Clark Packard warns that “US withdrawal from the World Trade Organization would be an epic mistake.” A slice:
As [James] Bacchus documents in a forthcoming Cato Institute paper, the United States has benefited tremendously from its participation in the WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The GATT and WTO have facilitated a massive expansion in global trade as tariffs have fallen and red tape has been cut. This led to lower prices for American consumers—both firms and families—and greater access to foreign markets for American producers. Withdrawing from the WTO would open the door to higher prices and fewer varieties and allow foreign governments to increase tariffs and impose nontariff barriers on American goods and services. Indeed, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a German think tank, in 2019 found that WTO membership increased the US Gross Domestic Product by about $87 billion, more than any other WTO member country.
Likewise, coming on the heels of President Trump’s reckless and ill-advised trade wars, withdrawing from the WTO would further erode the United States’ global standing. As the world’s largest economy, the US has historically played a leading role within the WTO system. In our absence, much of the leadership within the organization would fall to China, the second-largest economy. In calling for the US to withdraw from the organization, Rep. Tiffany argued that the WTO system has “overlooked” several of China’s “unfair” trade practices. It seems odd, then, to advocate a position that would grant China a more commanding role within the WTO system.
Some libertarians and market-oriented analysts have a complicated relationship with trade agreements. Most would prefer unilateral reductions in tariffs and nontariff barriers since the economic benefits of global trade largely flow from imports. Politically, however, trade agreements play a valuable role in constraining the protectionist proclivities of politicians and regulators.
John Lettieri shares these data: (HT Marian Tupy)
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberly Strassel criticizes the “spending” faction of the GOP. A slice:
The current House GOP standoff boils down to the usual: To spend or not to spend. To date, the spenders—or as the media charitably describes them, the “moderates”—have run the table. Their initial demands required House leaders to set a pathetic target of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years, allowing the Joe Biden spending boom to stand and grow. They then proceeded to throw up roadblock after roadblock in the way of even that $1.5 trillion mark. Congress remains littered with their red lines: No reining in ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion. No messing with prior “infrastructure” spending. No serious overhaul of food assistance. No starting any real reform until 2029, so that lawmakers have time to roll it back.
To add injury to entitlement, they are demanding that any money saved—over their objections—be earmarked for their voters. Having already won a promise that they’d get a reprieve from today’s $10,000 cap on deductibility of state and local taxes, no amount will suffice. Double isn’t good enough. Nor is triple or quadruple. New York Republicans suggested this week that they might consider voting for a GOP bill that spares the country $4.5 trillion in tax hikes—but only if their constituents are allowed to deduct $80,000 worth of state and local taxes from their federal returns. Most Americans don’t even earn $80,000.
But the cheek that tipped conservative frustration into fury was Wednesday’s additional demand from 14 “moderates”—on top of their SALT extortion, on top of their reform roadblocks—to continue spending with abandon on Joe Biden’s Green New Deal.
Jennifer Butler applauds the ten states that are currently refusing to expand Medicaid. A slice:
As policy wonks analyze the details of House Republicans’ proposal to reform Medicaid, it’s worth remembering how the program transformed under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). President Obama’s signature law shifted Medicaid from its original purpose — providing health care for the most vulnerable — to covering able-bodied, working-age adults.
Although the legislation initially mandated state expansion, the Supreme Court ruled in NFIB v. Sebelius that this requirement was unconstitutional. Even after the mandate was struck down, Obama’s vision of setting the groundwork for Medicaid for All persisted, effectively bribing states with federal taxpayer dollars to expand coverage. Today, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Wyoming remain the last principled states resisting the tide of expansion.
Medicaid expansion is not just a policy debate; it’s a fight for the future of health care in the United States. In any battle, there’s wisdom in fortifying key positions to avoid losing the entire war. With only ten states remaining as non-expansion holdouts, the push for universal Medicaid is closing in.
Republicans on the Hill should keep this in mind as reform discussions continue. If policymakers fail to address the incentives that pressure states into expansion, they risk ceding all remaining ground to those advocating for government-run health care.
At National Review, Jay Nordlinger offers a mature take on MAGA’s juvenile jingoism. Three slices:
On February 9, Trump proclaimed “the first ever Gulf of America Day.” On May 8, the U.S. House passed a bill codifying “Gulf of America.” Its sponsor was Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican. Only one Republican voted against the bill: Don Bacon of Nebraska. “It just seems juvenile,” he said. “We’re the United States of America. We’re not Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany or Napoleon’s France. We’re better than this. It just sounds like a sophomore thing to do.”
When does patriotism degenerate into jingoism? We could examine this question at length — or simply quote Justice Stewart, who (referring to hardcore pornography) said, “I know it when I see it.”
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Renaming the Gulf of Mexico? Bullying Canada? Threatening war against Denmark over Greenland? To me, these are not expressions of greatness but signs of a smallness. They diminish America. This “might makes right” business is unexceptional — bog-standard throughout history — rather than exceptional.
Consider the arena of international trade. When President Trump complains that America has been “treated very badly” — “ripped off” — for decades and decades, this is America the Small. America as victim. The U.S. of A., victimized by such predators as Bangladesh and Thailand?
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In 2016, 2020, and 2024, Trump refused to say that he would accept the result of the election. (Call him consistent.) Late in the 2016 campaign, Pat Buchanan — a spiritual godfather of Trumpism — wrote that the “populist-nationalist Right” was “moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America they love.”
To some of us, America would not be America without the “niceties,” or necessities, of liberal democracy: the rule of law, limited government, the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights. Constitutionalism is as American as apple pie — more than.
Bob Graboyes tells the tale of the development, led by Simon Kuznets, of national-income accounting.
