Grade School Students in the U.S. Still Have Not Recovered from COVID School Closures

As the United States goes through another brutal election cycle, I have noticed one topic about which candidates are staying quiet: the government response to the COVID pandemic. It is not only the fact that policy decisions from both parties that made the pandemic all the more unbearable. What makes it all the more jaw-dropping is that in spite of President Biden declaring the pandemic over in September 2022, we are still reeling from the poor policy choices that were made. 

There is the Fed printing a lot of money and the federal government spending a ton of money that gave us the inflation that has eaten into Americans' purchasing power. Everyday citizens trust public health experts and all vaccines (not only COVID vaccines) less. We should also think of the children because children have especially paid a terrible price for lockdowns and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI). It is not only the decline in socio-emotional skills or the chronic absenteeism that worry me about the children that will eventually be the future adults in this country. 

Student achievement among grade school students has taken quite the hit, according to research from the testing nonprofit Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA). This new report from NWEA, entitled Recovery Still Elusive: 2023-24 student achievement highlights persistent achievement gaps and a long road ahead, shows that growth during the 2023-24 school year fell short of pre-pandemic trends. The average student will need 4.8 additional months of schooling to catch up in reading and 4.3 additional months to catch up in mathematics. What makes this more perturbing is that the gap is the same for mathematics as it was last year and even larger for reading than it was last year. What was expected to have ended, as expressed by the authors of the NWEA report, is taking much longer to recuperate. 

As eye-opening as these findings are, we still do not know the full extent of the damage that school closures, lockdowns, and other NPIs caused to millions of students. Lower academic achievement is as tragic as it was predictable. I expressed my concerns as early as July 2020 that school closures would have a considerable and negative impact on student achievement. 

I highlighted preliminary findings in June 2022, one of which included that a loss of three months of schooling is equivalent to 2.5 to 4 percent of one's life income. Given that the NWEA findings show an average of over 4 months of lost schooling, the school closures have damaged life earnings even more than 2.5 to 4 percent. This will translate into a smaller economy, a diminished purchasing power that will adversely impact these future adults, and even shorter lifespans. 

As the NWEA report points out, lower achievement and widened inequities are the new norm. What makes this more lamentable is that no one is going to be held responsible. It certainly will not be Dr. Anthony Fauci. Not only did Fauci's recommendation influence many school districts to remain closed. It was Fauci's six-foot social distancing recommendation (which has since been shown to be anti-science nonsense) that made school re-opening impractical for many classrooms, thereby delaying children from returning to a sense of normalcy. 

Aside from knowing that those responsible for such mayhem will not be held responsible, I do know one other thing. If there is to be a recovery in which lower achievement is not a permanent norm, there is quite the uphill battle. A high teacher turnover rate, chronic absenteeism, higher rates of anxiety and depression among students and teachers alike, and now diminished student achievement to the list. Assuming that the damage can be reversed, it is going to take years to do so. Outside of that, there is the faintest of hopes that we do not put our trust in the government next time there is a pandemic. That way, we can avoid of harming all of our citizens, including our children. 

Israel Is Not a Settler Colonizer, No Matter What the ICJ Ruling on West Bank Settlements Opines (Pt. I)

Last week, the United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) released a ruling stating that Israeli settlements violate international law (read the dissent here). This ICJ ruling enforces the alleged notion that Israel is a settler colonizer. A settler colonizer is a "system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism, that aims to displace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population." A classic example of a settler colonizer are the Afrikaners, the Dutch who settled in South Africa in the 17th century. This permanent settlement of Afrikaners later resulted in the Afrikaner-led apartheid of Black people in South Africa. While Palestine and its allies, not to mention the ICJ, would like to paint Israel with that same brush, calling Israel a settler colonizer does not hold for a number of reasons.

The Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. Jews have had a presence in Judea and Samaria for about three millennia, in spite of who conquered the land over the centuries. There is historical and archeological evidence of this continued Jewish presence, not to mention that the connection to the land of Israel has been embedded within Jewish texts and rituals. Indigenous people cannot colonize themselves by definition because colonization occurs from an outside force. Contrast that to concept of Palestinian nationhood that has existed since the 1960s, which was nearly 20 years after the modern-day state of Israel was established. 

There has never been a sovereign, Arab nation known as Palestine. Yes, there were multiple occupiers of the land over the centuries, including the Romans expelling the majority of Jews in the first century C.E., the Byzantines, and the Ottomans until the early 20th century. Then the British ruled over the land until the mid-1940s. The UN Partition Plan of 1947 proposed a Jewish state alongside a de facto Arab state. Instead of agreeing, the Arab nations pounced on Israel right after Israel declared independence in attempts to wipe out the Jews.

Guess what happened? The Jews came out ahead and established the modern-day state of Israel in 1948. But in all this time, there was never a Palestinian government that controlled land in the Middle East. No one can identify a Palestinian national anthem, the first Palestinian president, or a number of facts that would indicate bona fide statehood. That is because there was never an Arab Palestinian state, whether under the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, or British. How can you return land to a people that were never a self-governing state in the first place? This point will make another appearance in Part II. 

Israel is not trying to replace Jews with the Arab population. This key facet of settler colonialism does not reflect reality for a few reasons. One, there have been multiple occasions when Israel supported the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. The problem has been Palestinian rejectionism and its embrace of terrorism as an attempt to wipe out the Jews. Second, there are nearly two million Arab Muslims living in Israel, which negates the "ethnic cleansing" argument. Conversely, Palestinian officials do not want Jews in their midst. Hamas has been trying to wipe out Jews since its founding and even Mahmoud Abbas has said that he does not want a single Jew in a future Palestinian state. The third thing is that Israel is NOT committing genocide. 

Settlements are not an obstacle to peace. This argument is important to refute because it assumes that a) Israel is the colonial aggressor and the settlements are a manifestation of that aggression, and b) removing the settlements would bring about peace. As I argued seven years ago, the settlements are not the obstacle to peace. The obstacle is the Palestinian refusal to have Jewish neighbors. 

There has not been a moment when the Palestinian politicians (or the rulers of Arab countries, especially in pre-1967 terms) wanted a two-state solution. Nor do a majority of everyday Palestinian civilians want to coexist with Israel on their borders. They always wanted all the land and still do. If that was not clear after all the times the Arab times rejected a two-state solution and after all suicide bombings, intifadas, airplane hijackings, it was certainly clear after the October 7 attacks last year. This animus against the Jews predates the settlements and shows no signs of abating because it is not about settlements: the problem for the Palestinians is Israel's very existence. 

In Part II of this blog series, I will cover the legalese that justifies Israel's claim to the land. 

Biden's Rent Control Proposal Would Screw Over Americans Looking for Affordable Housing

While political pundits are focused on President Biden dropping out of the race, I want to turn attention to a policy that Biden proposed last week: nationwide rent control. Biden is urging Congress to put a 5 percent cap on rental units for landlords with over 50 rental units with the threat of losing depreciation write-offs. The reason for this plan is because Biden wants to "make renting more affordable for millions of Americans." For Biden, affordable housing is part of the American Dream. With affordable rent being more out of reach for millions of Americans, Biden believes that rent control is the solution. While his proposed rental cap would only exist for two years and not apply to all landlords, it is still enough to do damage that would be counterproductive to the goal of making rental units more affordable. 

Forget for a moment that Biden nothing to tailor the policy to local marketing conditions and simply imposes a blanket cap. Rent control is a disaster policy that hurts those that it was meant to help. I first wrote about rent control in 2014 when I pointed out the macroeconomy theory of rent control and price ceilings, as well as how that has resulted in multiple unintended consequences. It was only last month that I analyzed a meta-study on rent control that illustrated the following costs of rent control:

• Reduces housing mobility
• Makes non-rent-controlled property more expensive
• Constricts housing supply because of disincentive to create new housing, which worsens affordability
• Disincentivizes rent controlled-property upkeep, which means more people living in property unsuited to their needs
• Decreases property value, which not only hurts the value of the rental unit, but also the neighborhood

Apparently, Trump is not the only president to descend into economic lunacy. Rent control has been discredited by economists on all sides of the political spectrum. The fact that Biden proposed this could suggest he was trying to buy votes just as easily as illustrating how much more political clout the extreme Left has in the Democratic Party. Exploiting economic ignorance is not a solution to rising housing costs. 

Thankfully, Biden needs Congressional approval to pass this nightmare (although it is possible to skirt the filibuster by making this proposal part of the tax code). Plus, Biden has bigger issues to deal with now than a housing proposal that is very unlikely to pass. If we care about increasing affordable housing, the focus should be on making it easier to expand housing supply, not policies that will further contract it. As the Cato Institute brought up in its recent analysis, allowing for homebuilders to construct more housing could easily reduce housing prices by 50 percent. Whether the next President realizes that reality of the housing market remains to be seen. 

France Was Already Struggling with Government Spending. The Uncertainty with Macron's Snap Elections Did Not Help.

With French President Emmanuel Macron losing his grip on political power, he decided to disband the French Parliament and call for a snap election. Not only did his political party Renaissance lose a significant amount of seats earlier this month, but a loosely established coalition of the Left, the Nouveau Front Populaire, gained enough seats to hold a plurality. The Right-leaning party, the Rassemblement National, underperformed. Needless to say, this has thrown French politics into a frenzy. If you think that is unrelated to how the French economy fares, you would be wrong. Last week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its Article IV Consultation for France in which the IMF analyzes the state of the French economy. Guess what the report revealed? This little gem:

"Heightened political fragmentation and rising policy uncertainty domestically could delay fiscal consolidation and reform efforts, weighing on confidence and raising fiscal risks. Social tensions could also materialize...Over the medium term, deepening geoeconomics fragmentation could expose France to trade and supply disruptions, increased protectionism, and rising input costs, lowering potential growth (IMF, p. 10)." 

This is not to say that everything was going swimmingly in the French economy and Macron's decision for a snap election made the economy topsy-turvy. Yes, the credit rating agency Moody's brought up similar concerns as the IMF, mainly that fiscal consolidation is unlikely to happen because of the new Left coalition in power. Its government spending was already on an unsustainable track, a point I made in 2014 which I chided France for its debt-to-GDP ratio and in 2018 when I illustrated how France's welfare spending is out of control.

It is not only a point I have made while blogging. It was a point made when credit rating agency Standard and Poor's downgraded France's credit rating from AA to AA- in May 2024 because France's deficits increased higher than anticipated, thereby driving the debt-to-GDP ratio. Standard and Poor's is also anticipating that interest payments will increase from 3.3 percent in 2023 to 5 percent in 2027, which is a major issue both for government solvency and quality of life for everyday citizens.

France's economy was struggling due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis as a result of the war in Ukraine, and an underperforming economy in 2023 (IMF, p. 12). There are also increased spending pressures on pensions and retirement, which I commented on while  In 2023, commending Macron in 2023 for raising the retirement age for Social Security because French spend in Social Security is off the charts, even by European standards. 

While there seems to be some stabilization and recovery of the economy, it is not enough to bring down France's debt-to-GDP ratio. Whether France's economy stabilizes or ends up being successful remains to be seen. What is foreseeable is that much like with the United States, the extent to which France can get its government spending under control will play a major role on what that economic future looks like. 

Conflatulations to Denmark for Implementing a Bullheaded Methane Tax on Cow Burps and Farts

For those of you who have read my blog enough, you will understand that the title of today's blog entry is both a pun with the word "flatulence" and sarcasm. I am not seriously congratulating Denmark for being the first country to tax livestock flatulence, a tax that will be in effect in 2030. I understand that the Danish government's intent with this 300 kroner tax (or about $43) per metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent is an attempt to reduce methane emissions and mitigate climate change. 

After all, methane traps about 87 times more heat over a 20-year cycle than carbon dioxide does. According to the International Energy Agency, methane has been responsible for about 30 percent of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution. Plus, cattle are the largest per-unit emitters of greenhouse gases (GHGs) when it comes to food production (Oxford). 

At first glance, it seems like a methane tax on livestock flatulence would be something worth targeting. Aside from collecting government revenue, the other main function of a tax is to disincentivize behavior. In this case, that would be disincentivizing methane emitted from livestock flatulence.  However, I have a few concerns with this methane tax.

Climate change is not a crisis. I have explained before why we need to be skeptical about climate change fear-mongering. Climate change is in fact a manageable problem and that we should learn to adapt to the reality of changing global temperatures. For argument's sake, let us assume with the proceeding questions that an apocalypse would ensue unless we take further action.

What is the price elasticity of cattle? Price elasticity of demand is a wonky, economic term referring to sensitivity of the consumer as a result of a price change. If a price goes up and it significantly reduces the amount consumed, then the good or service has elastic demand. If there is little to no change of consumption as a result of the price change, then it is inelastic. Since the main goal of this methane tax is to reduce methane emissions from livestock flatulence, it is preferable that cattle is an elastic good. 

I could not find the price elasticity of beef for Denmark. However, I did find data on a neighboring country that is also the largest importer of Danish beef: Germany. According to this research paper (Roosen et al., 2022; Table 4), beef has an elasticity of 1.49, which is higher than pork (1.17) or poultry (1.15). If the tax ends up driving consumer prices enough, it could mean that consumers substitute beef for pork or poultry. Elasticity can also change over time. In the United States, the price elasticity for beef had historically been 0.75 (Andreyeva et al., 2010), which would suggest a more inelastic demand that would be sub-optimal for this type of methane tax. If there is a strong substitution effect between red meat and white meat (the latter of which emits much less GHGs), then there could be a justification for this methane tax. The elasticity has implications both for the economy and for carbon emissions.

How much will this tax reduce GHG emissions?  This is a trickier question to answer because Denmark is the first country to implement a methane tax on livestock. Research from agribusiness groups Alltech and Archbold suggests that the carbon sequestration performed with cattle grazing neutralizes the methane emissions from the livestock flatulence, as does the British-based Sustainable Food Trust. If it is true that the cattle grazing emits fewer carbon emissions on net, then this tax is unnecessary because such an effect would undermine the justification for the tax. 

There is another factor in this: carbon versus methane. As a technical paper from atmospheric physicists from Princeton and York Universities shows (Harper and van Wijngaarden, 2019), carbon makes up more of the atmosphere than methane. Although methane is 30 times more efficient than carbon dioxide at capturing heat, carbon dioxide is also increasing in the atmosphere 300 times more quickly than methane. This would mean that methane is contributing to about a tenth (i.e., 30/300) of the global warming than compared to carbon dioxide. That being the case, I would question how effective this tax would be if implemented worldwide. 

What would happen to global temperatures if the European Union halted all GHG emissions? This hypothetical question comes from the Right-leaning Heritage Foundation. It is not a matter of this specific policy or about Denmark ceasing GHG emissions. We are asking what would happen if all GHG emissions were to cease today on an entire continent. Answer: It would reduce global temperatures by 0.12 degrees Celsius by 2100. This is similar to what would have happened if every country committed to the Paris Agreement last decade. Answer: a reduction of global temperatures by 0.2 degrees Celsius. 

Economic considerations. If beef has greater price inelasticity of demand, then all the Danish government is doing is increasing the cost of eating. The tax also affects Danish farmers. Professor Joseph McFadden, who is a dairy cattle biologist at Cornell University, said that imposing these regulations on Danish farmers when the technology to safely reduce enteric methane emissions at scale does not exist is premature. This sort of regulation would do little to protect the future of farming, which is important because people need to eat. It would also affect "our food mosaic and dietary heterogeneity," which affect cultural contributions. 

Conclusion. A methane tax on livestock flatulence is a novel policy. It could end up doing nothing to help the environment while harming the economy in a way that sin taxes cause unintended consequences. If it functions more like carbon taxes, which have been found to not harm the economy, then this methane tax could similarly be a net positive. Part of me would like to remain agnostic until there are more data to confirm which direction. 

Given the hype around climate change and how the libertarian part of me generally feels about new tax, I am inclined towards skepticism that this will work. There is more than the economic aspect to consider. I have questioned from multiple angles whether this methane tax is necessary or if it will even contribute to a net decrease in GHG emissions. Furthermore, it would not matter if all of Europe went on a plant-based diet or if it developed a zero-carbon footprint today. The impact on global temperatures would be statistically insignificant. While I await the data to more empirically know what the impact is, I will not be surprised if this tax does very little, if anything, to mitigate the problem the tax was meant to address.

Parsha Chukat: What A Military Encounter Can Teach About Personal Development

The Israelites had been wandering in the desert for forty years. They were trying to get to the land of Israel, but they kept running into various obstacles on their way there. In this week's Torah Portion (Chukat; Numbers 19:1-22:1), G-d goes on what seems to be a tangent to describe one of these obstacles: Sichon, King of the Amorites. Within this historical account is a description of one of the cities that the Israelites ended up taking over, Chesbon (חשבון). Rabbinic scholar Rashi comments on Leviticus 21:27 that this description of Chesbon and this military account is to set the scene for next week's Torah portion, Balak. 

In the Talmud (Bava Batra 78b), Rabbi Yochanan has a different idea. As I pointed out about Genesis 5, the passage is more than a genealogical accounting. It ends up being a lesson about caring about human beings. Rabbi Yochanan takes a homiletical approach to the military account. For the people referred to in Leviticus 21:27 as "those who speak in parables" (המשלים), Rabbi Yochanan interprets those as "those who rule over their evil inclination." When the passage says "Come to Chesbon" (על כן יאמרו חשבון באו), that is taken to mean "let us take an account of the world," i.e., the financial loss incurred by the fulfillment of the mitzvah in comparison to its reward. 

I think this homiletical approach has a point because the word חשבון literally means "accounting." However, R. Yochanan linking it to reward and punishment is problematic for me, because Pirke Avot teaches that we should ultimately do mitzvahs out of love of G-d instead of fear of punishment. Being rewarded for good behavior, according to Pirke Avot, is seen as a lower motivation. R. Yochanan provides another explanation for the accounting, which is that those who do not calculate and examine their ways will be consumed like a fire, much like the one mentioned in Leviticus 21:27. 

Later in the Talmudic passage of Bava Batra 78b, R. Yochanan mentions that the fire of arrogance will consume one in Gehenna, which is the closest eschatological concept of a Hell in Judaism. Bringing it to arrogance makes sense because arrogance is over-believing in oneself and inflating one's value. The inflated sense of confidence leads one to only think of the self, even at the expense of others. 

I think this homiletic interpretation is compelling because there is another passage in Jewish text that analogizes personal development to a battle: Pirke Avot (4:1). In Pirke Avot, Ben Zoma asks who is strong (איזהו גבור?). The answer: one who overcomes their personal inclination (הכובש את יצרו). Ben Zoma then cites Proverbs 16:32, which states that "He who is slow to anger is better than a strong man, and a master of his passions is better than a conqueror of a city." Anger is a manifestation of a lack of self-control and self-discipline. It is consuming and means that you are susceptible to external forces. 

By not taking account of who we are, what our character traits are, and where we can improve, we are not free. As creatures of free will, we have the potential to learn and grow. Doing personal accounting is not only for the Omer period, but a year-round endeavor. By keeping account of who we are and where we need to improve, we are able to fight and win the greatest battle of all: mastery over ourselves. 

Biden's Climate Crusade With EPA Power Plant Regulations Will Take Out Electric Grids and Jobs

Since President Biden started campaigning for president in 2020, he vowed to get rid of fossil fuels. That goal has translated into over 200 ways in which the Biden Administration has made it more difficult to acquire energy from fossil fuels. One of those ways was in May 2023 when the Biden Administration proposed power plant rules that would make it more difficult for existing coal plants, existing gas plants, and new gas plants to operate. On May 9, 2024, the Biden Administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released final rules on the Federal Registrar that are to take into effect today: July 8, 2024. 

The purpose of these rules is to "protect all communities from pollution and improve public health without disrupting the delivery of reliable electricity." This rule requires that existing coal plants planning to operate past 2039 and new gas plants to employ best system of emissions reduction (BSER) to control 90 percent of carbon reduction based on carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology. Essentially, CCS technology siphons the carbon dioxide from a plant's smokestack before reaching the atmosphere and would store the carbon underground. While this sounds fine and dandy, the proposal comes with a few major issues:

1) CCS technology is neither reliable nor able to comply with the law. In spite of the millions that the U.S. Department of Energy has spent on CCS, the technology is not fully proven. As of date, there is no power plant on the planet that is capturing 90 percent of its carbon. As this report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows, CCS can capture 10 percent on a good day. Why is the Biden Administration creating onerous regulations based on unrealistic expectations and technology that does exist according to the regulation's specifications? 

2) The final rule is predicted to have negligible impact on carbon emissions. You would think that if the EPA were to enact such regulations, it would help bring down carbon emissions in a statistically significant manner. Much like with the Inflation Reduction Act and the Paris Agreement, this proposed rule will fail in that endeavor. Per EPA modeling, the proposed rule will reduce carbon by 1 percent (Chamber of Commerce, p. 6). Since power plants produce 30 percent of U.S. carbon emissions, that means that this would only reduce 0.3 percent of the United States' carbon emissions, never mind global emissions.

3) This final rule will most probably cost more than the EPA estimates. An analysis from the Chamber of Commerce found that this proposed rule has a number of flaws, one of which being cost suppression. As we see in the chart above, there is a difference between the projections from the EPA and Energy Information Administration (EIA). If the EPA is indeed rosier in their projections about coal and natural gas demand, as well as their prices, then the EPA is neglecting regulatory costs in addition to the $960 million per annum costs that the EPA is anticipating. A sensitivity analysis to better sense of the costs and benefits would solve the discrepancy between the EPA and EIA calculations. 

As the libertarian Cato Institute points out in its analysis, the EPA continues to overestimate the growth of wind and solar energy, as well as the growth of technological development that makes its projections so rosy. 

If that were not enough, the state of North Dakota commissioned a report to determine the effects of this EPA rule. To quote the report: "The Finalized Rule will increase costs, which, compounded with inflation, will negatively impact the affordability electric and gas services, resulting in a disproportionate effect on low-income citizens." 

4) This final rule is anticipated to cause further strain to the country's electric grid. As I brought up last year, fossil fuel demand is high and is only going to get higher. To replace the increase of fossil fuel demand, renewable energy production would have to increase sixfold. Quite frankly, trying to aim for green energy without increasing nuclear power production is a fool's errand. 

That is because wind and solar energy are intermittent and weather-driven forms of energy. Incentivizing renewable energy over fossil fuels will strain the electric grid and reduce grid reliability. Remember that North Dakota study from the previous point? The study determined that blackouts would be more likely if the EPA rule passes. 

Postscript: Last year, Pew Research found that 50 percent of Americans disagree with Biden's climate policy and 45 percent agree. Count me among the 50 percent who disagree. I have criticized Biden's climate policy, whether it was his water heater energy efficiency standards, electric vehicle standards, the misleading Inflation Reduction Act, or his administration proposing a gas stove ban. 

In his misguided attempt to lower carbon emissions, Biden's climate change policies neither help the economy nor the environment. Biden continues that pattern with his EPA power plant regulations. Not only will this power plant final rule do very little to reduce emissions, but it will make this country's electric grid more insecure by relying on intermittent energy sources. Expect higher electricity prices, brownouts, and blackouts as a result of this misguided policy. 

Drop the T from LGBT: Why The Gay Rights Movement and the Trans Rights Movement Need a Divorce (Pt. II)

At the end of Pride Month last month, I began presenting my case for why the trans rights movement should be separated from the gay rights movement. I started by questioning the justification for grouping LGB with T in the first place. I then explained how sexual orientation is different from the concept of gender identity. Afterwards, I showed how that the difference between gay people and trans people translates into each group having different needs and concerns. After all, why put everyone in the same category if the aims and goals of each group are different? 

Now I will get into an even more vital reason that the two groups should go their separate ways.  The reason for dropping the T from LGBT is more than a mere misalignment in goals or objectives. There are three ways in which the trans rights movement is actually causing harm to LGB individuals and the gay rights movement.  

1) This mash-up of LGBT is sowing confusion in mainstream culture. The encroachment of "gender ideology" was such a concern that gay conservative writer Andrew Sullivan brought it up as early as January 2018. People are getting annoyed with trans activists to the point having a spillover effect of waning support of gay rights, particularly with marriage equality and parental rights. Last year, a Gallup poll found acceptance of gay couples to fall from 71 percent to 64 percent in a single year. As of late last month, support for same-sex marriage still remains at that 64 percent. Whether two gay individuals should be allowed to enter a marriage contract or the call for gay acceptance are separate from the less popular topics of gender-reassignment surgery for minors (Pew Research) or allowing for MTF transgender individuals to play in women's sports (Gallup). The longer the gay rights movement stays with the trans rights movement, the more likely that gay acceptance goes down with a sinking ship. 

2) Trans issues have become such a litmus test for the Far Left that it has resulted in a path towards gay erasure. Here are some examples: 

• Last year, Johns Hopkins University defined lesbian as "non-men attracted to non-men." It was summarily removed because such an inane definition attempts to overlook the fact that being a lesbian means being a biological woman who has a same-sex attraction towards other biological women. Gay men are biological men who are attracted to other men. This was common knowledge until a few years ago. In its misguided path towards inclusion, Johns Hopkins was erasing lesbianism because being gay or lesbian means nothing in a de-gendered world. 
• In the United Kingdom, the LGB Alliance recently had to spend £250,000 in legal fees against the trans-youth charity called Mermaids. LGB Alliance had to defend the notion that lesbianism meant women (a.k.a. biological women) are only attracted to other biological women. 
• As a matter of fact, the trans rights movement suppresses the question of "what is a man" or "what is a woman" because that would have to define the terms without the circular logic of stating that being a woman is a "strong feeling of being a woman." To erroneously define biological sex as a social construct instead of the biological reality that it is ends up being implicitly homophobic because again, homosexuality is about same-sex attraction. 
• Last year, I wrote a blog entry about the increasingly popular argument on the Far Left that not dating trans people is transphobic. I had to remind people that being homosexual means being attracted to the same sex (hence same-sex attraction), not the same gender identity. The Woke World has put trans people on such a pedestal that addressing perceived slights against trans people comes above all else. It is how trans people can perturbingly tell gay people that they must date trans people lest they are a transphobic bigot. 

This strong-arming forgets that the initial purpose of the gay rights movement is that one's sexual attraction and orientation are not beholden to anyone, including trans people. Trans people and gay people should be able to co-exist. The fact that there cannot be co-existence without trying to make gay people feel like bigots for their sexual orientation shows us how exclusionary and zero-sum the trans activists and gender ideology movement really are. 

3) There is more than societal pressure on gay people or attempts to minimize, invalidate, or even erase the gay experience because same-sex attraction does not conform with gender ideology. There are those who are trying to turn homosexuals into something they are not. We do not need to go to the extreme example of Iran forcing gender reassignment surgery onto its gay citizens. 

I have a legitimate concern that the social contagion effect will take LGB adolescents down an inaccurate and irreversible path. This phenomenon is starting to foment with de-transitioners in the United States. However, such European countries as Finland, Sweden, and the United Kingdom have been providing gender-reassignment surgery and puberty blockers before it became increasingly popular in the United States. As a matter of fact, we have already seen this concern unfold on the other side of the pond in the United Kingdom. 

The National Health Service (NHS), which is the United Kingdom's equivalent of the U.S.' HHS, shut down the Tavistock Clinic. The Cass Review scrutinized gender-affirming care in the United Kingdom, including the Tavistock Clinic. Not only did the Cass Review show the harms of gender-affirming care (not to the mention the lack of benefits thereof), but such media outlets as The Times and The Telegraph conducted investigations of Tavistock. 

The investigations found them to be like conversion therapy centers for gay adolescents convincing them that their confusion was over their gender identity instead of their sexuality. As these investigations found, over 80 percent of those admitted to Tavistock were either gay or bisexual. The Cass Review, specifically on pages 118-120, show how a disproportionately large amount of gay and bisexual adolescents are pressured into transitioning. I would argue this has more plausibility given that most adolescents who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria grow out of the dysphoria without any medical or surgical intervention by the time they become adults. 

Postscript

To recap, it does not make sense to group LGB with the T. Sexual orientation is different from gender identity. As such, the needs and concerns of gay people is different from those of trans people. The overlap between what gay people are fighting for and what trans people are fighting for is relatively small. 

On top of that, the trans rights movement is fighting a fight that has a spillover effect of invalidating the cause of gay people in a zero-sum fashion while in some cases causing physical and psychological harm to gay people. How in the world has this reached the point where trans activists and their allies see gay people standing up for their rights and their same-sex attraction as a form of bigotry? The concept of "gender identity" goes on path of trying to erase homosexuality, thereby being homophobic. That is far from being the behavior of an ally. 

Gay people already fought against conversion "therapy" once. It seems inconceivable that this phenomenon is still happening in 2024, even if under a different guise. Yet here we are seeing history rhyme. Chiding gay people for having same-sex attraction and telling them they should be ashamed is what the gay rights movement was fighting all those years ago. 

This time, the anti-gay discrimination is not coming from the Religious Right. It is coming from gender ideology adherents who pretend to be allies of the LGB community. Advising LGB individuals to stick it out with the trans rights movement is like telling a domestic abuse victim that he or she should stay in a dysfunctional marriage and telling said victim to try to work it out. There are so many marriages that last longer than they should. A divorce between the gay rights movement and the trans rights movement is long overdue. I strongly predict that there is an eventual divorce between the gay rights movement and the trans rights movement. When and how that happens remains the mystery. 

Making the TCJA Tax Cuts Permanent Is Not the Problem: Out of Control Government Spending Is

I remember when the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) passed. One of the notable features of TCJA that made me a happy camper was a lower income tax level for nearly everyone. I remember that first paycheck with the lower income tax rates. It was the equivalent of getting a four-percent raise at work. As I pointed out in my analysis of the TCJA in early 2018, one of the features I disliked about TCJA is that the income tax cuts were not permanent. Unless Congress takes action, the income tax rates will revert back to pre-TCJA rates after 2025. It is more than the distorting effects of higher income taxes or the fact that an estimated 62 percent of Americans (myself included) will see their income taxes increase after 2025. 

As I brought up in 2013, income taxes, like all taxes, are in some way distortive. Taxes have two main functions: to collect government revenue and to disincentivize behavior. In the case of income tax, it creates a disincentive to work. Granted, the size of that disincentive depends on one's circumstances and thresholds for paying the tax. Nevertheless, a disincentive exists. As the Right-leaning Tax Foundation brings up in its recent analysis, keeping the income taxes lower means "boosting incentives for workers and leading to more total hours worked and more output." Although it would mean $3.6 trillion less in government revenue, it would also mean a GDP boost of 0.6 percent and 800,000 more FTE jobs over the next decade. 

It is more about the tradeoff between higher economic growth versus lower government revenue. Let us assume that the tax cuts expire, much like the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) does in its Update to the Budget and Economic Outlook from last month. Even with the revenue generated from the pre-TCJA income tax rates, the U.S. government is still nowhere near what it would need to close the gap between expenditures and revenue. 

Why is the gap between expenditures and revenue such a problem? The CBO also answers that question. Hint: it is not because the rich are not paying their "fair share" in taxes, whatever that means. If you go to the spreadsheet for the report, specifically for Table 3-1, you will see that the answer is that the increase in debt is driven by ballooning government spending. 

This is hardly a new theme here on the blog Libertarian Jew. I illustrated this point using CBO reporting as early as 2013. When the credit rating firm Fitch downgraded the United States' credit rating again in 2023, I sounded the alarm about the U.S. needing to get its government spending under control. I did so once more only this past March. 

The national debt is not as urgent as the Big Bad Wolf knocking on the door of the Three Little Pigs and threatening to eat them. It is more like termites eating away at your house. It does not do harm if you do not take care of it this very second. However, if you let those termites continue eating away at the foundation, the house will crumble over time. The house here is the U.S. economy. 

Talking about the economy is not some abstract concept. It affects the purchasing power of everyday citizens. As I brought up in December 2020, not addressing debt will make it harder to save, retire comfortably, and enjoy a high quality of life. The projections in the CBO reporting get progressively more dire with the passage of time because we have not hired the metaphorical exterminator to get rid of the excess government spending. Until we do, the CBO projections are only going to get uglier over time.