Joe Biden projects a calm, moderate demeanor. He is aided by a lifetime spent in Washington, an acquiescent media, and the marked contrast with Donald Trump’s volatility.
While Trump’s outsize personality attracted constant media attention and caused his critics and admirers to overestimate the significance of his policies, Biden’s aides have adopted an intentionally understated approach designed to induce complacency. Bill Clinton negotiated with congressional Republicans to enact many of his most important domestic bills, triangulating between the two parties to find a third way. Barack Obama resorted to executive actions and largely failed to pass major legislation after he lost control of Congress.
Biden’s apparent takeaway from his predecessors is that Democrats were not aggressive enough at the beginning of their terms when they had the majority and the political capital to enact their agenda. He is determined not to repeat that mistake, and the result is aggressive liberalism playing offense. A more confident conservatism, building on its domestic economic and foreign policy successes in the 1980s, continued to exert its influence even when Democrats occupied the White House. Bill Clinton famously declared, “The era of big government is over,” recalling Reagan’s declaration, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Clinton negotiated and signed the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which included reductions in Medicare’s growth rate and amended Medicaid to allow lower provider rates.
Even Obama felt the need to include reductions in Medicare rates to partially offset spending in the Affordable Care Act, and negotiated the Budget Control Act, and its caps on spending and automatic sequestration cuts, after he lost his congressional majorities. Whereas the BBA, along with the dot-com bubble, helped produce temporary federal budget surpluses, today’s Democrats recently enacted a $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill and routinely ignore pay-as-you-go rules…
Read More: Washington Examiner
In post-Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana built a system that serves the needs of students, not adults.
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought into focus a stark choice: Will we respond to the enormous disruption of schools by rethinking education, or will we double down on an outdated industrial-age system created to prepare kids for the last century?
New Orleans faced a similar dilemma after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. Louisiana’s Legislature had in 2003 created a Recovery School District to turn around failing schools, but the storm’s devastation accelerated the process. The RSD was responsible for dozens of schools, which became charter schools. Students were freed from traditional attendance zones and allowed to pick their schools. Thousands of teachers were asked to reapply for their positions.
Louisiana in subsequent years allowed funding to follow the student, but the most effective way to improve student performance, which correlates with higher lifetime earnings and better socioeconomic outcomes, is great teaching. Louisiana reformed its teacher compensation and tenure laws, tying them to student outcomes as part of an effort to reward great teachers.
New Orleans recently became the first major city where all public-school students attend charter schools. Graduation and retention rates and student test scores increased; 62% of students attended the state’s lowest-performing schools (F-grade) in 2004-05, but that share fell to 8% by 2018. To help disadvantaged students narrow the achievement gap, some New Orleans schools adopted a competency-based approach to learning as opposed to one based on seat time. Others formed partnerships with Teach for America and hired teachers with nontraditional backgrounds. Some schools offered specialized curricula focusing on math and science…
Read More: WSJ.com
It is no secret our postsecondary institutions have floundered during the pandemic. In October of 2020, researchers confirmed that disruptions caused by the pandemic have impacted college access, with more than 40 percent of U.S. households canceling all their plans for community college and more than 15 percent of households canceling plans for four-year schooling. Without a college education, America’s low-income students, especially students of color, are more likely to be locked out of high-quality and in-demand programs that lead to stable, high-demand job opportunities.
Postsecondary education in America has not made the shifts it needs to prepare students for the rapid changes in the economy and society, which is why we are at risk of a new equity crisis from this pandemic. Before the pandemic, only 51 percent of Americans saw college as very important despite its clear positive impact on the lifetime earnings of college graduates. Students have cited costs, length of programs, and personal constraints as challenges to obtaining a college degree. The higher education sector needs to evolve to meet these students’ needs, as non-traditional postsecondary opportunities help students join a rapidly changing, skill-based workforce…
Read More: The Hill
The last year has been undeniably challenging for communities across the United States, leaving families and businesses reeling from an unprecedented one-two punch of health and economic hardships. Add to that the recent widespread power and drinking water failures that affected millions of people in the midst of extreme winter weather, and it is clear why a transformative investment in infrastructure should be a top priority for members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, in the months ahead.
Not only will enacting an ambitious infrastructure plan help keep people safe from the type of dangerous systemic breakdowns we have seen across the country, it will also help rebuild, grow, and strengthen our country’s middle class for years to come. As more people get vaccinated and we plot a path to post-pandemic prosperity, investing in our nation’s critical infrastructure will create the incentives needed to get people back to work now, and it will equip our economy for long-term economic growth and dominance on the world stage…
Read More: Washington Examiner
Democrats’ idyllic version of freedom is actually hedonism – the natural result of what happens when an entire movement becomes radically secularized.
When fascism comes to America, it will not be at the point of a gun.
It won’t be installed by CPAC’s favorite 2024 candidate, ridiculous QAnon conspirators, or the destitute MAGA supporters who trashed the U.S. Capitol on January 6. When authoritarianism comes, it will not accompany white supremacists, conspiracy theorists with horned and furry hats, or a frustrated working-class that has seen its dreams evaporate with its jobs.
New authoritarianism will come not through armed insurrection, but as a cure, in a bottle of candy-flavored medicine. It is the noble motive that drugs us, puts us to sleep, while government power over our lives grows. It sneaks in behind a great social purpose. It will be prescribed by the left as they promise to protect us from every evil, real and imagined…
Read More: The Federalist
Since his November loss, no one worked harder to get rid of Donald Trump than Donald Trump. Right up until the end, he was his own worst enemy. But though he left the White House under a dark cloud, facing a historic second impeachment, Trump has not been completely defeated. As long as he remains the exclusive representative of Trumpism, he will be the most popular Republican in the country. Unless the GOP creates an alternative version of Trumpism, without Trump, he’ll be back.
Trump was undone by his own predatory nature. His modus operandi was to always fight back and attack. If he did not, he was convinced, he would appear weak and lose anyway. That strategy worked for him—until it didn’t.
What limits did his adversaries imagine he would respect? Since he was sworn in, the media worked to delegitimize his presidency and his administration. Democrats weaponized the FBI and intelligence agencies for political purposes. The Left politicized the People’s House to impeach him and attempt to nullify the 2016 election. So, why not try to reverse the 2020 election?
When the courts ruled his concerns were insufficient to change the election’s results, Trump threw out a blizzard of numbers and court cases that didn’t add up. He incited his own voters with conspiracy theories and extra-constitutional notions. It was a reminder that “outside-the-box” thinking about our Constitution is never a good idea…
Read More: Washington Examiner
Facing a pandemic with historic health and economic consequences, a rising China, and domestic strife over rapidly changing race and gender norms, voters of all ideological backgrounds are looking for political leaders ready to fight for them.
Despite President Biden’s superficial calls for unity and bipartisan deal-making, his administration is already pushing the nation’s environmental, tax, spending, and regulatory policies sharply to the left. Biden is doing so via executive actions, legislation that can be passed on a party-line vote through the reconciliation process, and liberal appointments. Democratic voters see their party’s control over the White House and Congress and are demanding aggressive action. They have been agitated by a steady diet of grievances fed to them by a media convinced that Donald Trump posed an existential threat to American norms and democracy itself.
In turn, Republican voters are increasingly alarmed by the radical policies coming from Washington and their sudden loss of power. Rising Republican leaders, especially those looking to the next presidential election, must demonstrate to these voters they are ready and willing to fight for them. Unlike elections not so long ago, when George H.W. Bush promised a “kinder, gentler nation,” George W. Bush promised “compassionate conservatism,” and Bill Clinton promised to invest the “peace dividend,” today’s voters are looking for political warriors. America is no longer the world’s sole undisputed superpower. Today, peace abroad and prosperity at home do not seem as assured.
Voters have ironically often turned away from actual military heroes such as John McCain, Bob Dole, and George H.W. Bush. They want candidates promising to do political battle on their behalf. That means Republican leaders must project their constancy in the face of the expected media onslaught and express their willingness to suffer ridicule and personal sacrifice on behalf of their constituents. Even as they expect to be rewarded by voters with their loyal support. The question thus is not whether to fight but rather whom to fight…
Read More: Washington Examiner
Populist Republicans think Washington elites in both parties prioritize the needs of large corporations and capital investors
When Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said “now is not the time to worry about shrinking the deficit,” during fall negotiations with Congress over COVID-19 relief legislation, many Democrats predicted Republicans would claim that time had come again as soon as President Trump no longer occupied the White House.
Despite candidate Trump’s 2016 campaign promise to eliminate the national debt in eight years by growing the economy faster and eliminating wasteful spending, the nation’s borrowing increased by over $7 trillion during his term.
Just as congressional Republicans harnessed the fury of the Tea Party and forced spending caps on President Barack Obama after he spent trillions on economic stimulus measures and ObamaCare, they are now returning from their holiday from fiscal restraint to confront President-elect Joe Biden’s ambitious agenda. Yet, Biden faces a Republican Party transformed by Trump, giving the incoming Democratic president an opportunity to find common ground with the GOP’s populist branch…
Read More: Fox News
There’s no substitute for finding candidates who capture voters’ hearts. No, not even a 30-point plan.
It is tempting to treat elections as math problems, while ignoring the art required to assemble winning coalitions. Pollsters sort data along demographic groupings, data analysts dissect precinct-level trends, and ad makers consult focus groups to craft appealing messages. The result is policies designed to appeal to enough voters to win, presented by disciplined politicians in sound bites that are repeated relentlessly.
To win a primary, policies must appeal to chronic voters with strong single-issue preferences without turning off enough swing voters to lose the general election. Conservatives have to appeal to gun owners and evangelicals to win the primary, but take care not to alienate socially moderate suburban voters in the process. Liberals have to appeal to teacher unions, global-warming activists, pro-choice feminists and minorities to win the primary, but avoid losing fiscally moderate suburban voters in the general. This mechanical, calculating approach to politics is one reason voters discount political promises and the politicians who make them.
Donald Trump upended all this. He doesn’t carefully tailor his message or stick to tested and approved sound bites. His more straightforward, undisciplined approach elicits a visceral reaction from voters. Mr. Trump’s supporters are famously loyal, and his opponents suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Nobody is ambivalent about the president. He has his base’s trust precisely because he isn’t judicious with his words. While they often cringe at his demeanor, they trust him to say what he thinks…
Read More: WSJ
The party needs to spend the next few years doing more than opposing Medicare for All.
Republicans and Democrats in Washington are stalemated on health care. Republicans long campaigned on repealing the Affordable Care Act and won House and Senate seats on the issue in 2010 and later. Democrats flipped the script in 2018 and attacked Republicans for trying to undermine the law’s protections for pre-existing conditions. But for now at least, a President Biden will be unable to pass a “public option,” and Republicans will be unable to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The question the GOP ought to ponder is: What does it want to accomplish on health care?
Mr. Biden may make changes on the margins. He might expand ObamaCare by adding special enrollment periods, banning short-term health plans, automating enrollment for low-income beneficiaries in states that haven’t expanded Medicaid, or by making subsidies more generous. Republicans will likely continue challenging the law in court.
Opposition to ObamaCare and a single-payer health system kept Republicans united but unprepared to act when they controlled the White House, House and Senate in 2017. The GOP repealed the individual mandate penalty, health-insurance tax, medical-device tax and Cadillac tax, but the Affordable Care Act remains largely intact. Conservatives must now use their time to prepare, so they won’t be caught flat-footed next time they are in charge. Consider three questions: …
Read More: WSJ