“If shooting down the balloon put America in a ‘position of strength’” with Beijing, as Bidenites claim, then “why is the Biden team so eager for everyone to move on and forget about it?” asks National Review’s Jim Geraghty. After all, “Wang Yi met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Munich, and Blinken said that China’s top diplomat refused to apologize for the balloon.” Plus, Beijing’s apparently looking to help arm Russia for its Ukraine war. Yet the prez vows to “continue to engage with China”? The most likely “explanation is that Biden is 80 years old, his views on China were shaped by the painfully naïve U.S. consensus from the 1990s and 2000, and he simply can’t let go of the hope that some combination of concessions and incentives will bring back that old, nicer ‘partner in prosperity’ version of China that he used to know.”
President Biden’s recent tweet that he’ll “be a ‘nightmare’ for Republicans who dream of cutting Social Security and Medicare” shows he’s “shockingly ignorant about these two programs and any Republican reform efforts,” sneers Reason’s Veronique De Rugy. Spending on the programs “consumes 45 percent of the federal budget,” making them (with Medicaid) “the drivers of our current and future debt” and threatening “our fiscal future.” The two programs jointly “face a shortfall of $116 trillion over the next 30 years.” When the Trust Fund runs out of money by 2033, “Social Security benefits by law will be cut by about one-fifth” and Medicare will get there sooner. Biden’s vow “to block Medicare and Social Security reform” will ensure that “benefits will be cut without any possibility of sheltering those seniors who are poor. The nightmare looms for them.”
New York long forced “state and local government workers to pay a union as a condition of employment,” notes the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin, until the June 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Janus vs. AFSCME ended mandatory dues payments. Empire State unions “had moved to pre-empt the decision” with a “multi-pronged push to shore up their ranks,” but it wasn’t enough. New data show the rate of New York union membership among eligible workers did rise right after Janus — “but has since declined.” Combined with workforce reductions, the ruling led to a 21% drop in union-paying public employees from September 2017 to September ’22.
The race to lead the Scottish National Party “is already surprisingly spicy,” marvels Spiked’s Tom Slater. Ash Regan and Kate Forbes both oppose the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, the issue that sank the last SNP leader; only Humza Yousaf would “fight tooth and nail for the right of confused 16-year-olds to swiftly change their gender, and for men to be given access to women’s spaces simply because they say they are women.” Turns out Forbes is also personally pro-life and pro-traditional marriage. So what? “That a party solely devoted to Scottish secession is insisting any future leader be not only a social liberal, but a gender ideologue to boot” suggests “warped priorities and deep intolerance.”
“Despite all of President Biden’s efforts to contain China and bring production home, there is more interpenetration of the two economies today than ever,” warns The American Prospect’s Robert Kuttner, as US “ imports of products from China totaled $536.8 billion in 2022,” up 6.3% from 2021, while US exports to China rose just $1.6%. Even “friendshoring,” which aims “to diversify sources of supply and to give tariff preference to nations that share our values” can fall short: “When friends such as Mexico and even some of our European allies are cavalier about their own supply chains, friendshoring becomes a euphemism for China-sourcing.” In short, “if we are serious about containing China and rebuilding domestic production, the challenge has just begun.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board