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You shouldn’t have to join a union if you don’t want to. But that’s exactly what happens to teachers in states that don’t have right-to-work laws.
A friend on mine who is a history teacher in non-right-to-work Boston, Massachusetts complains about the dues automatically deducted from his paycheck. He has stood up in meetings to complain about the lack of freedom.
When Becky and I see him and his wife on Friday in Boston, I’ll tell him that there’s still hope. Teachers in Wisconsin, thanks to Governor Scott Walker’s reforms, have a choice whether to join or not. They have voted with their feet/wallet, gutting public sector union membership—now comprising 8.3% of workers in Wisconsin, down from 14.2%. Isn’t freedom great?
Expect the GOP to roll out right-to-work laws in the months ahead especially now that they will control the state houses and legislatures in 30 states in 2017. The cozy relationship between our elected politicians, public sector unions, and your tax money, needs to be broken. There is no better example than the work done by Walker of Wisconsin. The Badger state is open for business, as explained here in the WSJ.
Union reforms and right-to-work laws aren’t the only drivers of economic growth, but they do attract many businesses that won’t consider operating in states without them. The reduction in union power has stabilized public finances that were spiraling upward. This in turn gives businesses confidence that they won’t be hit with tax increases year after year, a la Illinois, Connecticut and other states where politics is still dominated by the nexus of public-union donations and government officials.
In 2016 Forbes ranked Wisconsin the 27th state in the country for business, up from 40th in 2011. A survey of CEOs by the Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce found that 84% say the state is heading in the right direction.
In 2011 Mr. Walker’s union reforms and the public Battle of Madison looked like a huge political risk. This year the GOP added two seats to its state Senate majority, which is now 20-13, and one in the Assembly (64 to 35). Break up the duopoly of politicians and government unions, and good things can happen.
According to the National Right to Work Committee, New Hampshire, Kentucky and Missouri are the most likely next states to gain Right to Work status.
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Bill Clinton famously lamented during Hillary’s campaign that sick enrollees are seeing “their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half.” Even proponents of Obamacare admit that it is in a death spiral. But as Michael F. Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, writes in NRO, repeal of the law will not be easy. There is hope, however. Mr. Cannon believes that Donald Trump could become “America’s greatest health-care reformer, all while cutting taxes more than Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush combined.”
Mr. Cannon proposes that Mr. Trump work with Congress to fulfill his pledge of legislation that “fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds.”
- Fully Repeal Obamacare and veto any effort to preserve any of Obamacare’s regulations, mandates, or spending.
- Replace Obamacare with Health Savings Accounts (HSAs).
- Allow Americans to purchase insurance across state lines.
- Allow States to manage Medicaid funds.
“Critics,” writes Mr. Cannon, “will complain that these reforms don’t provide health insurance to everyone. But guess what? Neither does Obamacare. These simple steps would mean fewer poor and sick patients falling through the cracks of America’s health-care system than ever before. And that would be a legacy for the history books.”
Read more detail on Mr. Cannon’s proposals here.
Michael F. Cannon discusses the future of Obamacare under Donald Trump on FBN’s Kennedy
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War Lubricates the Machinery of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in Washington
Writing at The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich explains in detail, yet advises not to hold your breath.
To a very considerable extent, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton, preferred candidate of the establishment, because he advertised himself as just the guy disgruntled Americans could count on to drain that swamp.
Yet here’s what too few of those Americans appreciate, even today: war created that swamp in the first place. War empowers Washington. It centralizes. It provides a rationale for federal authorities to accumulate and exercise new powers. It makes government bigger and more intrusive. It lubricates the machinery of waste, fraud, and abuse that causes tens of billions of taxpayer dollars to vanish every year. When it comes to sustaining the swamp, nothing works better than war.
Were Trump really intent on draining that swamp—if he genuinely seeks to “Make America Great Again”—then he would extricate the United States from war.
But don’t hold your breath on that one. All signs indicate that, in one fashion or another, our combative next president will perpetuate the wars he’s inheriting.
Andrew Bacevich on the Problems With U.S. Foreign Policy
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Who will be the real winners from Treasury nominee Steve Mnuchin? My gut tells me it won’t be Main Street. Trump needed to thread the needle with the pick, appeasing the millions of voters that can’t stand Wall Street. Mnuchin is a Goldman Sachs guy. That’s not exactly a pick for the Forgotten Man.
I hope Mnuchin turns out to be a solid pick. But the fact that he made money investing in the ruins post 2008, and investing in Hollywood is not why they voted for Trump. Guys with special access were supposed to be the losers in this election. Guys on Harley-Davidsons didn’t vote for a Wall Street banker/Hollywood financier. Give me a break.
If I sound bitter, I am. My favored choice, former President and CEO of the Cato Institute, John Allison wasn’t picked. He would have been an outstanding choice. (Read more about him here and here) He’s a guy of the people. The success of Main Street, not Wall Street, was the foundation of his success as the head of BB&T. He would have fought for sound money and the Forgotten Man.
When it comes to money, Mnuchin and Trump are dealmakers. Dealmakers depend on debt and fancy financing. John Allison, in contrast, believes in the gold standard where discipline rules. Trump is where he is because of Main Street. It’s important that he never forgets that and he and his Treasury pick get “America” back to work.
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Americans voted for Donald Trump to slam the door on radical Islam. As Secretary of Defense, General Mattis could begin attacking radical Islam head on. Here The Federalist explains a potential Mattis formula.
Is political Islam in America’s best interests? This question should be central to our strategy of fighting ISIS and Islamist terrorism in general. Yet it’s one that many political leaders would rather not answer, because of our politically correct climate. But since Trump’s transition team announced last week that it’s considering retired Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense, this reluctance might fade.
In a speech given at the Heritage Foundation last year, Mattis spoke about America’s position vis à vis political Islam. Rather than equivocating on the matter in order to avoid saying something uncomfortable or politically incorrect, Mattis simply pointed out that America needs to make a decision about its stance toward this ideology.
Mattis’ appointment as Defense Secretary would be a marked change not only from the Obama administration, but also from the Bush years. Both administrations were reluctant to substantively engage in a debate on the merits or threats of political Islam
Mattis concludes that political Islam is not, in the end, good for America.
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 Time to dump Obamacare for a plan that really does work. The WSJ
lays out the case.
Donald Trump announced this week that he had chosen Rep. Tom Price (R., Ga.), a leader in the efforts to replace Obamacare, to be his secretary of Health and Human Services. This is a consequential choice. Mr. Trump’s election, and the political realignment it represents, offers a generational opportunity to pursue a new direction for American health care. Mr. Price will now be leading the charge.
The new system should be fully consumer driven, empowering individuals to be the surveyors and purchasers of their care. Past reforms in this direction became stilted and ultimately incomplete, but the current moment offers a chance to truly rebuild from the ground up. If Messrs. Trump and Price want to make the most of this short window, they should keep four central reforms in mind.
- Provide a path to catastrophic health insurance for all Americans.
- Accommodate people with pre-existing health conditions.
- Allow broad access to health-savings accounts.
- Deregulate the market for medical services.
- Deregulate the market for medical services.
Trump’s HHS pick hates Obamacare
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Beaujolais, a district of Burgundy (see map to right), France, south of Pairs, produces almost exclusively the light, thin-skinned Gamay red grape. Each year on the third Thursday of November, Nouveau Beaujolais—a cheap, barely fermented wine—is released, amid much fanfare as well as much ridicule.
There are 10 villages that produce Beaujolais Cru, not to be confused with Beaujolais Nouveau. A Beaujolais Cru can be “distinguished and complex,” and is a far cry from the grapy and sweet Nouveau wines. One reason Beaujolais Cru is perhaps overlooked is that it comes from the Gamay grape and is not a Pinot Noir grape, explains Lettie Teague in the WSJ.
Gamay is considered by some to be a less-serious grape, although when grown in granite soils, as in Morgon, it can take on the character of a Pinot Noir with age, something producers refer to as “pinotizing.”
Discerning drinkers already know what great deals the best Beaujolais crus represent. Perhaps with so many high-quality, good-value wines in the market right now, Beaujolais will finally mean more than Nouveau for everyone else.
  Whether you are a budding or sophisticated wine lover, Rajat Parr’s Secrets of the Sommeliers
is an excellent, enjoyable reference. Of Beaujolais Cru, Raj writes, “These days, there is probably no wine that I am more excited about than Beaujolais. I drink it at home, I drink it at restaurants, I push it at RN74. I cannot get enough of it. … the wines not only remain delicious, easy to drink, and affordable, but also become complex and age-worthy.”
Click here for five choices of Beaujolais Cru Ms. Teague considers a cut above the rest.
Rajat Parr: Only Two Kinds of Wine
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President-elect Trump has nominated retired Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis as the nation’s 26th secretary of defense. It was, and will be, a controversial pick, since by law a military officer must be retired for seven years to serve in a civilian capacity, but Mattis only retired four years ago. Despite his rock star status in the Marine Corps and on Capitol Hill, there are likely to be thoroughgoing hearings on his nomination. Below are a few questions General Mattis should be asked.
You are no doubt familiar with the law preventing military officers from serving as civilians immediately following their retirement. One of the nation’s leading scholars of civil-military relations remarked after a meeting with you that you “understand the importance of civilian control of the military.” But you are also a student of history. What is your sense of the anti-military tradition in the United States? Do you worry that our republican character has been eroded by seventy years of militarization? How does the prospect of a retired Marine general as defense secretary affect that tradition, or not?
The important part here is whether Mattis recognizes not just an anti-militarism tradition, but our anti-military tradition. The Founders of this country loathed standing armies. In 1783, Revolutionary War veteran Aedanus Burke warned, “military commanders acquiring fame … are generally in their hearts aristocrats, and enemies to the popular equality of a republic.” John Randolph saw no serious threats to the Republic and accordingly denounced the Army as “loungers, who live upon the public, who consume the fruits of their honest industry, under the pretext of protecting them from a foreign yoke.” Randolph sneered at the idea that a country of virtuous and self-sufficient republicans would be forced to seek “the protection of a handful of ragamuffins.” Benjamin Rush suggested placing signs above the entrance to the Department of War reading “An office for butchering the human species” and “A Widow and Orphan making office.”
Will Mattis acknowledge this, but protest that the world has changed since then? It has changed, but for the better. These men were writing at a time when three European empires were rampaging across the North American continent, and ultimately burned the White House to the ground during the War of 1812. Were the Founders wrong to be anti-military? Is the world today more dangerous than it was when foreign troops were fighting wars on North American soil? What is his view of the threat environment today as compared to the time when these anti-military sentiments held sway in the halls of power?
What is your sense of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran’s role in the fight against ISIS so far, and the prospect for US-Iran relations going forward?
An article in Politico details what the author describes as Mattis’ “anti-Iran animus.” While animus is understandable, some of the claims he has made about Iran are not. For instance, he is quoted at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies last April as saying that “I would just point out one question for you to look into: What is the one country in the Middle East that has not been attacked by ISIS? One. That is Iran. That is more than happenstance, I’m sure.”
What did he mean by this? Was he really suggesting that Iran was collaborating with, rather than fighting, ISIS? What is his view of the role Iran plays in the Middle East in the context of American strategy there?
Given Congress’ emphasis on Iran, and the importance of civilian control of the military, there should be ample room to explore the next defense secretary’s positions on these issues.
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Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen and her supporters.
Pat Buchanan, writing in The American Conservative, tells readers that the fat is in the fire now.
Buchanan writes:
According to the Washington Post, the phone call from Taiwan to Trump was no chance happening. It had been planned for weeks. And people in Trump’s inner circle are looking to closer ties to Taiwan and a tougher policy toward Beijing.
Well, the fat is in the fire now
Across Asia, every capital is waiting to see how Xi Jinping responds, for a matter of face would seem to be involved.
On the trade front, China is deeply vulnerable. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods would cause a sudden massive loss of income to factories in China and a stampede out of the country.
On the other hand, without China using its economic leverage over North Korea, it is unlikely any sanctions the U.S. and its allies can impose will persuade Kim Jong Un to halt his nuclear-weapons program.
China can choke North Korea to death. But China can also step back and let Pyongyang become a nuclear-weapons state, though that could mean Seoul and Tokyo following suit, which would be intolerable to Beijing.
Before we go down this road, President-elect Trump and his foreign-policy team ought to think through just where it leads—and where it might end.
Impact of Trump Taiwan call on US-China relations
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