Clearing the Tabs August 2019

Some things I've read this month or will be reading soon.

August 2
Estonia Experiments with Higher Taxes, Learns a Lesson

August 3
The regression of America’s big progressive cities

August 4
Economic Illiteracy from the New York Times

August 12
Can the Working Class Trust the Democrats?

August 16
The United States Must Stand Strong with the People of Hong Kong

August 24
Public schools should be places of learning, not propaganda

"Public schools need to focus not on ideology but on intelligent pragmatism. They should focus on both on improving reading and math scores and becoming reliable suppliers of talent to our local companies."

August 26
How the 1619 Project Rehabilitates the ‘King Cotton’ Thesis
My friend of nearly 20 years now, Phil Magness, continues to ruin theories of Leftists

August 31
The Recycling Folly
The bottom line is that most recycling programs impose a fiscal and personal cost on people for very meager environmental benefits.

Daniel Henninger Observes Leftist Opposition To Education Reform

Late last week Daniel Henninger had a really good column in the Wall Street Journal. He was discussing President Obama's latest faux-concern, the issue of "income inequality." In a column which was subtitled "The left will never support the solution to income inequality," Mr. Henninger was looking at the new mayor of New York City, progessive Leftist Bill de Blasio, and he closed his WSJ column this way:

Let's cut to the chase: The real issue in the American version of this subject is the low incomes of the inner-city poor. And let's put on the table one thing nearly all agree on: A successful education improves lifetime earnings. This assumes one is living in an economy with better than moribund growth, an assumption no one in the U.S. or Western Europe can make anymore. 

If there is one political goal all Democratic progressives agree on it's this: They will resist, squash and kill any attempt anywhere in the U.S. to educate those low-income or no-income inner-city kids in alternatives to the public schools run by the party's industrial-age unions. 

Reforming that public-school monopoly is the litmus test of seriousness on income inequality. That monopoly is the primary cause of America's post-1970s social-policy failure. And that monopoly will emerge from the Obama presidency and de Blasio mayoralty intact. So will income inequality.