Life, Liberty, Property #53: message from the real America is that crime is rampant and Bidenomics isn’t working.
by S.T. Karnick
IN THIS ISSUE:
- Message from the Real America
- Big School Choice Victory in Texas Primary Elections
- Dems Get Spending Hikes, Republicans Get Steamrolled
- Argentina Achieves Budget Surplus
- Cartoon
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Message from the Real America
I did not recognize the America that President Joe Biden described in his State of the Union address on Thursday. “In thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told” [sic], Biden said. Presumably Biden meant “ever” told, given that he has been braying about this supposed American renaissance almost since the day he took office.
“It’s because of you, America is coming back!” Biden declared. “It’s because of you, our future is brighter! And it’s because of you that tonight we can proudly say the State of our Union is strong and getting stronger!”
That’s not the America I and most Americans see. Unlike Biden and our other amazingly out-of-touch elites, Americans are very worried about crime, the astounding increase in illegal immigration under Biden, the number of homeless people in major cities, the supposedly fabulous economy, the current state of moral values in the United States, and many other issues.
The public is right, and the elites are wrong. The most significant trend in government in the United States in the 21st century has been the transition from normal incompetence to the direct creation of disasters. As governments on all levels have taken on more and more power in an ever-intensifying effort to control everyone and everything, the quality of life has declined precipitously.
Among the most vivid examples of this collapse into chaos are, of course, big cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Seattle, and Portland, which have become absolute hellscapes.
Crime is rampant in these places; homelessness is endemic; mentally disturbed people are living in appalling conditions on the streets and leaving unsightly, horrific-smelling detritus everywhere; drug abusers are self-medicating themselves into oblivion on the streets and sidewalks and in doorways, alleys, and public parks and, increasingly, on private property; commuters and pedestrians are regularly subjected to random violent attacks, often fatally; streets are in disrepair and traffic a nightmare; abandoned buildings are left standing to attract drug users and others that occupy them illegally and spread crime; children are not taught the three R’s or anything else that might help prepare them to thrive in adulthood; and so much more is wrong in communities all across the nation.
In some cases, it is perhaps plausible to claim that these disgraceful conditions result from government incompetence and misplaced idealism—as seen in the dreadful consequences of drug decriminalization and the closing of mental hospitals that began way back in the 1960s, which have combined to cast a vast number of people into the streets without any way of taking care of themselves and who resolutely refuse the attempts of others to help them. One might argue that these problems result from misplaced sympathy and the failure of the expected solutions to arrive—such as drug prevention programs and small-scale mental health treatment facilities.
Even in those cases, however, the idealists must bear full responsibility for the problems their policies created. The drug treatment facilities failed to end addiction because they are of little to no use unless the addicts want to quit, which is not what addicts generally desire. Those who posited that utopian solution to drug abuse were amply warned by far more practical people that voluntary drug treatment would not work without the prospect of incarceration. They went ahead anyway, creating disaster for the addicts and the public. Meanwhile, the promised small-scale mental health treatment facilities never happened because they proved far too expensive to build and maintain, and the mentally ill were cast into the streets with the drug addicts.
Many other policies behind the grim horror show that is contemporary American life are equally difficult to present convincingly as well-meant.
There are now signs, however, that things have gotten so bad that the people who voted for the geniuses behind these policies are deciding that they have suffered enough and are willing to try some common sense instead, and some politicians are starting to listen.
Voters in San Francisco last week engaged in a “revolt against wokeness on public safety and other issues,” as the New York Post put it, passing “four ballot proposals restoring common sense in policing, welfare-type benefits, government ethics and education”:
In a rebuke to the #Defund crowd, one measure sets a minimum size for police staffing, lets cops chase suspects even when they can’t cite an immediate threat to public safety—and even OKs public-safety cameras that use facial-recognition tech as well as police drones.
Another requires drug testing of those who get city help on housing (shelters included), utility bills, food or finding employment.
A third tightens rules on when city employees can accept gifts; the fourth guarantees the offering of Algebra I in 8th grade—overruling with 84% voter support a woke ban on the course imposed in the name of racial “equity.”
On the opposite coast, Kathy Hochul, the hard-left governor of New York, called out more than 1,000 National Guard and state police personnel last week to patrol the New York City subways, after crime in the city rose by a startling 45 percent in January and numerous high-profile incidents on the subways spread terror among the city’s commuters.
A few days before that, the Oregon Legislative Assembly passed a bill reversing the state’s decriminalization of certain addictive drugs, which was established by a public referendum in 2020. (I think we know what those voters were smoking.) Exacerbated by the defunding of police, Portland in particular has been plagued by a severe deterioration of the quality of life in public spaces that has contributed to the city suffering one of the fastest population declines in the country.
I worry that the politicians responsible for the national mess will take all the wrong messages from the problems they caused, and that the reaction to the national crime wave, for example, will be “the dawning of a genuine police state in the United States,” as the economist and columnist Jeffrey Tucker astutely observes in The Epoch Times. Real, positive change will not arrive until these one-party states and cities (all ruled by Democrats, it must be acknowledged) become subjected to voter discipline and the rise of plausible political opposition.
Still, as these examples from just the past few days indicate, voters are sending a strong message to the political class across the country that the snake oil they’ve been selling has been killing instead of curing.
Sources: New York Post; Axios Portland; The Epoch Times
Big School Choice Victory in Texas Primary Elections
School choice won big in the Texas primary elections on Tuesday. As The Texas Tribune reported,
After facing decades of fierce bipartisan resistance to the idea of using state dollars to pay for private school tuition, school voucher supporters in Texas emerged from the Tuesday primaries triumphant.
Their long-held goal has never felt more in reach.
Gov. Greg Abbott succeeded in knocking off nine fellow Republicans who opposed vouchers in the House during last year’s legislative sessions. More could fall in the May runoffs, placing his signature priority in range in 2025.
In addition to the nine who lost outright, two of the Republican choice opponents in the Texas House of Representatives were forced into runoffs with Republican school choice proponents. Winning those two seats “could be enough to push vouchers across the finish line when the new generation of lawmakers funded by and loyal to Abbott are sworn in next year,” the paper reported. In all, seven of the Republican votes against school choice were forced into runoffs. “All of the Abbott victories and the runoffs at play are in solidly red districts, basically guaranteeing the primary winners an easy November and a seat waiting for them in the lower chamber come January,” The Texas Tribune noted.
The House vote to stop the voucher plan last year was 84-63, so 11 new votes for vouchers would put the split at a 74-73 win for vouchers.
The paper quoted American Federation for Children senior fellow Cory DeAngelis as saying this was “[t]he biggest political shift towards school choice in Texas history. School choice was the main dividing line in all of these races. It is already sending shockwaves all across the country and the message is clear: education freedom is a political winner and a GOP litmus-test issue.”
In addition, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan was forced into a runoff with a more-conservative Republican for his seat, because of his support for the impeachment of conservative stalwart Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fellow Republican, over allegations of corruption. Paxton was exonerated by the state Senate. Abbott refused to support Phelan for reelection but did not endorse his opponent, “a sign of indifference towards the speaker’s fate,” the paper reported.
On top of all that, Texas voters initiated big changes in the State Board of Education. The Texas Tribune reports:
A 20-year Republican member of the State Board of Education lost her party’s nomination to a challenger who promises to fight for Christian conservative values and two other Republican incumbents are headed into a runoff, potentially foreshadowing a continued shift to the right for the body that sets the state’s educational standards.
As I noted in last week’s issue of this newsletter and at The Blaze, the Texas House Republican school choice opponents characterized themselves as the real conservatives on the issue. The voters disagreed and sent them packing.
Some of the Republicans who were kicked out or forced into runoffs concluded that the voters were wrong and were fooled by corrupt opponents fueled by out-of-state money and Abbott’s support. Writing at the Weatherford Democrat (irony noted), Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford) explicitly accused “the highest level of Texas state government” of corruption and reiterated his hatred of school choice:
History will prove Ken Paxton is a corrupt, sophisticated criminal. History will prove vouchers are simply an expensive entitlement program for the wealthy and a get rich scheme for voucher vendors. History will prove Governor Greg Abbott is a liar.
History will prove that our current state government is the most corrupt ever and is “bought” by a few radical dominionist billionaires seeking to destroy public education, privatize our public schools and create a Theocracy that is both un-American and un-Texan.
I have often noticed that public figures who refer to what history will say, or what side of history they or their opponents are on, are nearly always up to no good. If they were so right and wise, perhaps they would not have to point to imaginary future people for affirmation.
Meanwhile, the Alabama Legislature approved a universal school choice program last week, with Gov. Kay Ivey referring to the legislation as a “monumental achievement” and saying that she is eager to sign it into law. The House vote on Wednesday was 23-9 in favor, with all Republicans voting yes and all Democrats voting against choice for the state’s children.
The legislation establishes education savings accounts of $7,000 per year per child, to be used on eligible education expenses. The program will start with the 2025-2026 school year, and all Alabama children will be eligible for the ESAs starting in 2027-2028.
Alabama is the 11th state to pass school choice legislation in the past two years. Other states, especially in the South, are considering similar legislation at present.
The message is simple: people want school choice. The schools in the nation’s inner cities have long been known as disastrous, and suburban parents are now aware that their children’s government-run public schools are rife with political and sexual indoctrination, unsafe conditions, declining academic standards and achievement, and other pathologies. Suburban and rural voters have held back school choice for decades. Now, at least the suburbanites are starting to jump ship by choosing to support education freedom.
With Democrats perversely denouncing the Alabama bill as “the new segregation” and casting other such calumnies, education freedom has become a winning political issue for conservatives and Republicans, with the potential to transform the demographic compositions of the nation’s two main political parties. The nation’s children and their families stand to benefit immensely.
Sources: The Texas Tribune; The Texas Tribune; The Texas Tribune; The Blaze; Weatherford Democrat; AL.com
Dems Get Spending Hikes, Republicans Get Steamrolled
The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed six of the planned 12 appropriations bills for the rest of the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30. The 339 to 85 vote of approval averted a partial government shutdown which would have gone into effect this past weekend. We are supposed to take that as good news.
Eighty-three Republicans voted against the legislation, and two Democrats joined them.
The House vote set the stage for the Democrat-controlled Senate to approve the bill and President Joe Biden to sign it over the weekend.
As usual, the Democrats got the spending increases they wanted, such as an extra $1 billion for the Special Supplemental Nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children—a 16 percent hike in what was a $6 billion annual expenditure.
Republicans, as always, got crushed under the big-government steamroller. Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) denounced the bipartisan agreement on overspending, the Daily Caller reported:
“We’re at $34 trillion in [debt]. That means next year, just the interest payments alone that we’re gonna have to service, will exceed our entire national defense annual spending, over $900 billion. This is not tenable,” Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida told the DCNF on Wednesday. “We’ve got a crisis of leadership across the government as a whole, from the executive to the legislative branch … there’s been an unwillingness to truly address the key issues [of spending].”
Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-WY) argued for rational budget cuts on something like the scale I’ve been saying must be implemented just to avert a fiscal disaster. The Daily Caller reports:
“What you’re seeing is that Democrats continue to fund things that the American people don’t want. But with such a slim majority in the House of Representatives, it’s difficult to push back against that,” Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman of Wyoming told the DCNF. “I would agree to a 10, 15, 20% cut across the board for federal spending in Washington DC and then push through with border security.
Of course, in addition to getting nada for border control, “House Republicans were largely unable to negotiate provisions on culture war issues such as same-sex marriage, critical race theory and workplace diversity initiatives into the final versions of the bills,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Spending is out of control because Democrats are out of control and Republicans are afraid to get in their way.
Sources: House Appropriations Committee; The Wall Street Journal; Daily Caller
Argentina Achieves Budget Surplus
New Argentine President Javier Milei achieved a major success in his first full month in office, establishing the nation’s first government surplus in nearly a dozen years. The government ended January “with a positive balance for public-sector finances of $589 million” for the month, including interest payments on government debt, Barron’s reports.
Argentina has been plagued by inflation for many years, recently reaching more than 200 percent per year under the so-called center-left government of Milei’s predecessor, Alberto Fernandez. The Argentine inflation was a direct result of massive government overspending. Milei, a libertarian and former economics professor, has called for sharp cuts in government spending and a major debt-reduction effort.
The fiscal and economic situation in the United States is not nearly as dire as that of Argentina, but it is already very bad, and the current and projected government deficits are unsustainable. We are on a slow roll toward the kind of economic disaster Argentina has been suffering. I wonder how far we will have to go down that path before we elect a president like Milei and turn back—if ever.
Source: Barron’s
Cartoon
