A ‘current policy’ budget baseline would have disastrous consequences

April 2, 2025April 2, 2025 Congressional Budget Office, News, Opinion

Some Republicans in Congress have proposed changing the budget reconciliation process to begin using a “current policy” baseline that ignores expirations under law, instead of the traditional “current law” baseline.

This would be a serious act of fiscal irresponsibility, making it easier for either party to circumvent important budgetary guardrails, thereby accelerating the growth of our national debt by many trillions for years to come.

The Hill

Read More

The White House’s mixed message on its tariff policy

April 1, 2025April 1, 2025 Donald Trump, NAFTA, News, Opinion

The laws of economics can be frustratingly inconvenient, especially in Washington. To many lawmakers, the fundamental principles of economics are neither fundamental nor even principles: They are tools to be bent, warped, and manipulated or outright ignored in order to yield up the answers those lawmakers want.

So it is that Democrats love to argue that raising taxes on things automatically yields more tax revenue for the government. They would have you believe that...

Cutting Medicaid would force even more hospitals to close

March 31, 2025March 31, 2025 healthcare, News, Opinion

How much austerity can our hospitals take? It’s a frightening question — and Congress is threatening to find out the answer.

America’s health care infrastructure is shrinking. Since 2018, more than 100 hospitals have closed across the U.S. When hospitals close, doctor visits go down, death rates go up and job losses are severe.

Now, Republicans in Congress are threatening to slash the Medicaid budget, which would strip even more hospitals of desperately needed fundin...

Trump and Musk are targeting Social Security, and you should worry

March 31, 2025March 31, 2025 News, Opinion

The most tone-deaf moment in recent politics arrived last week. In a podcast interview, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick — worth over $1 billion — said of old people on Social Security, “If Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month, my 94-year-old mother-in-law wouldn’t complain. She’d think something got messed up and she’d get it next month. A fraudster always makes the loudest noise, screaming and yelling. Anybody who knows payments knows you stop th...

Congress must stop Biden’s VA mortgage bailout — before it’s too late

March 29, 2025March 28, 2025 News, Opinion

We are now witnessing an outcry from Democrats, loan servicers and the media over the prospect of Congress scaling back the Department of Veterans Affairs's new mortgage bailout program, the Veterans Affairs Servicing Purchase program. If the program is curtailed as proposed by Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wisc.), they warn, tens of thousands of veterans — perhaps as many as 80,000 — will lose their homes.

But the reality is quite different and far more dangerous. Left unc...

Wisconsin’s high-stakes Supreme Court election is a referendum on Trump

March 25, 2025March 25, 2025 News, Opinion

On Apr. 1, Wisconsin voters will elect a new state Supreme Court justice. Normally, such news would be met with a yawn, but not this year — the campaign has already made national news and drawn the attention of people from around the country

The Wisconsin election could be one of American history's most important judicial elections, and one of the most expensive. And, as has been the trend in recent decades in America, this one has turned nasty, full of what one spokesman ter...

The Republican plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025 congress, Donald Trump, healthcare, News, Opinion, republican-party

Everyone is talking about Republicans' proposed Medicaid cuts, but hardly anyone is calling this what it really is: the strategy by Elon Musk, President Trump, and the Republican Party to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, one piece at a time.

The ACA, a historic piece of legislation that extended health coverage to millions of Americans, celebrated its 15th anniversary on March 23. Signed by President Barack Obama in 2010, the ACA expanded Medicaid and provided subsidies so t...

Trump won’t like what happens if Canada becomes our 51st state

March 23, 2025March 21, 2025 News, Opinion

President Trump wants to annex Canada and make it America’s 51st state. If he gets his way, here are just a few of the possible “unintended consequences.”

We currently have 50 states that divide up 435 congressional representatives. California, our largest state, has over 39 million people with 52 seats in the House of Representatives. Canada has 41 million people. If Canada were to become a state, Congress would have to add about 54 new House members to represent ...

Autism, ADHD and transgenderism: America’s epidemic of fake medical news

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025 healthcare, News, Opinion

America’s health care system is a mess. Its incentives are costing the U.S. a fortune, both in cold hard cash and in real damage to human health. Nowhere is this more pernicious than in children’s health: The rise in autism, ADHD and transgender diagnoses appears to be driven by profit motive taking advantage of social pathologies.

While the capitalist, free-market system is superior to any socialist or single-payer system in promoting innovation and matching supply...

The impact on US elections if Canada and Greenland were states

March 18, 2025March 18, 2025 News, Opinion

President Trump keeps threatening to make Canada the 51st state and also buy Greenland, presumably making that country either a territory or a state. The possibility of either occurring is virtually zero, and that’s a good thing for Republicans. Because while Trump and his MAGA supporters may not realize it, giving those countries the vote would likely send the GOP to the political sidelines.

We’ve seen this movie before. Advocates have been working for years to give statehoo...