This another report that saddened me, this one by Jeff Cox at CNBC:
In an early sign of an intensified focus on trade, President Donald Trump said Monday that tariffs could be levied against Mexico and Canada as soon as early February.
“We’re thinking in terms of 25% (levies) on Mexico and Canada, because they’re allowing a vast number of people” over the border, Trump said. The president called Canada “a very bad abuser” and said a target date for the tariffs would be “I think Feb. 1”
The remarks were made to members of the press as the newly minted chief executive offered a slew of executive orders aimed at everything from regulations to free speech to immigration.
While it’s been no secret that Trump plans on implementing across-the-board duties on U.S. trading partners, the timing and extent has been in question. There had been some speculation that the tariffs could be delayed and might be targeted at certain essential items rather than being more broad-based.
In his remarks, Trump provided no further details on how and when the tariffs could come.
While I understand the idea of raising the ante, I don’t think that imposing tariffs on imports from Canada or Mexico is the way to do it. The main effect of that will be to raise consumer prices in the United States, a perverse outcome. A lot of those imports are oil.
China is a special case. A Pigouvian tax in the form of a tariff is an appropriate remedy. Canada and Mexico not so much.
WASHINGTON, Jan 20 (Reuters) – Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading refugee resettlement advocate said on Monday.
The group includes unaccompanied minors awaiting reunification with their families in the U.S. as well as Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution because they fought for the former U.S.-backed Afghan government, said Shawn VanDiver, head of the #AfghanEvac coalition of U.S. veterans and advocacy groups and the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
I have been predicting this for some time. Phony refugee claims poison the well for legitimate ones and screen Afghan claims certainly sound legitimate to me.
I haven’t looked at all of President Trump’s executive orders yet but I did want to comment on a few that look controversial. The first of these is his granting pardons to individuals convicted of offenses committed on January 6, 2021 in or near the Capitol. Although some of those pardons may be warranted, I have already expressed my opinion of blanket pardons—I’m against them and that doesn’t matter which president is granting them. I suspect that some people are being granted pardons who don’t merit them.
Perhaps the most controversial is President Trump’s executive order purporting to end the birthright citizenship provisions of the 14th Amendment:
The Fourteenth Amendment has always excluded from birthright citizenship persons who were born in the United States but not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.” Consistent with this understanding, the Congress has further specified through legislation that “a person born in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is a national and citizen of the United States at birth, 8 U.S.C. 1401, generally mirroring the Fourteenth Amendment’s text.
Among the categories of individuals born in the United States and not subject to the jurisdiction thereof, the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States: (1) when that person’s mother was unlawfully present in the United States and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth, or (2) when that person’s mother’s presence in the United States at the time of said person’s birth was lawful but temporary (such as, but not limited to, visiting the United States under the auspices of the Visa Waiver Program or visiting on a student, work, or tourist visa) and the father was not a United States citizen or lawful permanent resident at the time of said person’s birth.
I think that eliminating so-called “birth tourism” (the second item above) is correct and within the meaning of the amendment. It is my understanding that the other declaration has already been brought to the court’s attention. It’s an interesting theory but I suspect the courts will not uphold it.
In addition, the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the United States, far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments. China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300 percent of the population of the United States, yet contributes nearly 90 percent less to the WHO.
I’m not so sure about the math, either the WHO’s or the White House’s. Here’s what Statista says were the relative assessments in 2022: You will find more infographics at Statista
I don’t know what our 2024 assessment was or whether we paid it. I think it’s reasonable to ask whether we’re getting value for our money but IMO withdrawal from the organization is an extreme step.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s Department of Government Efficiency launches today. While I’m asking questions what do you expect to be the consequences of the DOGE once the dust has settled?
I’ve got two predictions:
Its proposals will result in some cuts.
The total amount of the cuts will be less than 10% of what they have predicted.
To jog your memories they have promised $2 trillion in budget cutbacks.
WASHINGTON—President Biden issued pre-emptive pardons for officials who have clashed with President-elect Donald Trump along with members of his family, including his three siblings, using his final hours in the White House to help people he fears could face retribution by the incoming administration.
The White House said the president had issued pardons for retired Gen. Mark Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci and members and staff of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, as well as police officers who testified before the committee.
In the waning minutes of his presidency—in a statement released as Biden was attending Trump’s inauguration—the White House said the outgoing president had pardoned his sister, Valerie Biden Owens, and her husband John T. Owens, and his two brothers, James B. Biden and Francis W. Biden, along with James Biden’s spouse, Sara Jones Biden.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said.
Last year, Biden issued a surprise pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, wiping away criminal convictions on tax and gun charges, and drawing bipartisan criticism.
The decision to grant the pardons represents an extraordinary move by an outgoing president to shield family members and allies from an incoming administration, which critics warned could set a new precedent for the use of presidential power. While past presidents have issued controversial pardons to protect allies and donors, Biden’s moves were unprecedented in sweep.
There’s a downside for them in the preemptive pardons: they won’t be able to plead the Fifth Amendment if subpoenaed to testify.
Over the last four years, President Biden supported the investment of billions of dollars of taxpayer money in infrastructure—and, in particular, high-tech green energy infrastructure such as high-speed rail, rural broadband, and electric vehicle charging stations.
And what happened was: He didn’t build that.
The money was authorized, but the projects didn’t come to completion. As Politico reported last month in an overview of Biden’s signature green energy infrastructure projects, “a $42 billion expansion of broadband internet service has yet to connect a single household. Bureaucratic haggling, equipment shortages and logistical challenges mean a $7.5 billion effort to install electric vehicle chargers from coast to coast has so far yielded just 47 stations in 15 states.” According to Politico, Congress authorized more than $1 trillion in spending for Biden’s major climate, clean energy, and infrastructure programs, but more than half of it “has yet to be obligated or is not yet available for agencies to spend.” Many of the big projects that received either subsidies or tax breaks under Biden are still essentially imaginary, and some may not happen at all, depending on what President-elect Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress choose to pursue.
Even projects that Biden himself is personally invested in haven’t paid off: Biden has long subscribed to a romantic fantasy of passenger rail, and his administration sent more than $3 billion to further fund California’s long-delayed high-speed rail system. The rail project was supposed to connect Los Angeles with San Francisco, but it’s currently years behind schedule and $100 billion over budget—and is now struggling to complete a much shorter, much less useful line between Merced and Bakersville, which are not exactly global economic hubs. There is currently no completion date, or really any actionable plan at all, to actually connect L.A. and San Francisco. Biden threw billions at a worthless project, and America got nothing for it.
Mr. Suderman contrasts that performance with that of the private sector:
The contrast with the private sector is revealing. The most notable train project in the United States during Biden’s tenure wasn’t California’s doomed high-speed rail, or some Amtrak upgrade that justified the billions this administration sent their way, but the Brightline in Florida. For sheer wow factor, the biggest engineering project of the Biden tenure was almost certainly SpaceX’s reusable rocket catch. Yes, SpaceX has significant business with the government, but it’s fundamentally a private enterprise, operating with private goals and direction. America can still build big things. But Biden’s top-down, bureaucratic approach has failed to do so.
I’ve already provided my explanation of why the United States is realizing so little in the way of outputs from the inputs the federal government is providing: it’s the spending that’s important to those arguing for these expenditures and those administering them not the results.
The spending alone may be sufficient for the bureaucrats and advocates of these programs but the country actually needs material results. Once upon a time the United States was able to complete major projects like these on a timely basis. Have we lost that ability or is it just the desire that we have lost?
It is my opinion that China’s leadership is smarter than ours. That’s no accident. It is a factor of the differences in our respective political systems, cultures, and languages. The Chinese leadership is showing that intelligence in increasing their exports to the “Global South” as David Goldman points out in his piece at Asia Times:
China’s exports grew 10.7% year-on-year in December, outpacing November’s 6.7% gain and beating analyst forecast of 7.3% growth.
Restocking in anticipation of tariffs accounted for a small part of the gain, but the main driver of Chinese exports remains the Global South, especially to countries where China is building infrastructure. China’s exports to the Global South exceeded its shipments to all developed markets in 2023, and the shift toward the developing world continues.
Consider as example the balances of trade between China and Nigeria or China and Ghana. That’s certainly good for consumers in those countries but I suspect it will be disastrous for their economic development. Japan, South Korea, and China didn’t import their way escaping poverty.
One wonders how things would have turned out for Biden and his party, if Biden had not taken his fateful turn to the progressive left and their priorities. Perhaps the Democrats—and the country—would be in much better shape. We’ll never know.
I do not believe that the Democratic leadership is using the same yardstick as Mr. Teixeira is. Based on their yardstick the Biden presidency was a great success and voters who did not vote for Harris simply did not know what was good for them.
That is further borne out by the U. S. track record on the things that government does. We spend more per individual covered on healthcare for the elderly, more per student educating the young, defense per capita, more per mile of road or foot of bridge than other OECD major economies. That suggests that as far as our government is concerned the accompolishing the putative objectives is less important than the spending.
I suspect that Will Marshall is barking up the wrong tree in his piece at The Hill urging Democrats to formulate their own plan for making government more effective and efficient:
But before Democrats dismiss the DOGE as just more MAGA trollery, it’s fair to ask — where’s their plan for making government more efficient and effective?
Inexplicably, that plank is missing from the platform of the party that believes in active government.
It’s not exactly breaking news that Americans have very low confidence in the government’s problem-solving abilities. Such low esteem grows out of a myriad of frustrating citizen interactions with public institutions of all kinds — schools, social service providers, public health systems; police and courts; local licensing and permitting boards as well as distant federal bureaucracies.
Especially skeptical are non-college voters. They believe Washington serves the interests and ideological passions of highly educated elites, not ordinary working people like them.
This helps to explain why Bidenomics failed to land with working Americans. In fact, White House bragging about “delivering” big spending bills likely intensified their skepticism, since tangible benefits were slow to materialize while soaring prices cut deeply into family budgets.
Democrats would be wise to resurrect one of Bill Clinton’s best ideas — reinventing government — and make it a centerpiece of a new strategy for winning back working Americans.
I doubt that the Democratic leadership will rise to Mr. Marshall’s challenge for a simple reason: they don’t see government in the same way as he does.
There are lots of different ways of viewing the role of government. You can see it through a Keynesian prism—the spender of last resort or you can see it as a device for accomplishing things that the private sector can’t or won’t do—my preferred outlook.
I think the Democratic leadership sees government as an employer. Consider the Government Accounting Office’s (GAO) assessment of grant recipients under Biden:
The numbers of federal contractors and federal employees have similarly soared. Further evidence is the way the average federal wage has outstripped the average private sector wage.
Judged by that yardstick the Biden presidency has been a roaring success.
