Unleash Prosperity Hotline – Weekend Edition Issue #628
09/30/2022, 10/01/2022, 10/02/2022
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1) Ducey Does It
Republican Governor Doug Ducey doesn’t get all the love that Florida’s Ron DeSantis deservedly does, but he will leave office in January after two terms with a stellar economic record. On Thursday he announced that Arizona in 2023 will have a 2.5% flat rate income tax. The lowest in the nation – other than the nine states that have no income tax at all. Because the state is well managed fiscally and is running a surplus, the flat tax is taking effect one year earlier than previously planned.
Ducey also deserves kudos for instituting the most ambitious school choice program in the nation with a $7,000 per child voucher for parents to send their kids to the school of their choice – public or private.
Imagine how prosperous the entire country would be with this agenda.
2) Government Unions Have Lost Nearly Quarter Of A Million Members
Now we know why the big labor bosses are so militantly opposed to right-to-work laws. It turns out that when even government employees – the most liberal group of voters in America – have a choice about whether to join the union and pay the dues, a lot say adios.
In the four years following the Supreme Court’s landmark Janus ruling, the nation’s four largest government unions—AFSCME, SEIU, NEA, and AFT—have lost 219,000 union members, according to a new report from the Commonwealth Foundation.
As Commonwealth’s state scorecard shows, Virginia dropped from “A+” to “C” for instituting collective bargaining (prior to Youngkin) while Arkansas jumped from “C” to “A+” for banning it.
For the record, We are not opposed to collective bargaining for private sector unions. But we are when it comes to public sector unions because so many elected officials are beholden to the unions. This means that when union contracts are being negotiated, there is too often no one at the negotiating table representing the interests of the taxpayers. That explains why states have hundreds of billions of dollars of unfunded pensions.
Even with COVID over – (just ask the president) Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, Minnesota, and several other states are already voting today. Most states haven’t even had candidate debates yet.
We are with 80% of Americans who want Election Day (except for legitimate absentee balloting) voting and all votes are counted on Election Day.
Imagine if you had early voting in jury trials, in which some jurors could cast a vote before all the evidence had been presented in court.
Worse is mail-in ballots. We learned in 2020, the risk of fraud is very real. You don’t have to believe us. The National Commission on Federal Election Reform, co-chaired by former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, noted in 2004: “Growing use of absentee voting has turned this area of voting into the most likely opportunity for election fraud. . . . These cases are especially difficult to prosecute, since the misuse of a voter’s ballot or the pressure on voters occurs away from the polling place or any other outside scrutiny. These opportunities for abuse should be contained, not enlarged.”
Main-in ballots and early voting are probably and regrettably here to stay. But Election Day is an iconic American institution and was established for a reason. It deserves to be respected.
4) Missouri Steps Up To Block Biden's Student Loan Bailout
Missouri is the state most directly harmed by the Biden student loan bailout, because its state lending agency MOHELA is the number one servicer of federal direct loans nationally. That means the servicing fees paid by borrowers from all 50 states find their way to Missouri, where they fund scholarship programs and jobs for Missouri residents. Mass loan discharge directly deprives the state of that servicing revenue.
So we were thrilled to see state Attorney General Eric Schmitt lead a coalition of six states challenging the Biden student loan bailout in federal court.
In a panic move, the Biden administration immediately reacted by scaling back the scope of loans eligible for discharge (accidentally illustrating exactly what’s wrong with running a $400+ billion spending program with no law, no rulemaking, and no guidance documents).
5) Air Canada Makes Canada A Little Freer From COVID Tyranny
This is quite a statement on Trudeau finally lifting COVID restrictions:
We hope more companies will be so forthright because acknowledgment that restrictions were not justified by science is critical to prevent them from coming back.
In response to our item on polar bears earlier this week, a reader sent this video of a bear pole dancing. Warning: this may not be appropriate for younger eyes.
