Well, that didn’t take long. As you can see from the press release below, the Democrat Governor of Arizona, Katie Hobbs, changed her mind and signed into law the GOP budget that includes FULL funding for the Arizona Education Savings Accounts. This money is used to allow 50,000 kids to go to private or charter schools of their choice.
Hobbs had previously pledged to the teacher unions that she would kill the program. This is a huge victory for school choice not just in Arizona – but in states throughout the country that are attempting to adopt the Arizona model.
Regular readers of the HOTLINE know that last week CTUP started running TV ads featuring a family that benefits from the program and asking Hobbs not to stop the funding. Thanks to all the school choice groups that worked together to save the day.
2) Will Biden and Yellen PLEASE Stop Spooking the Markets By Threatening a Bogus Debt Default
Janet Yellen keeps trying to gain bargaining leverage in the debt limit debate by scaring investors with her constant chatter about a default on the debt. She wants Republicans to cave into Biden’s demands of a “clean” debt bill. This shameful fear tactic only makes it MORE likely that bondholders will get jittery and sell their Treasuries – which could raise interest rates and cost taxpayers billions of dollars. That’s exactly the panicked selling she says she’s trying to avoid.
But if she (and Biden) were pursuing the best interests of the country, she would be assuring investors that a default will NOT happen – for two reasons. First, the June 1 deadline is arbitrary and the Treasury can jigger the books — for example by shuffling around money from pension funds — so that the debt ceiling is not technically breached for perhaps many months.
Second, even if we reach the debt ceiling, the administration has the authority to pay some bills immediately and delay other payments until later – when the stalemate is ended. As our senior fellow in economics, EJ Antoni notes in his Fox Business piece below, paying off bondholders is easy to do because interest payments are about $400 billion, but annual revenues are closer to $3 trillion – or seven times higher.
Congress can keep most agencies of the government operating because appropriations are enacted on a fiscal year basis and there is no constitutional problem of delaying some expenditures within a fiscal year; in fact, OMB has express statutory authority to do so via what is called “apportionment.” Joe was in Congress for 40 years. He should know that!
The federal government has already made it illegal for private employers to ask a job applicant questions about age, marital status, citizenship, or disabilities.
We have an idea of how to end racial discrimination in hiring, housing, college admissions, loan applications, mortgages, and so on.
To create a truly color-blind society, make it illegal for any government agency to ask about a person’s race and ethnicity. This is one instance where “don’t ask, don’t tell” could really work.
4) Mamas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be…Liberals
This, from Fox News, gets our pick for the headline of the week:
This was the conclusion published in the journal, Social Science & Medicine – Mental Health.
Epidemiologist Catherine Gimbrone and her coauthors compared depressive attitudes of 12th-graders from 2005 to 2018 between those aligned with conservatism (defined in the study as support of individual liberty) and liberals. The research found, "conservatives reported lower average depressive affect, self-derogation, and loneliness scores and higher self-esteem scores than all other groups."
This result doesn't surprises us at all. Liberals believe the world is coming to an end because of climate change; that family, country, and religion don’t matter; and that your success in life is not based on your hard work and life choices, but on the color of your skin and the income of your parents. Oh, and you should start thinking about a sex-change operation.
We’d say that’s a pretty depressing outlook on life.
