1) We Need a Bigger PR Push on the Big Beautiful Bill

A new Winston poll on the tax bill finds mixed opinions and confusion, which reinforces the case for a PR blitz to win over undecided voters and to stiffen spines.

On the worrisome side, only a small plurality of Americans (33% to 29%) support the Trump tax cut - more than one-third are still undecided.

The very good news is that most Americans - but not all - now understand that their taxes will go up next year if this bill doesn't pass.  

But by a two to one margin voters think the tax bill will make the deficit worse (which we think is a wrong conclusion), and most think that the bill doesn't cut enough spending (which we agree is true).

Two takeaways from this sobering poll:

First, we need to keep stressing that YOUR OWN tax bill will go up if this bill doesn't pass.

Second, the particulars of the bill are still a mystery to most voters, so they need to be reminded. Tax reforms like doubling the standard deduction, lower rates, the small business tax cuts, and no tax on tips) ARE highly popular features of the bill. Shout them out!

Source: Winston Group

Sounds like the old Soviet strategy for lowering prices: have the government run the stores.

In today’s primary election, New York City Democrats may vote in Socialist Zohran Mandami, who has catapulted himself into a tie with scandal-tarred Andrew Cuomo in the latest polls. He's promising a collectivist utopia that includes a rent freeze, universal child care, and a $30 an hour minimum wage.

He even favors city-owned grocery stores (see video below), an absurd idea that is also being considered in Chicago and Atlanta.

Why not? It worked so well in Moscow. Everything was affordable and the store shelves were empty.

Russians in the 1970s wait in food lines at grocery stores

4) Government Workers Get a Sweet Deal

The budget bill before Congress includes some key reforms of the federal workforce. New hires will choose between retaining rigid civil service protections with higher pension contributions (9.4% of pay) or opting for at-will employment with lower contributions (4.4%) of pay. Naturally, government worker unions are in open revolt against such changes.

But Congress should remember just how good government workers have it now. The latest data show government workers receive substantially more than their private sector counterparts and are therefore much more expensive to employ. The average hourly cost for wages or salary is 23.6% higher for government workers, $39.42 per hour compared to $31.89 per hour. The larger disparity is from the gratuitously large benefits paid to government workers, costing an average of $24.58 per hour compared to $13.49 per hour in the private sector. That’s a whopping 82.2 percent more!

This does not even include the near-lifetime tenure of federal employees - a sweetheart deal Trump wants to bring to an end.  

5) The Infamous Kelo “Eminent Domain” Decision Is 20 Years Old

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court eminent domain Kelo decision. By a 5 to 4 vote, the court ruled that the forcible eviction of homes or businesses by private interests in the name of “economic development,” was a legitimate “public use” of eminent domain.

At the time, the late Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor wrote in her dissent that the decision meant:

“All private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded…Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall or any farm with a factory.”

The results haven’t been quite that bad, because public uproar forced 47 states to change either their statutes or constitutions to reform eminent domain (the outliers are New York, Massachusetts and, bizarrely, Arkansas).  

Kelo was all about an attempt by the pharma company, Pfizer, to condemn Suzette Kelo’s New London, Connecticut “little pink house” (along 14 others), so it could build a new plant and five-star hotel. Pfizer abandoned its plan in part because of the uproar.

The Supreme Court has declined to hear any new eminent domain cases. It's high time for the Court to right an egregious error.

6) The Kelo Wrecking Ball

CORRECTION: In HOTLINE #1290 we erroneously credited George H. W. Bush with promoting Social Security accounts. It was George W. Bush. The corrected item is on our website. We regret the error.

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