1) Just a Little SALT, Please

This headline from Yahoo Finance yesterday highlights our “compromise” advice to Congress on the issue of the state and local tax deduction (SALT).
 

We hate SALT because it forces taxpayers in low-tax states to subsidize the most reckless, high-tax states, and it encourages more government spending. But politics is the art of the possible, and at least five House Republicans in blue states are demanding some relief and Trump promised to fix the SALT problem. The $10,000 deduction allowed in TCJA could be doubled to $20,000 without losing much revenue.

An unlimited SALT deduction would be fiscally reckless, costing $1 trillion in lost tax revenue - and almost all of the dollar savings to California and New York millionaires and billionaires. 

If Californians and New Yorkers want tax relief, they should take it up with the pols in Albany and Sacramento. 

2) Trump Should Take a Page Out of Milei's Government Downsizing Plan

Who says you can’t actually CUT government spending? Not just the “rate of increase"?

These two charts of the day show Javier Milei has already done it in Argentina. He CUT public sector spending by over 30%! (Feel free to click the images to make the larger)
 

Here’s another idea Trump should copy: Milei proposes blowing up Argentina's Byzantine tax system, with the goal of cutting back on the number and complexity of taxes by 90%.

He also wants a free trade agreement with the U.S.

These two amazing leaders could make the whole world great again!

Nobody has beaten the drum for the federal government to downsize by selling off federal assets more than we have. We have called for privatizing federal lands, selling vacant buildings, selling mineral rights, and auctioning off student loan paper, among other things.  Just about the only federal asset it makes absolutely zero sense to sell is this:
 

This is just pure spite, and we suspect many of the bidders for sections of the border wall Biden refused to install, expect to turn around and sell it back to the government after Trump takes office. 

This is just more evidence that the one thing Joe Biden is really good at is losing money. 

Finally, conservatives have gotten smart about social media. For years, conservative groups whined about social media companies like Facebook discriminating against conservative voices – and they did and in some cases still do. 

But the Trump campaign got smart and employed social media highly effectively – and much more so than the left. 

That decision proved crucial to his victory.

He passed on a second debate with Kamala Harris. He passed on high-profile interviews with 60 Minutes, NBC, and CNN.  

Instead, Trump appeared on countless new media platforms, sitting down with Joe Rogan and other podcasters. Some 50 million Americans watched the Joe Rogan interview – most importantly YOUNG voters – a demographic that Trump did surprisingly well with. The typical CNN show gets 1% of that viewership. 

A Navigator Research survey found that while both parties' base voters were more likely to get their news from TV than social media and podcasts, the reverse was true for swing voters.

You don't have to believe us: Trump himself has said that X and other social platforms helped him win the election.  Our friends at NetChoice report that Trump’s Election Day post asking voters to stay in line and vote was liked 160,000 times and shared by 15,000 people. That is 10 times better than Harris’s most popular Facebook post on Election Day.

Conservatives are beating libs at their own game!

One of Donald Trump’s worst first-term appointments (other than Jerome Powell) was tapping Louis DeJoy to run the Postal Service. He has run it into the ground and he’s still around. Trump needs to correct this error. 

We covered in the HOTLINE Senator Rand Paul’s takedown of DeJoy for losing billions of dollars while converting 190,000 contract workers to full-time union employees, with full benefits.

This week, the House Oversight Committee wanted to know why so many mail-in ballots had delivery problems in the last election, and why the USPS just lowered its on-time delivery goals to 80% in some cases.

One asked if that was akin to lowering the grading standard for someone getting a low grade, rather than trying to improve performance.

DeJoy fought back, preposterously giving himself "a grade of A."  

DeJoy claimed "our office is growing" and then told McCormick "you're talking to yourself" before in a “hear no evil” stunt covering his ears.
 

This chart shows why Trump must on day one tell DeJoy, you’re fired.
 

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