1) One Big Beautiful Tax Cut Bill

It looks like we've won the first big and consequential internal GOP policy skirmish of 2025. 

Three weeks ago, Republican Senate leaders announced their intention to put the Trump tax cut extension on hold while other policy goals took top priority.

We at Unleash Prosperity - along with Larry Kudlow every night on his Fox show - howled in protest and pounded away at the negative economic impact of ANY delay. Our message was simple: Trump has a storehouse of political capital and a voter mandate on taxes. This has to be a first 100 day priority for Congress. There's no pushing to the back burner. The tax cut expires at the end of 2025.  

Go ahead and do the border security and pro-American energy policies concurrently with moving the tax bill. Walk and chew gum at the same time.

We got Trump's ear. He's now weighed in decisively for our approach of one big reconciliation package:
 

A few days ago President Trump posted an article from his pollsters John and Jim McLaughlin explaining exactly why the tax cuts need to be passed as soon as possible:

The D.C. elites (who naturally opposed Trump) are saying tax cuts can wait. That's not what the voters say...

• Eighty-two percent % favor ending federal taxes on Social Security income. Only 11% oppose.
   
• Seventy-one percent favor ending federal taxes on tips for service workers. Only 21% oppose.
   
• Seventy percent favor making the tax cuts permanent in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, otherwise taxes will go more than $2,500 a year for the average American. Only 17% oppose.
   
• Sixty-six percent favor ending federal taxes on overtime pay for workers. Only 25% oppose...

2) Republicans Are the Earmarking Party

Our friend Tom Smith has sent a letter to President Trump recommending  ways to change the "culture of spending and borrowing" in Washington. One of his best suggestions is to call an end to Congressional earmarking (when Congress stuffs pork barrel projections into must-pass spending bills).

The letter advises Trump to "announce that as President you will report every remaining earmark to the public until they are eliminated."

Smith adds these depressing stats:

"The Republican Party has become the Earmark Party. Before the last House was sworn in, Repubs held a secret vote on how to spend taxpayer dollars. The tally to reinstate earmarks among Republicans was 158 to 2. Last year, more than 50 of the largest earmarkers in the House were Republicans. In the Senate, it was 8 out of 12. Several Republican earmarkers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on earmarks."

That should be an embarrassment to every GOP member of Congress.  The late, great senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn put it well when he called earmarks "the gateway drug to massive spending bills.."

Here is a link to the full letter:
 

When are progressive politicians going to figure out their crazy policies are literally repulsing people. The latest evidence comes from the annual one-way rental report from U-Haul.

It offers further evidence that the states attracting the most refugees are low-tax and low-regulation places. Those bleeding the most people are big government states like California and Illinois where vans can be three, four or five times more expensive to move out of than if one were to move out of, say Tennessee or Utah.  

This year, for the first time, South Carolina held the top spot, ending Texas's three-year reign as the number one destination. It's now in second place, followed by North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. Notice that three of the top five states have no income tax.

For the fourth year in a row, California saw the largest net loss of one-way movers. Other bottom-five states for growth are Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.

Nine of the top 10 destination spots voted for Trump (the sole exception being non-income tax Washington State) and seven of the bottom 10, where people are fleeing, voted for Harris. So much for the left's promise of creating blue-state worker paradises.
 

Here are this year's top and bottom states, with last year's ranks in parentheses:
 

You may have heard that as one of his last acts as president, Joe Biden blocked Nippon Steel's nearly $20 billion investment in U.S. domestic steel production.

Why? According to the White House, "credible evidence" exists that a Japanese-headquartered, investor-owned company acquiring US Steel "might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States."

Really? Someone please remind Joe this is 2025, not 1941. The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that the Biden folks KNEW the security argument was bogus, but wanted to throw a bone to the steel union bosses. 

Japan is today one of our closest allies and a partner in challenging the real national security threat: China. Japan is allowed to purchase some of America's most sensitive military hardware. In fact, Biden approved a $3.6 billion sale of air-to-air missiles to Japan the very same day as the Nippon veto.

We covered the merits of the deal in a paper last year, which were compelling enough to win the overwhelming approval of shareholders and most union workers.

We still think Trump, who has so far opposed the deal, can fulfill his role as master negotiator and save it.  Most of his inside and outside economic advisers - which unanimously includes us - see the economic benefits to American steel workers and to shareholders.

Mr. President, China is trying to corner the world steel market, and this deal would push back against their ambitions.
 

On Friday the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals smacked down Biden's attempt to reimpose Obama's regulation of Internet providers:
 

Our study  last year showed that after the Trump FCC repealed the Obama regulations, speeds increased by over 500% for wired Internet and 800% for wireless - while prices dropped. Precisely none of the doomsday predictions made by the media and Democrats happened. It was one of the greatest deregulation success stories in history.

The best news in the Sixth Circuit decision may be that under the new Supreme Court doctrine overturning Chevron, agencies no longer have the discretion to create new regulatory regimes like this one without action by Congress, the court ruled:
 

You may have heard the hullabaloo about the Washington Post editors spiking the cartoon below depicting Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and other tech oligarchs supplicating before Trump. They are writing million dollar checks for the inauguration. Even Disney is sucking up as cleverly depicted by Mickey Mouse bowing down to the Trump statue. 

Ann Telnaes, the leftist humorist who drew the cartoon, quit because she says she is being censored. Our view is that the Post editors have the right to publish and not publish whatever they wish, and it wasn't very smart of Telnaes to sling arrows at the newspaper's owner. But we laughed. 

What do you think?  
 

Know anyone else who would appreciate the Hotline? Please direct them to subscribe at: https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/hotline/
 

Have an idea for an item that should be in our newsletter? Send us any charts, statistics, heroes/villains, or humor that you’d like to see featured!