1) Mr. President: Let ‘er Rip

To paraphrase Paul Newman in the movie “Cool Hand Luke”: “Sometimes doing nothing is a pretty cool hand.”

Those are words the Trump White House should embrace. As we’ve correctly predicted many times on these pages: the economy is flying high right now. Three straight quarters of an average of near 4% growth.  Inflation tumbling to 2.7%. Record high stock markets. Low and still falling gas prices. Real incomes exceeding inflation.  Crime down. The budget deficit falling.

It just doesn’t get much better than this. Oh, but it will. The combination of Trump tax cuts kicking in, gas prices continuing to fall, and tariffs falling (and some tariff rebates on the way), more Biden-era regulations repealed are all can’t miss growth stimulants.

So just let it rip. Be gone with this litany of bad ideas now flowing out that will almost assuredly backfire:

• credit card price controls

• 50-year mortgages

• $200 billion of expansions of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac housing interventions (did we learn nothing from the 2008 housing crisis?)

• prohibiting investors from purchases of housing

• Uncle Sam taking equity positions in Intel and in defense firms

• Deporting non-criminal illegal immigrants who are working and paying taxes.

These are all poll-driven gimmicky non-free market ideas that smack of Hail Mary political desperation.  

But why? Trump exulted in Detroit yesterday: “We have quickly achieved the exact opposite of stagflation, almost no inflation and super high growth.”

He’s right. So just sit back and let ‘er rip.  

2) Obamacare Enrollment Barely Budged

So much for the Dem squeals and fatuous TV ads that without supersized Obamacare subsidies millions will lose insurance. With open enrollment closing on January 15, we have now preliminary numbers of where signups were as of January 3, and they were already the second-highest level ever only to last year, with two weeks still to go:

The bad news here is that the millions of likely fraudulent enrollees that were put on the rolls since the minimum payment was cut to zero during COVID are still there. CMS has a lot of work to do.

"Later this week, I'll announce our healthcare affordability framework," Trump said yesterday, promising to "reduce premiums for millions, lower drug prices, delivering price transparency, and demand honesty and accountability from insurance companies all over the country, all over the world, actually."

That’s the winning approach.

3) Maryland Has the Country's Highest Utility Bills

Here's a different take on utility bills, based not on rates but on median total bills paid among the users of a popular bill payment service called Doxo, that has over 10 million customers across 97% of all US zip codes.

Maryland is the most expensive state for utilities, with the median household paying $546 per month in utilities, including $189 for water and sewer, $150 electric, $127 for waste and recycling, and $80 for gas.

The sky-high water bills are doing a lot of the work of making Maryland unaffordable. Here's how those payments compare with the rest of the country:

4) African Leaders Agree: End Foreign Aid

When Secretary of State Marco Rubio moved to shut down the Agency for International Development last January, he noted that it had largely become a global charity for non-profit grifters. He announced the U.S. would now promote "trade over aid, opportunity over dependency, and investment over assistance."

Now, even the recipients of the foreign aid racket admit it inhibits economic development.

Uganda's main opposition leader is demanding a freeze on all foreign funding as that country prepares to vote this week:

"We're not asking the West or the international community to come and save us, but we're asking them not to sponsor our oppression," says Bobi Wine, a pop star-turned-politician.. "If you are not giving money to dictators in Europe, why do you fund the dictators in Africa?"

Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema has also stepped forward to publicly agree with Rubio's new policy.  He says cuts to U.S. foreign aid were "long overdue" and offered his country the chance to "take care of our own affairs."

"It is basically a wake-up call," Hichilema told Britain's Daily Telegraph last month. "We in Zambia, we on this continent, have been sleeping on duty. It is our duty to ensure service delivery to our population.”

Hichilema, a businessman who was elected in 2021 with 60% of the vote, has moved to restore confidence in the country. He has streamlined licensing, cut public employees, and paid off foreign debt.  Most importantly, he reversed the expropriation of the copper mines that the previous government began. Zambia's economic growth hit 5.8% in 2025 and is projected to be even higher this year.

5) Bessent Cracks Down on Somali Fraud

Kudos, Mr. Secretary. Get after it.

It is clear that Governor Walz has been negligent in his fiduciary duties as the chief executive of the state of Minnesota, that this would happen on his watch, and we are actively pursuing all leads to see the level of involvement, whether it's limited to just negligence and incompetence or is something more than that...

All entities in the administration will be pursuing this so that we can get the biggest recoveries possible and we will see, and we are going to leave no stone unturned, whether it was fraudulent real estate, whether it is money that has been wired overseas, we will be tracking it to the Middle East and East Africa. This is why Treasury is involved. This is what we do. We track, we follow the money, and we intend to follow it. As much as we can prosecute the individuals no matter where they are, whether they are in the Minnesota government or they are sitting in East Africa, we will find them.

And we view this crime as very similar to the cartel's money laundering. Many of the same approaches, many of the same shell companies. So, we will see where it goes out from here. That will be a starting point. And as I said, Minnesota is going to be the protocols, the procedures, and the investigative techniques as well as the collaboration with other agencies. Minnesota is going to be the genesis for a national rollout.

6) Washington Is Running Out of Other People’s Money

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