Tweet [1]
My intrepid Mercatus Center colleague Veronique de Rugy rightly laments the bipartisan abuse of government power [2]. A slice:
Republicans support the government preventing gays from marrying and Americans from using drugs, and the building of a border wall. Democrats want the government to prevent Americans from drinking sugary soda, from eating fatty foods, and from bargaining freely in competitive labor markets. Both parties support cronyism.
The Democrats are especially eager to subsidize Tesla and solar panels. Republicans love to subsidize Boeing and farmers. Both sides are A-OK subsidizing the U.S. automobile industry and protecting “essential” industries from foreign competition. And both sides believe that it is the role of government to create or protect jobs through protectionism, or other government-granted privileges.
And don’t miss Scott Sumner’s commentary on Trump and the value of the dollar [5].
George Will writes wisely about the poison that is Donald Trump’s appalling rhetoric [9]. A slice:
The grotesquely swollen place of the presidency in governance (now that governance has become, for Congress, merely a spectator sport) and society has been made possible by journalism that is mesmerized by, and easily manipulated by, presidents — especially the current one, whose every bleat becomes an obsession. This president is not just one prompting from the social environment; he, in his ubiquity, thoroughly colors this environment, which becomes simultaneously more coarse and less shocking by the day.