Unleash Prosperity Hotline #919

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Unleash Prosperity Hotline
Issue #919
12/19/2023
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1) Biden/Unions Kill Free Trade Agreement with Britain

Can anyone explain or comprehend the Biden trade agenda? He just walked away from a “foundational” and mutually beneficial Free Trade Agreement (FTA) that would have benefited both nations – as freedom of exchange always does. These are two of the highest-wage countries in the world, so the standard trope that trade would lower wages carried no weight here. But the AFL-CIO said no and so did Senate Democrats. Biden dutifully complied. A profile in cowardice.

The left pilloried Trump for not being a free trader, and he wasn’t and still isn’t. We think he made a strategic mistake in pulling the U.S. out of the Pacific Trade Agreement. But he did believe in reciprocity and he successfully used U.S. leverage to force other countries – particularly China – to lower their tariffs on American goods and stop stealing intellectual property. And he signed a historic modernization of NAFTA, now called the USMCA. He famously offered the Europeans to go to zero on tariffs if they would. They sprinted away from the table.

But we have in Biden a president who spurns trade deals with our allies and cuts deals that empower our enemies like Iran and China.

The sad irony of this is that Biden and the left obsess about global income inequality, but there is no government foreign aid or welfare program that has raised the living standards of the poor more than free trade. And Biden is now officially against it. We favor an economic and humanitarian policy of trade not aid. He favors aid, not trade.

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2) Georgia Gov. Rewards the Unionized Teachers Who Killed His School Choice Plan

We’ve been fans of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, but this latest gambit to spend $330 million to placate his adversaries seems highly inadvisable.

He is handing out bonuses to the very teacher union members who torpedoed his school choice bill this year. Why? This violates the first rule of warfare: know thine enemy.

Worse yet, an across-the-board pay raise not tied to merit only reinforces all the deficiencies of our public school system. Bad teachers are almost never fired, everyone is treated the same, and excellence isn’t rewarded.

Then there is this question: a raise for what? Georgia ranks 37th out of the 50 states on education according to WalletHub and the school performance is so bad that the state has started phasing out A to F grades so students and teachers won't be held accountable. Less than one in three Georgia 8th graders are proficient in reading or math, while 400,000 students are chronically absent.

With performance like this many teachers should be handed a demerit or a pink slip, not a $1,000 pat on the back.

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3) Biden Anti-America Fossil Fuels Policy May Have Cost U.S. Economy More than $100 Billion

That's the conclusion of the latest study by CTUP senior fellow and University of Chicago professor Casey Mulligan, which has been previewed before in the HOTLINE.

Now the full study is posted:

This chart tells the story, as US production has fallen far short of where it would have been if trends under President Trump had continued:

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4) Democrats Finally Found a Tax Hike They Don't Like

Democrats keep saying they want millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share in taxes – what about the multi-billion dollar university endowments that have scapes taxation? Ohio Senator JD Vance went to the Senate floor on Friday to ask unanimous consent to raise the tax on mega-sized, $10+ billion university endowments from 1.4% to 35%. These are the biggest hoards of untaxed wealth in America.

The New York Sun reported:

According to Barron’s, Harvard’s $50.7 billion endowment grew by 2.9 percent in the last fiscal year, meaning Mr. Vance’s 35 percent capital gains tax on endowments would have raised more than $500 million from Harvard alone. Harvard says gains from its endowment accounted for one-third of the university’s total operating revenue in the most recent fiscal year.

When Mr. Vance tried to have the legislation adopted by unanimous consent on the Senate floor, he was blocked by a Democratic colleague, Senator Wyden.

https://www.nysun.com/article/vance-proposes-new-tax-on-americas-largest-college-endowments-saying-funds-are-used-to-push-dei-and-woke-insanity?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

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5) Biden Will Subsidize California’s $100 Billion Train to Nowhere

Joe Biden just awarded $3 billion of federal tax dollars to subsidize the California high-speed rail fiasco. The figure below shows the costs have almost quadrupled the original estimates by the rail planners. It’s not a high-speed rail project any longer because it would use commuter tracks part of the way, slowing down the trip.

And the hits just keep coming: the choo choo won’t go from Los Angeles to San Francisco any time soon. Instead, it will go from Merced to Bakersfield, and will be completed after 2030. The entire route was supposed to be built by 2020 and it still has a long way to go.

Our prediction is that the Feds will be writing checks for $30, not $3 billion when all is said and done. Somebody, please pull the plug on this mobile money-burning machine!

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6) No Evidence!

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