Eye on the economy: Red States Drive Growth
The economy President Biden “likes to brag about is powered by Republican states,” observes the Boston Herald editorial team. “Economic warning signs abound” — persistent inflation, the “massive national debt,” the possibility of a recession. Yet “running for re-election demands economic happy talk,” so Biden is searching for good data points, such as the national earnings statistic, which jumped “an average of 5.4% between the first quarters of last year and this year.” Except Biden can’t claim much credit. What caused earnings growth? Red states. “Florida and Texas both outperformed California and New York in manufacturing, finance, information, retail and professional services.” Data shows that “blue states offer a cautionary tale to avoid,” while red states like “Florida and Texas offer the opposite.”
Climate Watch: ‘Boiling Earth’ = Utter Baloney
UN chief António Guterres’ declaration that the world is entering a state of “global boiling” is utterly ridiculous — “medieval sermonising” meant “to cajole us into compliance with the green narrative and its demands for sacrifice in everyday life,” fumes Spiked’s Brendan O’Neill. The media turned “Guterres’s commandment into frontpage news” with extraordinary speed, declaring our boiling planet a fact. But it’s not, and “we urgently need to throw the waters of reason on this delirious talk.” Guterres’ rhetoric is just “another ramping up of the green politics of fear. It’s the latest addition to the already fat dictionary of eco-dread” and part of climate warriors’ “arrogant crusade of emotional manipulation.”
Conservative: Student-Debt Forgiveness 2.0
“All the considerations that troubled Biden’s first debt-relief scheme bedevil” his “new approach,” argues Milton Ezrati at City Journal. The new plan, among other things, would lower the maximum payment to 5% of disposable income — and its costs “would likely exceed those of the original effort.” Yet “the economic, political, and social issues” with it are “unchanged from the effort that the Supreme Court just rejected.” Most notably: “The plan would force degreeless taxpayers to pay for other people to secure a credential that presumably increases their earning power.” Indeed, “far from correcting” the “ugly trend” of “rising higher-education costs that burden students, family savings, and taxpayers — to the benefit of university administrations and faculties” — the new “debt-relief plans extend and enlarge it.”
Culture critic: Dem Social Agenda’s Cost
Calif. Gov. Gavin Newsom, “as with other Democrats, may be taking his cultural crusade too far,” warns Joel Kotkin at UnHerd. Moves like pushing for “gender identity issues to be taught at grade school are exceptionally unpopular,” while opposition to letting biological men compete in women’s sports has only “grown over the last two years.” “Openly anti-Israel” ethnic studies programs in places like Los Angeles, which claim “Jews and other ethnic groups enjoy ‘white privilege,” is also “alienating” Jewish voters. Newsom and his party’s agenda “endangers” both his and other Dems’ “ascendancy,” turning off foreign-born citizens, who tend to be “more religious” and others, as the country grows “more culturally conservative.” All of which puts Democrats “in danger” of “weakening their prospects in the years ahead.”
Ed desk: School Choice’s Growing Popularity
“Many states have recently created or expanded school-choice programs, but are parents taking up the opportunity?” ask the editors at The Wall Street Journal. Though it’s still early, “data from several states should encourage lawmakers that robust offerings are in demand.” This year, Indiana saw “an increase of some 20% in its voucher program” and that was “before the state made vouchers nearly universal.” Florida and Arizona made their “education savings accounts, or ESAs, universal,” and one Florida group “awarded 268,221 income-based scholarships, up from 183,925 at the same time a year ago. Still, “many parents are unaware of the offerings in their states.” Generous ESAs that encourage “a variety of options to expand or open . . . with families choosing what works best for them” are the future of school choice.
Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
This story originally appeared on NYPost
