Foreign desk: EU Was Bigger Winner on Trade Deal European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker “came to Washington with a bridge to sell,” says…
Foreign desk: EU Was Bigger Winner on Trade Deal
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker “came to Washington with a bridge to sell,” says Bloomberg’s Leonid Bershidsky, “and in three hours of talks he sold it” to President Trump. The joint statement the two men issued on trade and tariffs has “no numbers, no deadlines and no specific measures.” Yet Trump’s “fire and fury against European car imports” has now “been put to rest, at least temporarily.” In return, he got promises of increased European imports of soybeans and liquid natural gas. But “the EU cannot order member states to buy more” LNG from the US — besides, it’s not as if U. S. suppliers are sitting on lots of LNG they can’t sell. Juncker, suggests Bershidsky, ran “circles around Trump.”
Conservative: Is Ocasio-Cortez the Left’s Donald Trump?
On paper, they couldn’t be more dissimilar, but The Federalist’s David Marcus suggests President Trump and new socialist superstar Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually have much in common. Both won primaries “against the establishment in parties that didn’t want them.” Both used social media “to do an end-run around those establishments.” And both espouse views “that quite recently would have been disqualifying but no longer are.” Their appeal is “based less in a belief that they have the answers” and more on a feeling that “the status quo is broken beyond repair and we need something — anything — new.” But “this is a dangerous attitude that makes little sense given the peace, prosperity, and well-being most Americans enjoy today.” Yet there’s “a good chance” she can “bring her party along with her.”
Ex-gov: No US Bailout for States Drowning in Debt
When a state “pursues boneheaded policies long enough,” notes former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels at The Washington Post, “people and businesses get up and leave, taking tax dollars with them.” And over the past few years, several large states “have descended into unmanageable public indebtedness,” thanks to the explosion of Medicaid and “grotesque” public pensions. So, he asks, “where is a destitute governor to turn?” Eventually, “we can anticipate pleas for nationalization of these impossible obligations”— or “subsidy of the poor by the prudent.” California did just that in 2009, pitching it as an “investment” by more fiscally sane states. And though it didn’t succeed, it did walk away with $8 billion in federal “stimulus” money. But now, warns Daniels, “such a heist will be harder to justify in the absence of a national economic emergency.”
Strategist: Once Again, Pollsters Are Missing Reality
The biggest “fake news” story of the past few years was that Donald Trump had no chance of being elected, contends Mark Penn at The Hill. Fact is, “the entire pundit-polling-news establishment (including myself) was wrong.” The polls themselves were largely accurate — it was the analysis of them that was “sophomoric, failing to understand the electoral college power of the unique coalition Trump amassed.” Yet “very little has changed” since then — indeed, “polling has drifted even further from reality.” A new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll found “more intense support” for Trump but opposition to his policies. That’s because “questions are framed in ways that would lead any reader to believe everything the president does is wrong and opposed by the public.”
Professor: Why Libs Should Hope NY Loses SALT Lawsuit
New York and other states have taken the new federal tax law to court, hoping to lift the cap on state and local tax deductions. But as Scott Lemieux argues at City and State, the legal arguments “are weak” and have “virtually no chance of succeeding.” Moreover, he says, liberal New Yorkers “should root against their state in court” — because a victory would “cripple the federal government’s powers of taxation in ways that would restrict future Democratic congresses.” The suit charges a violation of the constitutional guarantee of equal state sovereignty,” and “liberals should be very wary of invoking this doctrine,” long championed by segregationists. In fact, this line of reasoning “could be used to overturn progressive income taxation altogether.” Better, says Lemieux, to win this fight “at the ballot box.”
— Compiled by Eric Fettmann
