Politics

Just a couple of pics from IPI's February Policy Luncheon in Dallas with Texas Rep. Richard Hayes.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

-          Viktor E. Frankl

What are we to think of moves by Texas and Florida Republicans to ban private businesses from requiring proof of vaccination before entering their premises or engaging with their employees? Without a doubt such policies are popular with the Republican grassroots, but are they based on the right principles? 

Sadly, no. 

Many people skeptical about government power and about Covid-19 itself have agitated against “vaccine passports” and against any requirement to take the vaccine or to have to prove that they have been vaccinated. 

And it’s probably correct that government agencies should not require proof of vaccination for Covid-19 in order to obtain necessary services from government. That’s probably an untenable intrusion on Americans’ sense of personal privacy, although of course schools have for decades required proof of vaccination for school attendance. 

Here in Texas Dan Patrick, the Lieutenant Governor and Leader of the Senate, has a bill, SB4, that would require the National Anthem to be performed before any public sporting event that is in any way connected to taxpayer dollars. That would include all public schools, of course, but would even include private sporting venues if they received tax abatements, subsidies, or dedicated sales taxes.

Whatever you think of taxpayer funding of sporting venues (and I don’t think much of it), Patrick’s bill is blatantly unconstitutional in that it violates the First Amendment.

IPI resident scholar Dr. Merrill Matthews appeared on CGTN’s The Heat to discuss this week’s Democratic presidential debates.

Identifying moderate and former Vice President Joe Biden as both the leader in the debates and as the biggest threat to President Donald Trump, Matthews said, “I still think many Democrats are more on the moderate side and haven’t bought into the far-left proposals expressed by so many of the presidential candidates.”

What did we learn from four hours of 20 Democratic presidential candidates vying for camera time and voter interest? 

1. According to the candidates, apparently the greatest existential threat to America (after Donald Trump) is the large corporations that employ millions of Americans. 

2. Several candidates want to boldly open the door to socialized medicine now; the others want to sneak it in through the back door...

It's pretty clear by now that the Trump administration's favorite way to put pressure on another country to accomplish some political goal is to threaten and impose tariffs. 

In fact, tariffs have become an all-purpose foreign policy tool for the Trump administration. China's theft of IP and unfair business practices? Tariffs. China's supposed currency manipulation? Tariffs. China's trade surplus with the United States? Tariffs.

The US steel industry not doing great? Tariffs.

And now, trying to get Mexico to do more to stem the flow of migrants into the US? Well, tariffs, of course.

Now, the common retort to criticism of tariffs is something along the lines of "Well, at least he's doing something!" Or, "Don't you think we should do something about China's IP theft\China's currency manipulation\hordes of illegal immigrants from Mexico?"

Well, yes, actually. I DO think the president should be addressing all of those things, and I'm glad he is. I just don't think tariffs are the only or the best tool to accomplish those purposes. There are other tools in the quiver besides tariffs.

I thought I was already cynical enough. I guess I was wrong.

Over the years I’ve seen elected Republican politicians telling voters about how strongly they stood for “free-market principles” and then vote in ways that are completely contrary to those principles. I’ve seen it so many times that I didn’t think I could be surprised.

But I was wrong.

After sending out my 29 tweets on local control, which were all theory, I sent out these 14 specific implications of coming to understand that local control is a false doctrine:

That was all theory. Now, implications (1/14) #txlege

The state can limit the ability of municipalities to tax, including property taxes and sales taxes (2/14) #txlege

I'm working on a paper in which I lay out all my arguments against the idea that local control is some kind of sacred government principle, and that states have no right to pre-empt local governments from doing pretty much whatever they want to do.

I had hoped to have the paper done before the start of Texas' special legislative session, but I had hoped to have it finished before the start of Texas' regular legislative session back in January, too, and that didn't happen either.

So I decided to post some of the most important points last night in a series of Twitter posts. But since Twitter must be the stupidest platform for lengthy, organized arguments, I'm posting them here in this blog as well.

This post contains the 29 tweets that lay out the general argument. In a second post I'll list the 14 additional tweets that lay out some implications of the argument.

1. [begin local control rant] #txlege