Court-packing has once again become a major focus of political contention, with many on the political left advocating it in response to what they believe are badly flawed and illegitimate decisions by the Supreme Court. In a recent article for The UnPopulist, Andy Craig provides reluctant support for court-packing, but with a twist he argues will minimize the danger: combining court-packing with a constitutional amendment imposing term limits on Supreme Court justices that would—if enacted—reverse the packing. The term-limit system would give every president two appointments per term, thereby potentially producing more ideological balance on the bench.
Craig’s proposal is clever and a cut above more conventional defenses of court-packing. But I remain unpersuaded. His argument falls short in multiple ways. He overrates the negative aspects of the current Supreme Court majority and underrates their positive contributions, including on the very issue of combating incipient authoritarianism, the main focus of his concerns. He also overestimates the supposed inevitability of future court-packing and the feasibility of his compromise plan. Finally, there are good alternative fixes for many of the problems that (rightly) concern Craig.
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Liberal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is no fan of much of the conservative majority’s jurisprudence. But, in a recent speech, she rejected the charge that they just “rubber stamp what the current administration does.” The truth is “quite the opposite,” she said. “I think that that is a bad rap.” To back up her point, she cited several recent cases, including the tariff case, the National Guard case, and more. She emphasized that “[t]ariffs is probably the key policy issue for this president … something he campaigned on … he cared an enormous amount about. … I don’t think that there are all that many decisions in the recent times, where a court strikes down such an important policy to a sitting president.” She’s not wrong.
The court’s earlier rulings in “anti-commandeering” and Spending Clause cases have played an important role in protecting “sanctuary cities” against Trump’s efforts to force them to aid in his cruel mass deportation policies. In both his first and second terms, these decisions—mostly written and supported by conservative justices—have been repeatedly cited by lower-court judges as crucial precedents curbing Trump’s power to directly coerce state and local governments and to pull federal grants from them. Lack of state and local support significantly constrains deportation efforts.
The Roberts Court is also probably the most speech-protective Supreme Court majority in all of American history. Most notably, it has issued a series of decisions prioritizing freedom of political speech over campaign finance restrictions (although, I understand, many of my progressive friends are less enthused by it), governments’ ability to indirectly pressure speakers, and impose restrictions on social media. When it comes to the latter issue, the court’s ruling came in a case involving two red states’ efforts to restrict social media moderation.
David Simon is correct: “Now is the time to address the emerging socialism of JD Vance.” Two slices:
The Nobel Prize-winning economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek dedicated his great book, The Road to Serfdom – which opposes excessive governmental power – “to the socialists of all parties,” because socialism is not limited to the left.
Republicans should take this point to heart. They regularly attack Democrats for their strident support for socialist economic policies, but to protect our free market economy from government’s heavy hands they need to address the emerging socialism of their leading 2028 presidential election contender, JD Vance.
Vance enthusiastically approves of the view that the government should “seize the equity of the AI companies.” Government ownership of parts of, or entire, businesses – “the means of production” in Marxist and socialist economic writings – is a foundational principle of these ideologies. Government ownership means more government direction of, and control over, private economic activity and distortion of market processes that make the economy work efficiently.
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And then there is Vance’s flirtation with antisemitism and his related hostility to Israel. Before unpacking that, however, it is important to understand the connection between antisemitism and socialism.
As perhaps best explained by George Gilder’s 2009 book, “The Israel Test,” those who hold antisemitic views generally also hold socialist views, and vice-versa, because antisemitism and socialism share the false conception that free market capitalism is a zero-sum process. Socialists assert that businesses make profits and people become wealthy through free markets by exploiting workers and otherwise impoverishing others. Antisemites make the same claim regarding wealthy Jews and their businesses.
Selina Xu wisely warns against U.S. AI protectionism. A slice:
Imagine this: The U.S. is a digital walled garden where foreign software is banned, and everyone depends on a handful of domestic incumbents for costly artificial-intelligence access. Meanwhile, the rest of the world builds AI economies on a base of Chinese open models that can be freely downloaded, customized and distributed.
Sound familiar? It is the inverse of China’s “Great Firewall,” a sprawling regulatory and technological system that has stifled foreign competition and restricted the Chinese public’s access to information for more than two decades.
Instead of championing competition and openness, the U.S. is inching toward tech protectionism. Washington is considering restrictions on Chinese open-source AI models after Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 model sparked accusations of distillation—the use of one model’s outputs to train or improve another. The idea sounds like economic toughness: deny a competitor access to the U.S. market and protect sensitive technology. But a ban would give more power to a handful of incumbents, raise startup costs, and weaken the open-model ecosystem necessary for American innovation.
Open-source is a crucial part of the AI supply chain for U.S. companies. When some OpenAI models recently hacked another company, the victim—Hugging Face—had to turn to a Chinese open-weight model to defend itself. The safety guardrails of closed U.S. models blocked Hugging Face’s requests.
Arnold Kling is noticing a slow-down in the improvements to AI.
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal assesses “the tepid Trump economy.” Two slices:
The Commerce Department’s GDP report for the second quarter on Thursday shows the economy continues to plod along and is shrugging off the war in Iran. But it’s also nothing to brag about.
The U.S. economy grew a tepid 1.5% during the second quarter, driven by consumers and AI investment. Consumer spending contributed 2.1 percentage points, while business investment added 1.2 points. Net exports subtracted a point from GDP, which is a statistical wash since imports flow into consumer spending and investment. A decline in government spending subtracted from growth in the quarter because of the way GDP is calculated, but less government helps the private economy over time.
Equipment purchases and intellectual property accounted for all of the uptick in business investment. AI hyperscalers, which plan to spend upward of $700 billion this year, are turbo-charging demand for computer chips, construction equipment, gas turbines and more. Businesses are also pumping tens of billions into frontier AI models.
Mr. Trump thinks that, with the stock market hitting records and the economy avoiding recession, his tariffs are working wonders. But based on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s 3% GDP growth target, the economy is underperforming by half. Last year’s tax bill and deregulation would be driving faster growth if not for Mr. Trump’s border taxes that raise costs and uncertainty for business.
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Some of Mr. Trump’s most ardent fans tell us they wish he’d drop his tariff fixation and return to the supply-side policies that produced broad-based prosperity during his first term. Most Americans probably do too.
For those keeping score at home*, this means the US government’s equity portfolio now consists of THIRTY COMPANIES – up from ZERO just a year ago. (MP Materials was the 1st last July.)
Bonus: it’s all coming from the guy fighting “communism.”
Commerce says that these stakes enhance the return for taxpayers, but even a profitable portfolio would not resolve the underlying institutional problem. The federal government is now acting as regulator, customer, financier, and shareholder. Decisions involving contracts, trade restrictions, permits, and additional subsidies can affect the value of its holdings. Competitors have reason to question whether the playing field is level. And if a portfolio company falters, Washington will have an added incentive to protect its investment with more taxpayer support.
Calling the stakes “minority” and “noncontrolling” does not eliminate those conflicts. Public announcements often reveal little about valuations, shareholder rights, oversight, or exit plans. Meanwhile, future administrations will inherit the same tool and can use it to assemble portfolios reflecting their own political priorities.
There are many ways to measure the health of a country. One way is growth of gross domestic product (GDP). Another is economic productivity. But there’s a less conventional measure worth watching: Do the world’s most talented and ambitious people want to immigrate here?
Throughout most of America’s history, the answer has been an emphatic yes. Scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists, and strivers from around the world have chosen the United States because they believed they could build something, discover something, or start a business while making a better life in this country.
We should worry about the day when this is no longer true.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems determined to make that day arrive sooner rather than later. Its destructive embrace of protectionism is not merely directed against foreign goods and capital. It’s not limited to low-skill immigrants, either. It’s also directed against in-demand foreign talent.
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alented people don’t merely fill existing jobs. They create them by inventing products, starting companies, conducting research, and making the people around them more productive. In the process, they create opportunities for other people that otherwise wouldn’t exist.
Giving a cold shoulder to foreign students is particularly absurd when you consider Washington’s obsession with competing against China. Politicians insist that America is engaged in an existential technological race. They spend billions of dollars subsidizing semiconductors and other favored industries. They develop elaborate industrial policies intended to make America dominant in artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and advanced manufacturing.
Then, when a potentially brilliant young scientist from India, China, or anywhere else earns an advanced degree at an American university and wants to stay and contribute to the American economy, our government says perhaps they should leave.
You can throw billions of taxpayer dollars at a semiconductor factory in Arizona. You cannot manufacture genius through an appropriations bill.
The Peterson researchers estimate that discouraging just one-third of international STEM graduates could leave the American economy 0.7 percent to 1.3 percent smaller, or roughly $200 billion to $400 billion in GDP over a decade—equivalent to losing the entire economy of Utah or South Carolina.
