1) Biden Is Getting Clobbered In The Debt Ceiling Fight
President Biden has invited Speaker McCarthy to the White House on May 9, but he still says he won’t negotiate a debt ceiling deal. McCarthy should politely decline. He’s holding all the cards.
We don’t usually quote polls at the Hotline, but since the media keeps saying “70% of voters want the debt ceiling raised,” we need to clarify. It turns out more than half of that 70% say they want spending cuts as part of the deal. The media rarely reports that. Even with all the “default” scare tactics, almost one in three Americans are so disgusted with Washington’s overspending that they don’t want Congress to raise the debt ceiling at all.
The worst news of all for Biden is that now even Democrats favor a negotiated deal to cut spending and raise the debt ceiling:
Well, let’s see how that "drive for efficiency" is going so far.
Paycheck Protection Program: $80 billion stolen, fraud rate of 10%
Earned income tax credit fraud, March 2023: “IRS estimates that between 21 percent to 26 percent of EITC claims are paid in error. Some of the errors are unintentional caused by the complexity of the law, but some of the claims are intentional disregard of the law.”
Unemployment Insurance: “The Department of Labor's (DOL) Inspector General estimates there may have been “at least $191 billion” in improper or fraudulent pandemic UI payments.”
SBA Loans: SBA handed out over $80 billion in potentially fraudulent loans
Medicare and Medicaid Fraud: CNBC reports - criminals brazenly steal $100 billion from Medicare and Medicaid each year.
Total Covid fraud: NBC News “total fraud in all Covid relief funds amounts to a mind-boggling sum of taxpayer money that could rival the $579 billion in federal funds.”
Other than that, not a penny is being misspent. Great job Joe. You’re a modern McGruff the Crime Dog.
3) North Carolina School Choice Bill Now Has Veto-Proof Support - Thank You Randi Weingarten
Last time we wrote about the North Carolina school choice bill HB 823 — led by party-switcher Tricia Cotham — it was just a handful of sponsors away from the veto-proof 60% mark. Now it's there, with all 72 Republicans signed on as co-sponsors.
Bill McGurn credits Randi Weingarten, of all people, for the school choice revolution sweeping state capitals:
What’s happening in Raleigh this week points to Ms. Weingarten’s real but crumbling power. If North Carolina passes choice into law, it will be the fifth state this year to do so—and the seventh state in two years. The teachers' unions are looking more like the French army in 1940: invincible only on paper...
Six months ago, when former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was thinking of running for president, he surprised many by calling Ms. Weingarten “the most dangerous person in the world.” He meant that she was weakening America by undermining public education.
But Mr. Pompeo also sees a post-COVID shift in public perception. “The silver lining to Randi Weingarten shutting down schools,” he said, “is parents saw firsthand the damage that teachers' unions were doing to kids.”
We have long said that while the school lockdowns were the most tragic policy error of the COVID era, the cynical school closures by the unions have led to the most sweeping school choice movement in American history.
We are not apocalyptic about the banking situation, but when we hear statements like this from the White House, it makes us want to sell everything.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre:
Today’s actions ensure the continued resilience of the banking system, including at community and other banks, which are vital to the American economy, small businesses and workers as well.
All First Republic insured and uninsured deposits are being assumed by JP Morgan Chase. The American people and American businesses can continue to have confidence that their deposits will be there if they need them. At the same time, these actions are being taken in a matter that ensures that the First Republic, which was severely mismanaged, is being held accountable. While depositors are being protected, shareholders will entirely lose their investments and in addition, no taxpayer dollars will be used to facilitate this action. Any losses associated with the resolution of First Republic will be born by fees on banks and not by taxpayers.
One constant theme of the Hotline is that regulatory agencies are an unconstitutional fourth branch of government. Now the Court may take a big, welcomed step to rein it in.
A mortal wound to the Constitution happened 40 years ago when the Supreme Court wrongfully ruled in Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Counsel that federal judges must defer to a regulatory agency’s dictates.
Since then the power of the unelected regulatory octopus has expanded into every area of our daily lives. On Monday, the Court announced it would revisit that precedent, raising hopes that the power of the unelected regulators will be sharply curtailed.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose mother ironically set in motion the original Chevron decision when she was Ronald Reagan’s EPA Administrator, wrote in a 2016 opinion that Chevron “permits executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power and concentrate federal power.” He concluded that, “Maybe the time has come to face the behemoth” of the regulatory state.
