In the years it took for “federal bureaucrats to review and approve an application for a transmission line carrying completely carbon-free, renewable energy across a mostly empty portion of the American West,” snarks Reason’s Eric Boehm, “we’ve blown through 14 versions of iPhones [and] seen two terms of Obama’s presidency” plus another six years. Now “the 3,000-megawatt line could be operational by 2028” — remarkably “23 years since the project was first proposed.” Without “significant reforms” of the permitting and review process, building big infrastructure projects like the TransWest Express line “will never be as simple as turning on a light switch.”
“School choice,” argues Lewis M. Andrews at The Spectator, will “severely reduce the Democratic Party’s election workforce, squeeze its finances and even discredit its basic philosophy.” The party “received a historic $64.5 million for the 2020 presidential race directly from various teachers’ unions (and millions more in so-called ‘dark money,’ ” not to mention “the enormous army of campaign workers that Democrats have come to depend upon during every election cycle.” And “should it become clear that children do best in schools that are chosen and even run by their own parents, the public would be open to rethinking the delivery of other public services, from welfare to health care.” So “the Democrat Party as currently structured is clearly under long-term threat.”
Per polling, “over two-thirds of Democrats” want “to expand educational options,” while “calls for education reform have increased” even among leftists since lockdowns ended, so “you would think Democrats would be rethinking their decades-long alliance with the educational establishment,” says Robert Busek at The Federalist. “Yet the party remains unstinting in its support for the educrats,” because 1) teachers unions give “a huge amount of money to the left every year” and 2) “Democrats are very interested in the culture war, and schools are the chief battlefield where that war is being fought.” Now “liberal parents must reject the idea that their children are a ‘public responsibility’ at the ballot box, even if it means joining forces with conservatives they’ve been taught to despise.”
President Biden’s foreign policy is to “appease” adversaries and “ostracize” friends, rails Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) at Compact, citing his administration’s lifting of sanctions on dictatorships like Cuba and Venezuela while imposing them on “partners” like El Salvador. Visiting there, Rubio saw “firsthand” how President Nayib Bukele “cracked down” on gangs, freeing families to go out “without fear” and earning him a near-90% approval rating. Yet Democrats “badmouth” El Salvador as an “emerging dictatorship”; the left would rather see gangs “roaming the streets than criminals locked up.” Meanwhile, “allies like Colombia, dissatisfied with US leadership,” turn to Moscow and Beijing. “Now is not the time to push a partner like El Salvador into the arms of our opponents for being too tough on crime.”
“When he was a senator, Joe Biden voted for spending reforms attached to debt limit increases four times: in 1985, in 1987, in 1993, and in 1997. On the occasions he opposed raising the debt limit, it was because he said the deficit reduction measures were not enough to justify debt limit increases,” House Speaker Kevin McCarthy noted Monday. The Wall Street Journal’s James Freeman has more: In 2006, Biden voted against another ceiling increase, denouncing the “tsunami of debt.” And in September 1984, notes Freeman, “Biden was among a bipartisan group of six senators seeking a vote on a ‘federal spending freeze’ before consideration of another increase in the debt ceiling.” Indeed, “here’s a Biden idea that has certainly stood the test of time. Given the surging cost of interest on the federal debt, it’s clear that we need it more than ever.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board