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Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition
Issue #1227
03/21/2025 – 03/23/2025
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1) An Education Revolution
Many of your editors have been in Washington for nearly 40 years (yes, we are swamp creatures), and we've waited a long, long time for a glorious day like yesterday. President Trump has heroically declared that most of the programs at the Department of Education add no value for our children and will be shuttered with the money block granted to the states. As he said in his statement, after fifty years of spending nearly $3 trillion, there is zero evidence of any positive results on school performance.
We know this was a momentous moment for the future of our schools when we saw teacher union president Randi Weingarten and Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer respond as if they had stuck their finger in an electric socket.
Our friend and education expert Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform summarized this historic day well:
"President Donald Trump's Executive Order returns power over education to families and states, rather than federal bureaucracies. This long-overdue shift empowers parents, educators, and local communities - those who truly understand the needs of students - to lead the way in shaping the future of education.
Less than 60 days ago, President Trump took office and has already put excellence in education at the top of the national agenda. Thanks to years of persistent, state-driven reform efforts by bold leaders showing what is possible, this administration has moved swiftly to advance an agenda that is uniting state leaders and parents nationwide. The urgency of this moment has been amplified by the post-COVID education crisis, with historic learning losses and growing demands for meaningful alternatives to the status quo. Indeed the Nation's Report Card's continued bad marks have been an alarm bell for people everywhere."
Here are two more charts that document the education crisis:
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2) We Should Have Refinanced the Debt
We hate to say we told you so, but...
Six years ago, when interest rates were 1% to 2%, we wrote a column in the WSJ urging the Trump administration to issue more 30 and even 50 year treasury bonds to reduce future interest rates on what was then a $25 trillion national debt.
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"Today's historically low interest rates on government bonds, along with the flattening of the yield curve, offer Uncle Sam a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lower his interest expenses by trillions of dollars over the next three decades. The savings could be large enough to pay for the entire Trump tax cuts and make them permanent."
Trump liked the idea but was talked out of it.
That was dumb, as we now know, given the higher refinancing rates today.
This chart from the OECD shows how foolish this decision was. The U.S. is more vulnerable to interest rate hikes than virtually any other major developed nation. Japan has a higher debt burden but they are locked into lower interest rates.
We hate to say we told you so... Even with rates higher today, we still think it makes sense to lock in current rates to hedge against higher rates. Remember, they went up to more than 11% under Jimmy Carter.
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3) ESG Is SO Yesterday
A recent analysis of ESG investing by Morningstar, documents that in the U.S., investors are rapidly taking money out of "sustainability funds" over the past two years in search of higher returns.
For example, in Q4 2024, U.S. investors withdrew a net $4.3 billion from ESG funds.
Compare that with the Europeans who keep doubling down on their green losses. This may explain why the European stock market so dramatically underperformed U.S. stocks in recent years.
We warned investment houses this would happen two years ago when we released our landmark study on the perils of ESG investing. We were proven right: Going green means going deeply into the red.
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4) Trump Takes Control of Regulatory Agencies
Honestly, we can't keep up with this guy!
Earlier this week, Trump fired two Democratic FTC commissioners in a direct challenge to the 1935 Humphrey's Executor ([link removed]) Supreme Court decision.
The 1935 case bizarrely held that the Federal Trade Commission is not part of the executive branch, and therefore its commissioners cannot be removed by the president. That makes no constitutional sense.
Trump can count on the current FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson as an ally. "Humphrey's Executor was wrongly decided, is deeply anti-democratic, and ought to be overruled," he said. ([link removed]) "I will be making a motion to ask my fellow Commissioners to agree to align the FTC's position on this issue with the President's position."
We especially enjoy this argument from one of the deposed FTC Democrats:
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We completely agree with her!
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5) Even the Students Think College Tuition Is a Rip-Off
It's not just Congress, the Trump Administration and parents who are upset with US higher education today.
A new Gallup Poll finds that fewer than one in five current or prospective U.S. college students believe four-year colleges "charge fair prices for what they offer students." A whopping three out of five (59%) think price gouging is going on.
Two-year community colleges (which often focus on vocational or technical skills) have a better reputation. Even so, only 40% of college students say those institutions charge fair prices.
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This has been driven by a spigot of federal grant and loan dollars that schools have captured through tuition increases (some are up to $70,000 a year).
Nearly 3 out of 4 American borrowers say student loan debt has forced them to delay a major life event — whether it be buying a house, having kids or getting married.
Trump's executive order to end the Department of Education notes correctly that it has become, in effect, the nation's largest and worst run bank. It's past time to privatize and rationalize higher education.
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6) When She's Right She's Right!
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