February 28, 2025

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

A Mistake From The Past That Can Be Avoided

By Bill Wilson

While it may not be top news around much of the country, in the Washington, D.C. area the staffing cuts in various federal government offices are all consuming. This is neither surprising nor without merit. With 375,000 federal workers in the D.C. Metro region, the impact of any employment cut will be felt immediately.

But the macro-economic impact of sizable reductions in federal workers is not the primary result. The impact on individuals and their families is. And in that measure, whether it is 100,000 jobs lost or 1, the impact is harsh and all too real. The issue of justification or economic long-term need to reduce government expenditures are in fact secondary to those now on the street. 

Are there those who openly defy the lawful orders of the political leadership? Yes. And are there federal employees who have acted as if they were a law unto themselves with no accountability? Sadly, also yes. But how many fall into these categories? I would wager few do. As for those who have gamed the system, perpetrated fraud or outright theft as has been uncovered in some high-profile instances, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Their punishment should be severe. Why? Because their actions have not only harmed the general public, but they have harmed federal employees more. By tarring all federal employees with the stain of their actions, these criminals need to be punished.

But that still leaves hundreds of thousands of people who go to work, do their jobs and are now being harmed by the cuts the Administration is advancing, what of them? That is where a reasoned eye needs to be applied. After all, people will lose their homes, children will not receive the benefits of a sound and stable home, and overall, the quality of life for the entire region will suffer.

Some quick history can show how in many ways we have been here before. A little over 20 years ago, the political decision was made to embrace globalism advocated by Wall Street and the deep thinkers of economic theory. Former President George W. Bush pushed to have China become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which launched a frenzy of investment in China. And it launched a bloodletting throughout America’s small towns and communities. Over 4 million manufacturing jobs were destroyed, shipped off to foreign lands to take advantage of low wages. Businesses by the hundreds of thousands shut their doors and were forever gone. To this day the full, real costs have not been calculated.

Oh, there were the occasional speeches and efforts in Congress to help those millions of people. But when the rubber hit the road, all they got were pronouncements of sympathy and the condescending advice to “learn to code.” They were left by the side of the road. What followed was drug addiction, broken families, unemployment, devastated communities that look more like war zones than American towns and cynicism. To say it did great damage to our nation is an understatement of epic proportions.

Now, today, will we do it again? Will we cut a huge number of people from the federal payrolls and simply leave them by the side of road to rot? And what will that accomplish? If the WTO treachery has had generational impact in the old Rust Belt and through the hills of Appalachia, will the moves now – needed and justified or not – do the same thing? Will we turn away from the people fired and allow them to fester in their rage waiting for the next opportunity to exact revenge?

There is a better way. We need to take it. The Trump administration needs to take it.

The administration should immediately establish teams to help all terminated federal employees. That help should be measurable and transparent – not phony scam organizations providing nothing. Where people are in danger of losing their homes, the support teams should work to find bridge financing so that these people can find stable work and get back on track. Jobs, the lifeblood, need to be found. Whether in the immediate region or at other locations. And if the only option requires a move to another part of the nation, and the individual and their families are willing to make the move, the support teams need to assist in the move. That means money, of course. But if some portion of the savings from eliminating the federal position is used to help the former employee get on their feet, so be it.

There are dozens of other things to be considered, from healthcare to parental care to medications and beyond. But all of that can be set in motion by the decision to commit to assist the people being cut. This is not a normal federal undertaking. It should not last forever, in fact it should accomplish its goals and close by the end of the current administration’s term. 

This is the humane thing to do. It is the right thing to do. But if that is not enough for some, I contend it is politically smart thing to do. As the old saying goes, good policy is good politics. This would be good policy and good politics.

How? How is spending a lot of money to help terminated federal workers good?

One example of the extended impact of ignoring people in severe distress should suffice. In 2012 opposition to the radicalism of Barack Obama was rising. It was clear that he was vulnerable. But the GOP nominated a hedge fund multi-millionaire, Mitt Romney, who exuded plutocratic attitudes. While the final Electoral Vote was a landslide for Obama, there had been a clear pathway for Romney to win and prevent the destruction of the Obama second term. But it ran headlong into millions of working-class voters in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin who had suffered greatly under the Bush-WTO regime. Those voters – estimated at the time at over 5 million in the key states – simply stayed home. They didn’t care because they had no dog in the fight.

Throwing people away has consequences. Ask Mitt Romney. Now, some will say, “why care here? Those people will never vote for the GOP or a MAGA candidate.” Perhaps. But don’t think for one minute that they will not have any reaction down the line. They will and their children will, and their extended families will as well. If by simply extending a hand to them the anger and sadness can be reduced even a little, it will have a positive political impact. 

There is one other element to consider. Joe Biden ran for President promising to bring the country together, to forge unity. Instead, Biden will go down as the most divisive person to occupy the White House in generations. His dystopian speech in Philadelphia with the red lights and armed guards was the most tone-deaf and damaging presidential speech ever. 

Trump, by comparison, is always portrayed as divisive. And true, his New York demeanor and braggadocio does rub some the wrong way. But he honestly believes the reductions in federal spending are essential to the survival of the country. So, if that is true, then what is to be lost by giving a helping hand to the people being asked to bear the disproportionate share of the burden? Biden ran on unity and will be remembered as the Great Divider. Trump ran on a politics of a divided nation but can be remembered as the Great Unifier. 

How the federal employees being let go are treated will reverberate for generations. Nothing in politics is clearly seen until many years and often decades later. Here is a unique opportunity to avoid the mistakes of the past and extend the hand of national unity to those in need. For the good of the nation, let’s all pray it is the path we take.

Bill Wilson is the former president of Americans for Limited Government.  

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/02/a-mistake-from-the-past-that-can-be-avoided/

Trump Administration Continues To Fight For The People As Activist Judges Block Him On Immigration And Demand Billions For Foreign Aid

Activist judges are working overtime this week to block President Donald Trump’s America First priorities and stop the president from curbing government spending and putting a pause on refugee resettlement.

In a significant blow to President Trump’s agenda, a Seattle-based federal judge blocked the president’s executive order suspending the refugee resettlement program on Tuesday.

In his executive order, President Trump noted that, “over the last 4 years, the United States has been inundated with record levels of migration” and stated that, “the United States lacks the ability to absorb large numbers of migrants.”

Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Biden-appointee, blocked Trump’s executive order, forcing the United States to continue to resettle vast numbers of refugees into American towns and cities. Polling consistently shows the American people support reducing the number of refugees that enter the country for a variety of reasons. A YouGov poll during Biden’s term showed that just 29 percent of Americans say refugees “improve the U.S.” compared to 39 percent who say they do not.

Another thorny legal battle is unfolding over foreign aid funding. Judge Amir Ali, a Biden nominee, ordered an end to the Trump Administration’s freeze on foreign aid spending on Monday.

The judge ordered the Trump Administration to pay roughly $1.5 billion dollars to USAID-affiliated non-profits, plus an additional $400 million to the State Department by Wednesday night.

Late Wednesday night, the case had reached the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Roberts issued a last-minute pause to the court-ordered deadline that would have forced the Trump Administration to provide the foreign-aid funds by midnight, giving Trump’s team time to make their case over the next few days.  

However, the pause does not mean the Trump Administration will prevail in curbing the foreign-aid funding, and the government could still be forced to pay close to $2 billion to various foreign-aid projects. The court will review the arguments for both sides and the case is likely to set an important precedent on Trump’s ability to withhold foreign aid spending.

In another blow to the Trump Administration, Judge Jeanette Vargas blocked the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from accessing Treasury department data late last week. This order came after another judge had granted the DOGE team “read only” access to audit Treasury records.     

DOGE has found itself in the crosshairs of left-wing judges repeatedly, likely because it is having the most sizable impact on reducing the vast sprawl of the federal government and drawing public scrutiny to many billions of dollars of wasteful spending.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against DOGE challenging its ability to view data within government agencies from the Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Office of Personnel Management. 

That said, the Trump Administration has secured small legal victories in recent days. On Monday, Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump-appointee, declined to force the Trump Administration to reinstate access for the Associated Press (AP), after Trump banned the AP from certain White House events over its refusal to refer to the Gulf of America by name.

In another victory last week, Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama-appointee, rejected a Democrat-led legal attack from fourteen states which attempted to deny the DOGE team access to data on the firing of federal employees.   

In another victory last week, Obama-appointee U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled against the University of California Student Association (UCSA), allowing Musk and DOGE to access data on student borrowers from the Department of Education.

President Trump is forging ahead, despite being blocked at every turn by activist judges. However, the Trump Administration’s efforts to curb government spending, audit the federal government, and pause refugee resettlement are being met with heavy resistance from left-wing judges.

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/02/trump-administration-continues-to-fight-for-the-people-as-activist-judges-block-him-on-immigration-and-demand-billions-for-foreign-aid/

Is Trump Inheriting Biden's Recession?

By Robert Romano

Don’t look now, but the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GPDNow estimate for the first quarter of 2025 shows the U.S. economy potentially contracting 1.5 percent annualized. Coupled with initial jobless claims peaking up to 242,000 the past week, a good question to ask is whether President Donald Trump inherited a recession from the outgoing administration of former President Joe Biden?

It wouldn’t be the first time an incoming president had deal with either an ongoing recession or a new one in their first years of office. Just ask Richard Nixon (1969), Ronald Reagan (1981), George W. Bush (2001) and Barack Obama (2009) who all had recessions their first years in office.

Politically, the good news is each one of those administrations went on to get reelected relatively easily in 1972, 1984, 2004 and 2012. So, first year recessions are not politically fatal per se for the White House incumbents.

Midterms are what they are — regardless of the circumstances, there’s usually a 90 percent chance of the White House incumbent party losing seats in the House of Representatives during the midterms — and that’s agnostic in terms of recessions.

During and after Covid, slowdowns in global economic production combined with trillions of dollars of monetary and fiscal stimulus heated up inflation to 7.5 percent by Jan. 2022, peaking at 9.1 percent by June 2022. Overall, inflation outpaced earnings for the entire four-year period of Biden, even as the rate of inflation cooled — and it made Biden-Harris a one-term proposition.

During that time, the spread between 10-year and 2-year treasuries inverted and then uninverted. Usually, the periods of uninversion are when unemployment tends to rise. Well, since Jan. 2023, that spread has been rising — and so has unemployment by 1.1 million, and so has the unemployment rate, from a low of 3.4 percent in April 2023 to 4 percent in Jan. 2025.

The key point is that these trends have been ongoing for months and years. They didn’t begin yesterday. A recession today, if there is one, will have had many fathers.  

The truth is, what goes up must come down. If there’s a recession no or soon, then it’s because inflation overheated the economy since 2021, the American people maxed out their credit cards and demand is finally pulling back. The upside is recessions tend to eat inflation, but the downside is unemployment goes up.

If so, the sooner the better. Rip off the band-aid, but the Trump administration would do well to manage expectations. And that applies to anything, underscoring a communications problem that any White House needs to overcome.

There are obviously very high expectations for the current administration and so accurately guiding those expectations is important. Cut inflation by when? Cut $1 trillion of spending by when? Increase food and energy production by when? Secure border and finish wall by when? Release JFK-RFK-MLK documents (better not be redactions) by when?

Some matter such as resolving the war in Ukraine — which depend on Russia and Ukraine somehow coming to a settlement — are exigent and so only the President can truly communicate those.

The point is to set goals but also be prepared for setbacks. Nobody said this was going to be easy.

If the economy is softening following the inflation, then that could provide more of an impetus for the President’s plans to cut taxes and stimulate long-term growth, for example. And then, to control future inflation, to cut spending and borrowing, and so forth.

The “soft” landing — long sought by Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell — was remotely possible but considering coming off of 9.1 inflation in 2022, and perhaps in hindsight, rather fanciful. Nothing is set in stone, naturally, but generally, all an administration can do is hope for the best — and prepare for the worst. Stay tuned.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/02/is-trump-inheriting-bidens-recession/