moratorium on wind and solar for the next five years," he said. "It's a simple little bill."

A "simple," five-year plan? How do you say, "Aw, shucks" in Russian?

Hicks swiftly diverted blame to California: "Our friends on the 'left coast' with their renewable portfolio demands, eliminating fossil fuels and moving in a direction that's unsustainable."

We can't untie this knot of confused ideology. But let's point out that renewable energy is the only kind of energy that is, by definition, sustainable. Wyoming may have coal, oil and gas. But it has wind forever.

This hostility toward wind power is even weirder in Texas. Texas harvests more electricity from wind than any other state, or nearly 28 percent of all wind-generated electricity in the U.S. In one recent week, nearly half of Texas's electricity came from solar and wind power.

The key for these renewables is batteries that can store power when the wind doesn't blow or the sun doesn't shine. Texas has been crowned "ground zero" for a U.S. battery boom. Last year it switched on more power stored in batteries than California did.

Texas was expected to double its storage capacity this year — that is, until Donald Trump slapped huge tariffs on China. More than two-thirds of imported batteries come from China.

In March, the Texas Senate passed a mandate that half of all new power capacity come from sources other than battery storage. In other words, at least 50 percent of all new power plant capacity had to be produced from coal, natural gas, and oil. (The natural gas industry needed propping.)

Back in Wyoming, lawmakers wedded to fossil fuels are complaining that large wind and solar projects are fundamentally changing the look of Wyoming's wide-open spaces. That's ignoring the aesthetics of Wyoming's coal pits, wide open craters that stretch for miles.

Wyoming is over 63 times the size of Rhode Island, with less than half the population of the Ocean State. There are dozens of wind turbines in Rhode Island, onshore and off. More are planned with minimal complaint. Wyoming could easily accommodate new wind projects under its big sky.

There does exist public support for clean energy in Wyoming, which is why Hicks' initiative failed. Gov. Mark Gordon tried to bridge the differences by endorsing an "all of the above energy strategy." He wants to keep Wyoming as "the energy state" but also to address climate change by developing clean renewables.

The far-right Freedom Caucus went after Gordon for acknowledging climate change. It introduced a bill designed to stop the state from pursuing any carbon reduction targets and titled it "Make Carbon Dioxide Great Again."

A pragmatic Republican, Gordon called such proposals as "a little bit stupid."

The bottom line is that Wyoming continues to develop wind energy projects. The Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project, now under construction near Rawlins, will be the nation's largest wind farm.

Much of what happens from here on in depends on Washington. The recently passed House bill strips away subsidies for renewables. How it fares in the Senate remains to be seen. Suffice it to say, slowing America's move to cleaner and also cheaper energy is more than a little bit stupid.

Froma Harrop is an award-winning journalist who covers politics, economics, and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board. 

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Trump's 2017 tax cuts

Trump's Tax Cut Will Lead To Fiscal Disaster

First off, let's drop the Republican claim that not extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts is a tax increase.

Many of these tax cuts were purposely designed to expire and for a sneaky reason. Making them permanent would have hiked the bill's cost by more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Add to that the interest payments tied to the higher borrowing, and the number rises to $2 trillion.

The ugly bottom line is this: Trump's "big, beautiful" tax and spending bill is expected to tack another $3.8 trillion to budget deficits over the next decade.

Recall Elon Musk's vow to cut $2 trillion in spending a year ago? The amount actually cut was about $100 billion. Sorry to throw more numbers at you, but that's only 5% of $2 trillion.

Balancing the federal budget without added borrowing can be done. It was done when Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was president. Clinton had raised some taxes, notably on the wealthy, in his 1993 budget. Republicans demagogued those tax hikes, which helped them win big in the midterms that followed.

By 1998, the federal budget was in surplus. Republicans rightly insist that they helped by forcing lower spending. But the added tax revenue brought in more money than the spending cuts saved.

Most Americans got richer under Clinton. Despite higher tax bills, the rich got richer, too. They benefited from a stock market lifted in large part by the growing belief that the federal government had become a responsible financial steward.

During Clinton's presidency, the S&P 500 stock index rose a legendary 208 percent. Had dividends been included and reinvested, the total return would have been higher.

George W. Bush took over the presidency in January 2001 and squandered the surplus with tax cuts and dramatically higher spending. He also oversaw the reckless deregulation that led to the financial collapse at the end of his two terms — and a 40% drop in the S&P 500.

Anyone who has done a household budget knows that two numbers matter. One is for spending; the other is for money coming in. For the federal government, money coming in is the tax revenues.

Ronald Reagan bought into the idea that tax cuts would pay for themselves through greater economic growth. He quickly saw that his 1981 tax cuts didn't come close to covering the lost revenues plus higher defense spending. To his credit, Reagan acted to stabilize the financial picture by signing a tax increase the following year and then other increases in 1984 and 1986. Nonetheless, the national debt tripled during his eight years.

Trump is pushing hard for both tax cuts and higher spending. And that has the financial markets fearing a new era of financial irresponsibility. Moody's has just lowered its credit rating for the United States from triple-A to double-A. That's contributed to a global selloff of U.S. Treasury debt, as it is no longer seen as the ultra-safe investment it was. The U.S. must now offer higher returns to compensate for the higher risk. Our annual interest payments, meanwhile, now surpass the defense budget.

All this doesn't fully count the growth-killing effects of Trump's tariff plans. JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon says investors may not have fully digested how much of a threat to their portfolios the tariffs pose.

Trump's tax-and-spending bill has a long way to go — the Senate after the House. But the financial markets obviously don't like what they are seeing.

Republicans should not be extending and adding to the 2017 tax cuts. Responsible lawmakers would just let them expire as they were scheduled to do. Alas, they clearly don't have it in them to be responsible.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Trump and MBS Saudi

Suddenly, Trump Finds The Profit Motive Shocking

Donald Trump's whirlwind visit to Qatar was certainly an extravaganza: "Red and lavender carpets. Arabian horses. Glitzy chandeliers. Camels. Sword dancers," according to The New York Times.

Sounded like a night at Studio 54.

Back on Main Street USA, things looked less fabulous. Trump's tariffs have been menacing the nation's retailers, including the biggest, Walmart. About a third of Walmart's sales come from imports. (That share would be higher if it didn't also sell groceries largely sourced in the U.S.)

The president is now going after Walmart for saying the obvious, that the tariffs may force it to soon raise prices.

True to Trumpian form, this is not entirely a diversion from what we may think it's about: It's a diversion from a previous diversion. That would be the flashy galas in the Arab Gulf States, which were themselves a diversion from his economic chaos.

While Trump partied, family members fanned out on three continents vacuuming up millions in real estate deals. He was also planning a dinner for the 220 biggest holders of his meme coin. Buying $TRUMP coins is another means of shoveling money into his pocket.

Call it corruption. Call it grifting. Making a personal fortune off one's presidency is illegal. Though not unknown in previous administrations, Trump is self-dealing in megaton quantities. And what better way to draw attention away from the other stuff than to accept a $400 million jetliner from Qatar, a gift that will eventually end up in his library.

This is also part of the brand. It's about getting away with law-breaking and being blatant about it, mob-style.

So now Trump has us blabbing about his ridiculous demand on Truth Social that Walmart "EAT THE TARIFFS" and keep prices down. "I'll be watching, and so will your customers."

Given the overlap between MAGA and Walmart's customer base, the post gets extra buzz through the implied threat to America's biggest shopkeeper.

But it's a vain threat, given that for much of Trump country, Walmart is all there is. The retailing juggernaut long ago plopped its big-box discount stores on the outskirts of America's downtowns, thus wiping out the competition on what was traditional Main Street. With 4,000 stores, Walmart now claims about 90% of Americans as customers.

Trump also wrote: "Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected."

And so Trump gets us talking not only about the nervy assault on America's largest private employer — about 1.6 million people in the United States work for Walmart — but also his honking hypocrisy of hitting a business for trying to make a profit.

Again, duplicity is part of his act. Trump has often criticized companies for not capitalizing on profit opportunities. "The point is that you can't be too greedy," he wrote in The Art of the Deal.

And he's defended retailers when they could be used as a weapon against other enemies. Recall his attack on Amazon several years ago, claiming it was hurting the U.S. Postal Service.

"Amazon is doing great damage to tax-paying retailers," Trump wrote on Twitter in 2017. "Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt — many jobs being lost!"

Not coincidentally, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was the owner of The Washington Post. Back then the Post was a harsh Trump critic. Another day, another diversion.

For now, Trump has us noting the inconsistency of his expressing shock that others want to make money. Walmart, at least, is doing it legally. Meanwhile, no amount of diversion will hide the coming reality that Americans will be paying the higher prices.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Victimizing Blue State Taxpayers May Doom GOP House Majority

Victimizing Blue State Taxpayers May Doom GOP House Majority

At least six congressional Republicans are demanding a radical fix in the 2017 tax law targeting residents of high-income states. If they don't get it, they may sink Donald Trump's tax-and-spending package, his "one big beautiful bill."

And who can blame these reps from New York, New Jersey and California? At issue is the unfair cap on the state and local taxes (SALT) their constituents may deduct from federally taxable income. The SALT deduction, unlimited before 2017, was set at a maximum $10,000.

What made it sweet to other Republicans was that it paid for some of those tax cuts by milking taxpayers in wealthier Democratic states. And that has made voters in key suburban districts sore.

What makes this attack on the SALT deduction outrageous? For starters, it taxes income that Americans have already paid in taxes. Secondly, incomes in these states are higher because their everyday costs are higher. Teachers, road workers and other public employees must be paid more just to maintain the living standards enjoyed elsewhere.

Defenders of the cap argue piously — and wrongly — that the SALT deduction is a tax break only for rich people. It's true that taxpayers with higher incomes tend to get the most out of the deduction, but a cop married to a nurse in New York, New Jersey or California can easily have a combined income of $200,000 — and no one would call them rich given housing prices.

In decidedly middle-class Levittown, on Long Island, homeowners typically pay a property tax of about $16,000. Then there are state income taxes.

If Washington's objective is to raise more revenue from higher-income Americans, then fine. Just raise the federal tax brackets for high incomes everywhere in the U.S.

The most obnoxious argument for the SALT cap is that it forces "profligate" state governments run by Democrats to restrain their own taxes. What state and local governments levy in taxes should be no business of Washington's. Americans unhappy with their local tax regimes can move elsewhere, and some do.

But many regard superior education systems and other public amenities worth the higher taxes. Republicans should note that making it harder to pay good salaries to police is, in essence, a form of defunding the police.

Raising the cap on this deduction may require Washington lawmakers to find the revenues elsewhere. Well, that's too bad.

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith represents the most rural district in Missouri. It's easy for him to say Republicans from high-tax states may have to settle for an "unhappy" compromise on the SALT deduction. By that, he means raising the cap to a meager $30,000.

Republican reps from these swing districts are having none of it, frankly, because their jobs are at stake. They know that the Republican brand has already fallen for their voters, given the toll tariff chaos has taken on their businesses.

There's a reason President Donald Trump retreated on naming New York Rep. Elise Stefanik as United Nations ambassador. He doesn't want to risk a special election that may replace her with a Democrat. After 2022, Republicans flipped at least four New York districts, without which they wouldn't now enjoy a House majority.

New York Republican Nick LaLota spoke for others when he told reporters that the SALT talks are far apart, on the 25-yard line with 75 yards to go. LaLota's district covers eastern Long Island.

If House Republicans think they can threaten these "SALT Caucus" members for killing one of Trump's top priorities, they need hearing aids. The general election, not primary challenges, is what these politicians should worry about most. Democrats already see opportunity, and the elected Republicans know it.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Sadly, Trump Tariffs Mean No Roses For Many Moms

Sadly, Trump Tariffs Mean No Roses For Many Moms

May is usually the best month for florists, Mother's Day being a big reason. But Donald Trump's tariff war is raining pain on their bestselling season.

Pierson's Flower Shop and Greenhouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, expects customers to dial back on purchases because of higher prices forced by tariffs.

"We ship a lot from Europe, we ship a lot from down south, South America," shop owner Al Pierson told KCRG, a local television station. "Everything's being affected."

It's not like mass rose production can be brought to the U.S. Nearly 80 percent of cut flowers sold here must be imported. That's because the U.S. lacks the weather patterns to support a year-round flower industry of significant size.

Colombia and Ecuador do. The high-altitude Andes Mountain range, with a year-round temperate climate, provides ideal growing conditions. The Andean Trade Preference Act of 1991 set off a South American boom in flower exports. (And wouldn't we prefer that those farmers grow roses rather than the coca plants used to make cocaine?)

Before then, fresh roses were more of a luxury product. Consider that in 1989, a dozen long-stemmed roses in a vase were priced between $118 and $170 in today's dollars. Last May, they averaged $90, and roses sold for a lot less at many supermarkets, though they were not long-stemmed and a vase wasn't included.

Thanks to this trade, ordinary Americans have also enjoyed tropical houseplants. Hawaii is the only state sitting squarely within the tropics.

At his recent gathering in Omaha, investment wizard Warren Buffett opined against the trade war for weakening the economy and, not unrelated, creating a world that likes us less.

"We should be looking to trade with the rest of the world," Buffett told the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, "and we should do what we do best, and they should do what they do best."

The Scottish economist Adam Smith voiced that idea almost 250 years ago. Father of classical free-market theory, Smith wrote:

"By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hot walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland. ... Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?"

Trump's broad and brainless tariffs — made more toxic by his and J.D. Vance's vulgar insults against other countries — have turned our trading partners against the products that we do best. Canada and other countries, for example, are boycotting the wines that California, Oregon and Washington are especially suited to making.

The U.S. heartland has long been a powerhouse in growing and exporting soybeans, corn, wheat, pork and dairy products. And most of those exports have gone to Mexico, Canada, China and other Asian countries. But Trump's tariff crusade is ruining those relationships, sending U.S. farmers into crisis mode.

His 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods prompted China to retaliate with a 125 percent levy on American products. Thus, in one week last month, China cut its soybean orders by more than 97 percent. China has just done its biggest cancellation of pork products since the COVID-19 pandemic.

And for all the beefing over imports from Mexico, it's important to note that Mexico last year displaced China as the biggest foreign market for American farm exports.

Tariffs have caused bridal boutiques to raise gown prices by up to 30 percent, according to industry experts. Tariff-caused inflation now has brides downgrading from roses to cheaper carnations.

As for Mother's Day roses, many more mothers will this year be doing without.

"I'm planning on a recession, so I've cut my ordering, I'm cutting everything," florist Pierson said.

So are a lot of businesses across the United States. And for no good reason.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Pierre Poilievre

Rout Of 'The Maple MAGA' Shows How To Defeat Trump

Most remarkable about the recent Canadian election is that patriotism rather than raw economic interest propelled voters to resist Donald Trump. Canadians rejected the MAGA-fied Conservative Party, despite an economy suffering from anemic growth and high housing costs, all pinned on Justin Trudeau's Liberal Party.

Trump's devastating tariff war would have sent a submissive electorate toward appeasement. The opposite happened. The Liberals, headed by Mark Carney, overcame a recent 20-point-plus deficit in the polls to score a narrow win.

He may be a sober banker, but Carney knows how to deliver some fire and brimstone to Canadians traumatized by Trump's lunatic attacks on their friendly nation. "President Trump is trying to break us so he can own us," he said. "That will never happen."

For Canadians, it's not the money. It's the country.

Trump thus finds himself in the unusual role of unifier. His insults and threats prompted Canadian voters to overcome long-standing differences. Many French-speaking Quebecois abandoned their regional party to vote for the Liberal Party. Members of the left-wing New Democratic Party followed suit.

Here lie lessons for Democrats. The path to defanging Trump is not to convert other Americans to their ideology, whatever that may be. It is to get people who normally vote another way to unite in saving their country from a dangerously erratic leadership. The midterms will be the first big opportunity for that.

Canada's Liberals were smart in their choice of prime minister. Carney is a sober figure who headed both the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada. He understands the economy's weaknesses and what tariffs do. And he undoubtedly has the measure of the clownish Trump. He's not about to leap at Trump's latest burst of hot air.

As Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's former spokesman and now critic, put it, "The best that Trump did in 100 days" was help elect Mark Carney.

The Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre lost more than an opportunity to speak for Canada. He lost his own parliament seat in Ottawa. Poilievre was skewered as the "Maple MAGA" after railing against "radical woke ideology" and promising to cut foreign aid. Some Conservatives now accuse Poilievre of failing to pivot after Trump became an abuser of Canadian dignity.

Democrats in the U.S. should note that the oncoming recession and, perhaps, financial crisis, gives them an opening to further rebrand. They should redouble efforts to put their cultural hobby horses on the back burner and focus on the public's current obsession — a parade of scary economic news.

Carney meanwhile vows to find new alliances and trading partners. "We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we shall never forget the lessons," he said. Trump has vandalized over a century of warm relations with Canada, and what does America have to show for it?

That's only the iceberg tip of the lasting damage he's inflicting on U.S. power and prestige. A country that could elect Trump — and whose Republican-controlled Congress has proven impotent against his excesses — no longer seems a stable world leader. That price continues to inflate.

On the morning of the election, Trump the buffoon told Canadians to vote for him. With midterms coming closer, Democrats would do well to stop using the loaded word "resistance" but push back in a sophisticated way.

The Canadian election offered an example of identity politics done right. The identity was Canadian, not Alberta oil driller, not French-speaking Quebecois, not Inuit in Labrador, not the recent immigrants from everywhere and their descendants.

Thanks to Trump, Canadians have come together as a people. Democrats should learn from them and bring the growing numbers of alarmed Americans under one banner, the American flag.

Elon Musk

How Trump Exploited Clever But Clueless (And Needy) Musk

It feels strange talking about the world's richest man, only 53 years old, in the past tense. But that somehow seems appropriate for Elon Musk, who weeks ago was considered Donald Trump's co-president. Now he's clearly falling off that high perch, just as Tesla, his star asset, reports net income cratering by 71 percent.

Musk was undoubtedly a genius building business empires, not only Tesla but also SpaceX. He also owns the former Twitter, now known as X. But though he had certain highly developed faculties, he was not a full person at all.

One struggles to portray Musk as a victim, but it's become undeniable that Trump played him. Trump exploited his wealth, neediness and limited social smarts.

Start with the 2024 campaign. We don't know the monetary rewards Trump might have dangled, but this one-time Trump critic sank over a quarter of a billion dollars into helping the president's reelection. Moments after voters gave Trump a second term, Musk's wealth mushroomed in expectation of a lucrative payback.

But then Trump made Musk the fall guy for his obviously unpopular plan to cannibalize the government workforce. Not only did his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) strip the public of prized services, but Musk seemed to enjoy inflicting pain on thousands of workers. "The real reason (for their complaints)," he said callously, "is that those who are receiving the waste and fraud wish it to continue."

Trump is famous for skipping out on paybacks. As the chainsaw-waving leader of DOGE, Musk became politically radioactive. And no longer useful, Musk is clearly being shown the door — just as potential Tesla buyers have gone elsewhere for their electric vehicles. Both setbacks because MAGA got him to play patsy, up to and including support for far-right candidates in Germany.

Musk has joined movements advocating for higher birth rates to counter a drop in population. But Musk has taken the notion to weird levels, trying to create a master race modeled on himself. He has spread his sperm to father at least 14 children, via a number of women.

Sure, he can write big checks, but children, boys especially, need involved fathers. Some of the most screwed up kids come from money but suffer from lack of fathering. Musk's plans to gather the mothers and children in a Texas compound and visit them from time to time is as bloodless as it gets.

Why an entrepreneur who helped launch the EV revolution in the United States would work for a man dedicated to frustrating it remains a mystery. Did Musk think he would be spared?

Musk, like Trump, needs to be in the headlines all the time. He'd brag about busting unions if that got attention. Musk wasn't content to quietly enjoy his vast fortune — or enjoy giving some of it away. A dedicated father heading big companies would have used more of his scant free time tending to his offspring.

In the end Musk was conned by a con man. Musk may have been the richest man around, but he was used and is now being stripped of an exalted place in world politics — after doing dirty work that has taken a big toll on his companies. He was hustled by a man who has overseen five business bankruptcies — six if you count Trump Entertainment Resorts, which went bankrupt twice.

Thanks in good part to Musk's money, Trump was put in a position to amass millions in crypto, and engage in more grift and perhaps old-fashioned corruption. And Musk got "poorer."

Musk has an estimated $330 billion left, so no tears for him. But his legend has been sharply marked down. He's now a figure of both hate and ridicule. What a sad combination.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

First Family? The Trumps Are Much More Like A Mafia Family

First Family? The Trumps Are Much More Like A Mafia Family

Donald Trump's defenders have taken great offense to suspicions by Democrats and others that the Trump family and its close circle are doing insider trading to profit from market convulsions. There's no "proof," they say.

It's true that there's been no proof so far, but there's surely enough smoke to warrant an investigation. Problem is, the Trump administration has fired the investigators or replaced them with people who won't investigate. To quote a Wall Street Journal headline, "Trump Administration Retreats from White-Collar Criminal Enforcement."

Whence comes the smoke? For starters, it comes from the total lack of consistency in Trump's pronouncements on tariffs. The administration on Friday announced that iPhones, laptops and other tech products would be exempt from the "so-called reciprocal tariffs" against China that run as high as 145%, the Journal noted. "But on Sunday morning Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said tariffs on electronic goods would go up again in the future."

See the game? When Trump announces new tariffs, stock prices crater. When he announces a retreat, the indices soar. To keep the game going, there always must be the threat of a reversal that would send the markets in another direction. And how nice it would be to become one of the insiders who get a heads-up right before announcements are made.

But one investment that stopped jumping at every hint of trade sanity: U.S. Treasury securities. Once considered the world's safest place to keep money at times of economic stress, the world's investors are moving out of U.S. government bonds. They now see America as an increasingly unstable country no longer governed by the old rules of capitalism but by crony and family interests. And extortion.

If you don't deliver a bag of gold for my inauguration, I might hurt your business. Or, you could also pay Melania an outlandish $40 million for her documentary, Jeff Bezos, and I'll be nice to Amazon. You could also buy my crypto.

Wall Street Journal, thank you again for yet another headline: "Trump's $1 Billion Law Firm Deals Are the Work of His Personal Lawyer." That would be Boris Epshteyn, indicted in Arizona for trying to overturn Trump's 2020 election loss in that state. And he has pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in a bar.

Epshteyn doesn't work for the government. He doesn't even have a government email address. But he's been shaking down law firms deemed opposed to the Trump agenda for pro bono, that is, free, work. On Friday alone, five law firms submitted and agreed to hand over about $600 million in legal services, gratis. Several law firms have hired Trump-friendly lobbyists.

Others, however, have resisted the intimidation. Law firms have every right to represent clients opposed to actions by the Trump or any other administration.

"But what about Hunter's laptop?" some will ask. Don't even try that.

Observe Trump's mafia-style locutions, like, "You can do it the easy way, or you can do it the hard way." Or, "These countries are kissing my ass." It's important in the mob mentality that extortion be blatant.

Astounding how the MAGA right accuses anyone they disagree with of being a "socialist" and then throws into the dumpster the guardrails and respect for impersonal decisions that help capitalism function.

Four years ago, Trump called crypto "a scam." He told Fox News that he objected to crypto because it competes with the U.S. dollar. But Trump has a long history of regarding a scam as an opportunity. Trump is now deregulating crypto as his family goes into everything from bitcoin mining to stablecoins.

The people's business has been given over to a family's business. Small wonder that the free world is bailing out of America.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

FEMA

Blue States That Finance Government Need Less Federal Help

"Move it back to the states," Donald Trump says about education, about FEMA and, as will probably happen, about Medicaid. What that would mean to Americans depends on what state they live in. As the federal government moves forward on this, it's a good bet that high-income states can handle the changes better than low-income ones.

Yes, it's true: Taxpayers in high-income states, largely blue ones, have been subsidizing residents of less wealthy red states.

A few years ago, there was an interesting feud between Joe Manchin, senator from West Virginia, and Mikie Sherrill, who represents a well-heeled congressional district in New Jersey. Funds for a federal child care subsidy were to be cut, and Manchin wanted the plan rejiggered to send a bigger chunk to the many low-income families of West Virginia. That would have meant less help for suburban parents in New Jersey.

Sherrill responded: "New Jersey already pays more than $10 billion in taxes than we receive in federal spending, and I will not let another federal program pay less to New Jersey taxpayers than it does to all other Americans."

According to Trump's vision of New Federalism, services provided by the federal government would be better handled by states. But the bills for these services would also largely go to the states. Obviously, states with high incomes and high taxes are better equipped to replace Washington dollars.

Florida may have attracted a lot of rich people seeking low taxes, but if the Federal Emergency Management Agency stopped showering money for hurricane relief every time a big blow tears up the coastline — forcing Floridians to bear more of the cost — well, good luck with that.

FEMA's core principle for disaster relief has been "locally executed, state managed and federally supported." Home insurance costs have already skyrocketed in Florida. Add to that the economic fallout of making the people living there pay more for building back?

Public schools are mostly funded by state and local taxpayers. The Department of Education does give money to schools with high percentages of low-income students, many in rural areas, and pays for special education. Over 23% of Mississippi's school district revenue comes from federal funding. By contrast, the feds account for only about 7% of New York state's.

Meanwhile, look at outcomes. The top state for test scores is Massachusetts, followed by New Jersey, Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York. These states would probably do OK without a Department of Education.

The House budget resolution targets cuts to Medicaid of up to $880 billion or more over 10 years. Medicaid is jointly financed by states and the federal government but administered by the states. If a state wants to make up for lost Medicaid funds, it can raise taxes. Or it could cover fewer people, cut benefits or pay doctors less.

Despite a much-publicized movement of rich people from high-tax places like New York and California to lower-tax Florida and Texas, the big money has largely remained in the urban centers where it was originally made.

"The Ultra-Rich are Flourishing and Sticking Around in California," Bloomberg News reports. Despite mesospheric housing prices, some corporate departures and high taxes, Bloomberg writes, "it remains one of the most popular places for global wealth."

And the state is run by Democrats. Texas may be a red state, but its economic engines are the blue cities of Austin, Dallas and Houston.

Trump's 2017 tax cuts overwhelmingly went to the upper incomes. Extending them now would do more of the same. Where do those upper incomes live? (See above.)

I may be the thousandth pundit to note that Trump-o-nomics hurts working people most, that is, his voters. What can you say except that elections have consequences.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

MAGA Oligarchs Using 'Friction Theory' To Ruin Social Security

MAGA Oligarchs Using 'Friction Theory' To Ruin Social Security

Thomas Jefferson referred to the U.S. government as a "common house" that provided the people protection and stability. Donald Trump is trying to evict Americans from that comfy home by making it hard to get benefits that should be thought of as a right.

Witness the slashing of basic government services in the name of deficit reduction, or more accurately, paying for tax cuts. Elon Musk's rash firings are about more than saving taxpayers money on salaries and office rent. It's about frustrating Americans trying to obtain benefits to the point that they give up.

In economics, "friction theory" describes how governments (or other institutions) put into place unnecessary complexity, bureaucratic hurdles, or inefficiencies to discourage the public from accessing services. This can take the form of complex paperwork, or limited hours of operation to reduce demand.

It's no accident that Musk is cannibalizing the workforces that administer such benefits as Social Security and Medicaid. These are people we sometimes must talk to.

Trump started applying the friction theory in his first term to undermine the Affordable Care Act. Its purpose was to steer away the younger and healthy beneficiaries needed for a stable insurance pool.

He shortened the annual ACA enrollment period and slashed its advertising budget by 90%. He cut funding for the navigators who helped folks understand the ACA program and how to enroll in it.

He employed other means to dismantle the program. The tax cut legislation effectively repealed the "individual mandate" requiring most Americans to have health coverage or pay a penalty. By removing the penalty, fewer healthy people bought coverage. The result was higher ACA marketplace premiums to cover a riskier pool of beneficiaries.

Trump also expanded access to short-term plans that didn't have to meet basic ACA requirements, such as covering preexisting conditions. Many people opted for these cheaper plans, again leaving the ACA marketplaces burdened with a sicker population.

Unable to bankrupt the ACA, Trump then tried to kill the program outright and almost succeeded. Time to try again.

The ACA expanded access to Medicaid. Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a second Trump term, calls for stricter eligibility standards to decrease enrollment in Medicaid and place limits on lifetime benefits. What Project 2025 wants, Project 2025 seems to be getting.

As for the Social Security Administration, Musk's mass layoffs insert friction into the process of getting information about benefits or fixing problems. That has resulted in limited phone-based services and the shutting of local offices providing in-person assistance. The Social Security website has crashed four times in 10 days this month so far.

The MAGA slumlords now portray Social Security not as the earned benefit it is but as some kind of racket. Consider Musk's fake claims about armies of long-dead Americans still collecting benefits. And he calls Social Security a "Ponzi scheme."

Social Security faces financing challenges, but the benefits come out of taxes paid by the workers and their employers. What's not distributed to beneficiaries gets invested in securities backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

Our new commerce secretary broke new ground in portraying those claiming a missed Social Security check or incorrect payment as likely criminals. I quote Howard Lutnick:

"A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming, yelling and complaining. ... The easiest way to find the fraudster is to stop payments and listen, because whoever screams is the one stealing."

Face it. The knives are out to destroy Americans' confidence in the government services that made their national house feel like home. The goal of the MAGA slumlords is to get the public to curse the program and, most importantly, go away. Frustration is their weapon.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.