Red States’ Economic Advantage
Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox, City Journal
The political and cultural war between red and blue America may not be settled in our lifetimes, but it’s clear which side is gaining ground in economic and demographic terms. In everything from new jobs—including new technology employment—fertility rates, population growth, and migration, it’s the red states that increasingly hold the advantage. 
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WHAT CAUSES BUDGET DEFICITS

LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATES

Men without work
Aparna Mathur and Nicholas Eberstadt | AEI video

The best way to fix Social Security
Alan D. Viard and Sita Nataraj Slavov | The Hill
Increasing Social Security’s progressivity by cutting benefits for well-off seniors is a reasonable way to address the program’s financial difficulties. But the details matter. Targeting benefits based on lifetime labor earnings would protect those in need while avoiding harmful economic effects.

https://www.nationalreview.com/author/victor-davis-hanson/

https://www.hoover.org/research/decline-unions-good-news?utm_source=Hoover+Daily+Report&utm_campaign=87b1127fa7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_28_05_25&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_21b1edff3c-87b1127fa7-72527561

Trump’s Vast Deregulatory Landscape Goes Unnoticed by Experts
Casey Mulligan, E21

The myriad deregulatory actions of the Trump administration are generating considerable cost savings, savings that even conservative critics of regulatory overreach are underestimating. Like the Grand Canyon, the vast scale of these deregulatory efforts (and their results) is hard to fathom. In just three years the administration has reversed hundreds of regulations, many of which drone on for hundreds of pages. And it’s done so without fear or favor. Many of the regulations reversed had been written and implemented at the behest of special interests, including large banks, trial lawyers, major health insurance companies, big tech companies, labor unions, and foreign drug manufacturers. Read more here.... (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

​MARK P. MILLS
Old Energy, New Boom
Digital traffic will fuel the next dramatic economic expansion—but digital machines need the reliable and affordable energy that only hydrocarbons can provide.

SETH BARRON
America Unraveled
Christopher Caldwell’s new book argues that, for the past half-century, the U.S. has been effectively living under two competing constitutional regimes.

​America Turns the Corner at Last by Conrad Black
National Review
January 24, 2020
http://www.conradmblack.com/1496/america-turns-the-corner-at-last

Winter 2019 Issue:  THE MIDDLE EAST JOURNAL

The Real Cost of Doubling the Minimum Wage
Jonathan Meer, E21
The New York Times’ editorial board recently added its voice to the chorus of calls for a $15 per hour federal minimum wage. The justifications include a grab-bag of unsupported claims including the notion that companies can simply pass along higher labor costs through prices—ignoring the effects that higher prices have on consumer purchases, which would then reduce the demand for the labor that produces those goods and services. The editorial also dismisses the possibility of firms substituting capital for labor through automation, ignoring the growing evidence that minimum wage increases lead to exactly such decisions. Read more here.... 

Tackling Our Retirement-Savings Crisis
Nicole Gelinas, City Journal

Fed’s Repo Market Fix Is No Fix at All
Jim Bianco, Bloomberg

Place and the pursuit of happiness, upward mobility, and the American dream
Ryan Streeter | Knight Foundation
When work, play, relationships, and leisure “hang together” in a community, people generally fare better by any economic or social measure we value.

The $1.4 trillion spending bill locks in a core Obamacare mistake
 Joseph Antos | AEIdeas
 The cascade of problems started by the Affordable Care Act’s failure to appropriate cost-sharing reduction payments can be resolved. Rather than locking in a jury-rigged work-around, the next Congress should adopt reforms that promote efficiency and fairness in the individual insurance market.

James Pethokoukis explains that the lowest-paid workers continue to experience faster wage growth than workers overall, which wasn’t the case in the first years of the post–Great Recession recovery. This can be credited more to the length of the US economic expansion, rather than state-level minimum wage increases.
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John Tamny 
https://www.amazon.com/Theyre-Both-Wrong-Frustrated-Independent-ebook/dp/B07WX1L3HP

ICOLE GELINAS
Municipal Master
Felix Rohatyn helped save New York—with some unintended consequences.
  ​

How Should the Senate Deal with an Unconstitutional Impeachment by the House?
by Alan M. Dershowitz 

No, the Economy is Not De-Materializing
Mark Mills, RealClearBooks

AEI

What does ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ mean?
Gary J. Schmitt and Joseph M. Bessette | American Enterprise Institute
Through an analysis of the text of the Constitution, the Constitutional Convention, the ratification debates, and British and American impeachment precedents, it is possible to reach a broad understanding of what constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Bill Barr’s Federalist Sequel
The attorney general channels Madison and Hamilton.

https://www.amazon.com/How-Public-Policy-Became-War/dp/0817922644/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=david+davenport&qid=1573349021&s=books&sr=1-

​2019 at the Front End of a Long-Term Fiscal Problem
James Capretta, RealClearPolicy
 
Deindustrialization Isn’t Just a Working-Class Problem
Anuska Jain & Samuel Hammond, The Bulwark

5 questions for Stian Westlake on how to handle the intangible economy
James Pethokoukis | AEIdeas

Trump’s unmet economic promises
Desmond Lachman | Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum

Maps of American restaurant quality
Stan Veuger and Daniel Shoag | AEIdeas

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/01/jobs-report-october-2019.html

MYRON MAGNET
The Court Moves Right
But judges have a lot of unlearning to do.
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MYRON MAGNET
The Administration’s First-String Team
Two of Trump’s top lieutenants have their eye on what’s crucial.

Trump's Economic Policies: An Assessment, Part II
by David R. Henderson via Defining Ideas
In this essay: What the president has done wrong. 

Issues 2020: The Trump Economy – Solid but Not the GOAT
Oren Cass, Manhattan Institute

America’s economy has experienced a long, gradual recovery from the Great Recession of 2007–09, which was the nation’s sharpest downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Certainly, conditions are better than 10 years ago, when the unemployment rate peaked at 10%. But in any business cycle, the peak looks better than the trough; more meaningful is a comparison across cycles, between one peak and another. In that context, America’s current economic performance remains disappointing. Read more here....

Pax Americana
by Michael R. Auslin via The Claremont Review of Books
For internationalists, institutionalists, and liberals of various sorts, the past two decades have uncomfortably proved the perceptiveness of Samuel Huntington’s 1996 jeremiad The Clash of Civilizations, itself a response to Francis Fukuyama’s 1992 article “The End of History” and subsequent book. Even if civilizations per se are not clashing, that an era of revived great-power competition threatens global stability is largely recognized as the great international relations challenge of this generation

Five pillars are key to understanding the main areas of debate about the nature and scope of administrative agency action: nondelegation, judicial deference, executive control of agencies, procedural rights, and agency dynamics. ​

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

The Battle of the Nile in 47 BC saw the combined Roman-Egyptian armies of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra VII defeat those of her rivals Queen Arsinoe IV and King Ptolemy XIII and secure the throne of Egypt. Here: Cleopatra and Caesar (1866). Painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. Public domain.

An early Persian internal war:  painting of Cyrus and Astyages by Jean Charles Nicaise Perrin. Public domain.

Michael E Vlahos of Johns Hopkins continues the discussion of a possible American civil war  — currently.
      The previous king used the national security apparatus to forward his own goals.  Marius had been Sulla’s old commander, were close friends.  In Rome: the sanctity of office; how Consuls were elected and served. Eventually, Sulla had to declare Marius an enemy of the State. Once the requirements were overturned, then everyone understood that it could be done again – which led to Caesar, and the end of the republic.  Red and Blue together have allowed impeachment to become a normative political tool. A huge mistake. Soon: the losing side will declare the winning side to be illegitimate.    In 2000, the Supreme Court decided who was president, which stopped that process. Now, however, the Court is no longer is in such high esteem. Current American process cannot be stopped because the gravity of the matter is not recognized; Blue thinks it's doing the right thing by pursuing its goals, which can in turn set in motion a most dangerous set of events.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulla%27s_first_civil_war

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/10/universities-breed-anger-ignorance-ingratitude/

The Little-Known Reform That Could Improve States’ Fiscal Health
Thurston Powers, E21
Many states across the nation are struggling with long-term financial liabilities. But not all liabilities are the same. Some are riskier than others. While we all intuitively know this, the way that the liabilities of state and local governments are reported often disguises and understates (or overstates) risks and costs. Presenting policymakers and the public with the range of potential outcomes could avert some fiscal crises. Read more here.... 

America and Strategies For The Future With George P. Shultz
by George P. Shultz via PolicyEd
Former Secretary of State George Shultz discusses the importance of strengthening our nation’s leadership, the impact other countries have on the United States, and the dangers of making empty threats.

A Note to Readers on Our 10th Anniversary
Yuval Levin | Editor in Chief, National Affairs
This edition of National Affairs, our 41st quarterly issue, marks the magazine’s 10th anniversary. This makes us still a young and fledgling enterprise. But it also offers a chance to reflect briefly on the work we have done and continue to do in an era of political uncertainty and change. 
Continue reading here. 

A new vision for health reform
Joseph Antos and Alice M. Rivlin | The Concord Coalition 
Health spending is the largest component of the federal budget and is expected to double over the next decade if left unchecked. A similar sharp increase is projected for consumers, employers, and state governments. Controlling costs will require a comprehensive approach that addresses the root causes of high spending. It must increase competitive pressures on health care prices, both from the demand and supply sides, allowing pressure from patients to help control costs. This paper details how to arm purchasers — consumers, physicians, insurers, employers, and the government — to make cost-effective decisions in a competitive market environment.

Improving the productivity of public services is a thankless but necessary endeavor
James C. Capretta | RealClearPolicy 
The administration would have more success restraining spending if it emphasized improving government productivity instead of eliminating functions and agencies that powerful factions in Congress support.

The personality of American power
Giselle Donnelly | The American Interest 
Challenges to America’s role abroad are more likely to lead to a strategic restoration than a realist revolution.

Rising economic productivity — blip or boom?
Bret Swanson | AEIdeas 
We are still a long way from fully transforming health care, education, manufacturing, transportation, food, retail, and other sectors into information industries.But we are now seeing the first breakout of productivity growth in more than a decade, suggesting we may be on the edge of a longer-term productivity revival.

To really determine who is poor in the US, count all antipoverty spending
Matt Weidinger | RealClearPolicy 
An improved count and an understanding of the efficacy of programs not included in the official poverty measure would help policymakers better judge whether and what additional changes are needed to help more Americans escape poverty.

Explaining US income inequality by household demographics, 2018 update 
Mark J. Perry | AEIdeas

STEVEN MALANGA 
Generous Motors No More
If the auto giant wants to keep jobs in the country, it can’t go back to offering rich benefits to union workers.

2019 Chart Book Examines Spending, Taxes, and Deficits
Brian Riedl, E21

The 2019 edition of my chart book examining the federal budget, spending, taxes, and deficits is now available. The 96-page book begins by broadly looking at the rising budget deficits and national debt, and then gradually dives deeper to show the policies driving the red ink. Next, it tallies the cost of candidate proposals to add more debt, and determines whether those costs can be offset by the proposed tax increases and defense cuts. Finally, the report examines trends in tax revenues and tax progressivity, common budget myths, and offers a full accounting of the fiscal records of Presidents Bush and Obama. Read more here....

2020 Vote Looks Like 1972 -- With No WatergateBy CONRAD BLACK, Special to the Sun | August 28, 2019
https://www.nysun.com/national/2020-vote-looks-like-1972-with-no-watergate/90809/

It is not too early to speculate on what the national political press, and especially the high-brow conservative Never Trumpers, are going to do after this president is comfortably reelected. The Washingtonp-New York-Los Angeles press threw everything they had against candidate Trump, nominee Trump, and the president, and they have lost everything they had.
All surveys show that their audience/readership is sinking and their commercial economics are shriveling, and no reasonable person can fail to be disgusted with the endless malicious slanders and distortions by the Lemons, Maddows, Scarboroughs, Blitzers.
Continue Reading

Victor Davis Hanson: What Could Sink Trump's Chances In 2020?
by Victor Davis Hanson via Fox News
What factors usually reelect or throw out incumbent presidents? The economy counts most. Recessions, or at least chronic economic pessimism, sink incumbents. Presidents Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush were tagged with sluggish growth, high unemployment and a sense of perceived stagnation — and were easily defeated.

 1619 and all that
 Giselle Donnelly | AEIdeas 
In our current confusion, a deeper dive into the origins of the American experience is well warranted, but there’s much more to those origins than is dreamed of in The New York Times’ philosophy. A closer inspection of the deep roots of our political culture is not an occasion for shame, but rather for appreciation.

The Costs of Medicare for All Are Rising Already
Charles Blahous, E21

After my study of the costs of Medicare for All (M4A) was published last July, a fierce debate erupted over whether M4A, while dramatically increasing the costs borne by federal taxpayers, might nevertheless reduce total U.S. health expenditures. Now, just one year after my findings, we have substantial additional evidence that M4A would further increase, not reduce, national health spending. To be clear, no one on either side of this debate questioned my central finding that M4A would increase federal costs by an unprecedented amount. Read more here....

Medicare reform can no longer be ignored: Warnings from the 2019 Medicare trustees report
Joseph Antos and Robert E. Moffit | AEI Economic Perspectives 
The latest annual Medicare trustees report highlights the program’s growing fiscal challenge and reflects policymakers’ ongoing failure to prepare Medicare for the future.

What Is an ‘Inverted Yield Curve’?
Erik Sherman, Fortune

A Star Is Born in the Battle Over Trump's Tax Returns
Editorial of The New York Sun | October 11, 2019
https://www.nysun.com/editorials/a-star-is-born-in-the-battle-over-trumps-tax/90866/

A star is born. The big news in appeals court ruling in the House's subpoena for President Trump's tax records is not that the court supports it, though that's no small thing. It's the dissent by the newly minted appeals judge on the D.C. Circuit, Neomi Rao. She reckons that the way House is going after Mr. Trump violates the constitutional prohibition against bills of attainder.
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How John Paul II and Ronald Reagan stopped mass murderers
Joseph Serwach
 Another long weekend, another mass murder. Seven were massacred in the latest rampage in West Texas rampage. It comes with the same, almost scripted reactions from all sides: punish my enemies, leave my supporters alone. Hearts aren’t changed. In the upcoming film, “The Divine Plan,’’ Ronald Reagan and St. John Paul teach today’s leaders a […]

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/return-balance-power-33877

Animated chart of the day: World’s top 10 manufacturing nations, 1970–2017 
Mark J. Perry | AEIdeas

• Industrial Policy and National Conservatism: A Debate
• Resolved: That America Should Adopt an Industrial Policy
• The True Costs of an Industrial Policy