Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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Dec. 8
The Washington Post on Josh Hawley’s health care 鈥渟olution鈥�
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) thinks he has a new idea: no taxes on health care. He has proposed making all out-of-pocket health care expenses tax deductible, saying that would 鈥� .鈥� But would it?
Right now, there are already significant tax breaks on health care. The largest is the exemption of employer-sponsored health insurance from income taxes.
That exemption didn鈥檛 arise because the government wanted to help people pay for health care. . During World War II, wages were capped by the government, but health benefits were not. Many employers, seeking to compensate their workers more, began offering health benefits to get around the price control. After the war, when the price control was removed, the practice was so widespread it stuck.
The employer-sponsored insurance tax exemption has the nasty side effect of linking workers to their employer鈥檚 decisions, reducing their choices in health insurance and limiting job mobility. It also interposes the employer between individuals and providers, weakening the incentives to control costs.
There鈥檚 a different health care tax policy that puts the individual in control: Health Savings Accounts. HSAs allow individuals to save for health care expenses tax-free. They can also invest the money to beat inflation. Some Republicans want to expand HSAs to allow them to be used for more things and make them available to more people.
would be a clunkier way of replicating the good premise of HSAs. It would make filing taxes more complicated and not permit savings to accumulate as HSAs do.
Hawley frames his idea as being similar to President Donald Trump鈥檚 鈥渘o tax on tips鈥� and 鈥渘o tax on overtime鈥� policies, but it is similar only in its wording. Tips and overtime pay are income. Health care costs are, well, costs. Even if Trump鈥檚 policies were wise, exempting some income from the income tax is different from saying someone should pay less income tax because they made certain expenses that year.
Roughly the bottom half of taxpayers already have no income tax liability with existing deductions and tax credits. Adding another deduction won鈥檛 save them any money.
The proposed tax deduction is also capped at $25,000 per individual. So, is the idea that if someone gets a little sick or injured, they鈥檙e entitled to lower income taxes, but if they get very sick or injured, they鈥檙e not?
If Hawley wants to look at tax problems in the health care space, he should check out 鈥渘onprofit鈥� hospitals and health insurance companies. They operate as regular corporations and compete with regular corporations but pay no corporate taxes on in profits annually.
And whenever Republicans want to clamp down on excessive government health care spending, whether it鈥檚 on the or , Hawley consistently lines up on the side of dumping more government money into health care. Billions and billions more dollars chasing a restricted supply of health care goods has only caused prices to rise, and will continue to do so.
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Dec. 6
The New York Times says the Supreme Court is failing its most important job
In early November, a conservative Supreme Court justice showed a cleareyed understanding of the threat that President Trump poses to the constitutional order. During an oral argument in a case involving tariffs that Mr. Trump unilaterally imposed by claiming emergency powers, Justice Neil Gorsuch suggested that the move could weaken Congress in an enduring way. 鈥淲hat president鈥檚 ever going to give that power back?鈥� he asked.
Justice Gorsuch鈥檚 realism in a case involving a signature policy of Mr. Trump鈥檚 second term raises the so far elusive prospect that the court may constrain his worst abuses of power. But it鈥檚 not clear whether a majority of justices share Justice Gorsuch鈥檚 view, since the court has yet to rule in the case. And the comment was noteworthy because it was a rare sign of independence from the conservative wing of the court, highlighting how little the majority has done to rein in a president who has challenged the nation鈥檚 laws, norms and balance of powers.
A key test will come on Monday, when the court hears a challenge to Mr. Trump鈥檚 power to fire a member of the Federal Trade Commission 鈥� an action that flew in the face of a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent. The court that it would also hear a challenge, likely in the next few months, to Mr. Trump鈥檚 attempt to revoke birthright citizenship, which the 14th Amendment explicitly protects.
Many lower courts have responded heroically to Mr. Trump鈥檚 ill-founded efforts to centralize power and weaken democracy. Judges on the district courts and courts of appeal have blocked his policies hundreds of times since he retook office in January. The judges stepped in to prevent the president from cutting off spending that Congress appropriated, dismantling departments it created, firing the heads of federal agencies and deporting people without due process.
In many of those instances, however, the Supreme Court later overruled the lower courts, allowing Mr. Trump鈥檚 power grabs. It did so almost entirely on its emergency docket, issuing rulings that are preliminary but often last for at least a year or two, . The justices have wholly denied only one of Mr. Trump鈥檚 32 emergency petitions in his second term (and even then, they effectively reversed themselves later).
Still, we continue to hope that the Supreme Court will yet restrain Mr. Trump鈥檚 unlawful actions. In addition to Justice Gorsuch, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett also conveyed some skepticism of Mr. Trump鈥檚 power to impose sweeping tariffs during oral argument. And during his first term, the Supreme Court During his second term, however, the six Republican-appointed justices have smoothed the path for Mr. Trump鈥檚 dangerous campaign to undermine the Constitution and our system of government.
One explanation is that these justices believe that American presidents in general, and not just Mr. Trump, should be more powerful than they historically have been. Several of the justices, including Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh, have previously promoted an idea known as the unitary executive theory. Taken to its limit, it holds that Congress is powerless to impose any conditions on how the president controls executive branch agencies. There are reasonable arguments about whether the federal government 鈥� which often is not effective enough, frustrating liberal as well as conservative goals 鈥� would improve if agency heads were more accountable to the president who is in office. But the Supreme Court is flirting with a maximalist version of executive power that facilitates an unaccountable White House 鈥� one that, for instance, blows up boats without due process. The court鈥檚 approach downplays the primary role that the founders assigned to Congress, making it the subject of Article I of the Constitution.
The justices also seem friendlier to claims of executive power under Mr. Trump than they were under President Joe Biden. They blocked Mr. Biden鈥檚 efforts to use his authority to forgive student loans and manage the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, they are enabling a Republican president as he goes much further while relying on weaker rationales.
Just as important, the justices are ignoring the evidence that Mr. Trump is not acting in good faith. In the past, the government has enjoyed what legal scholars call the 鈥� .鈥� Judges assume they can rely on government officials to present facts accurately and give true reasons for their actions 鈥� and can defer to those officials at times as a result. The Trump administration does not deserve this presumption. As lower court judges appointed by presidents of both parties , the administration鈥檚 actions have been 鈥渆gregious,鈥� 鈥渃apricious,鈥� 鈥渘onsensical,鈥� 鈥渦nconscionable,鈥� 鈥渂aseless,鈥� 鈥渃ringe-worthy,鈥� 鈥淜afkaesque,鈥� 鈥渂latantly unconstitutional鈥� and 鈥渁 sham.鈥� Judge Karin Immergut, whom Mr. Trump appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, wrote that his professed reasons for deploying the National Guard in Portland were 鈥渦ntethered to the facts.鈥�
Yet the Supreme Court remains blithely credulous of the administration. To take one example, Justice Kavanaugh minimized the burden of wrongful stops on legal immigrants by saying they would be briefly questioned and then could 鈥減romptly go free.鈥� That is often not the reality of the Trump administration鈥檚 immigration roundups. Instead, immigration agents conduct military-style raids that terrify children and hold even citizens in custody for hours or days or even weeks.
The court鈥檚 overarching mistake has been to allow Mr. Trump to grab power in dubious ways. Take, for example, the court鈥檚 letting the president withhold $4 billion of foreign aid that Congress had directed to be spent by the end of that month. In a single paragraph of explanation, the majority let the policy stand, citing a president鈥檚 authority to conduct foreign policy. That is a far-reaching claim at odds with the country鈥檚 of respecting Congress鈥檚 power of the purse. Mr. Trump鈥檚 impoundment of appropriated funds is unconstitutional, full stop.
Other rulings have shown a similar dynamic. The conservative majority has let the president even though only Congress has the power to abolish an administrative agency. The court members of the National Labor Relations Board and other agencies without cause, contravening the vision of independence Congress had when it created those agencies. In 1911, for example, Senator Francis Newlands of Nevada, who helped create the Federal Trade Commission, said that the new agency should be 鈥渋ndependent of executive authority.鈥� The Supreme Court upheld this principle in a 1935 case, .
This court may yet enable Mr. Trump to go further. In the case the justices are to hear on Monday, they signaled an openness to overturning the 1935 precedent by asking the parties to prepare for arguments about whether a federal court could prevent anyone鈥檚 removal from public office, including lower-level employees with civil service protections. At best, this could bring a return to the patronage system that proved unsuitable to the work of modern government. At worst, it raises a chilling prospect, as pointed out: Combined with the president鈥檚 unfettered pardon power, the authority to fire any government employee could effectively allow a president to run the federal government as a criminal enterprise. He, too, would probably be immune from future accountability, given the court鈥檚 misguided 2024 decision shielding presidents from prosecution for most official acts.
What should the Supreme Court do differently? There are still plenty of chances for it to stand up for the American system of checks and balances.
First, the court should show that facts matter. Judges on lower courts, including some appointed by Mr. Trump, have upbraided the Trump administration for its falsehoods and bad faith and begun to treat its arguments with the basic skepticism they have earned. The justices should do the same. They will have an opportunity in several upcoming cases, including on immigration roundups and the Federal Reserve Board. In the Fed case, Mr. Trump has tried to fire Lisa Cook from the board on the basis of an allegation that she committed mortgage fraud. The justices should consider the lack of evidence for that in the record when they hear the case. They should pay attention to what鈥檚 really going on here: Mr. Trump鈥檚 play to bend the Fed to his will.
Second, the court should recognize that Mr. Trump is taking power that Congress will be hard pressed to take back. At least Justice Gorsuch and the three liberal justices looked ready to do this in the tariffs case. They need a fifth vote. A sixth or seventh would send the president an even stronger signal. It is a shame that neither Justice Alito nor Justice Clarence Thomas seems willing to restrain Mr. Trump in any case of significance.
Third, the court should be faster to block Mr. Trump鈥檚 most blatant abuses of power. His order to end birthright citizenship is patently unconstitutional. His use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime statute, to deport hundreds of Venezuelans who were subsequently subjected to torture and violence in a notorious prison in El Salvador, was also legally untenable. His administration鈥檚 reinterpretation of another immigration law to detain just about anyone seeking protection has been rejected by all but eight of the 225 judges who have ruled in such cases, .
Given the largely supine nature of Congress under Republican control, the stability of American democracy depends more than it should on the Supreme Court. So far, it is failing to live up to its constitutional role. But we鈥檙e only in the first quarter of this term. There鈥檚 a long way to go.
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Dec. 8
The Wall Street Journal says Trump’s new security document is soft on Russia, China
Eight years ago, in his now-distant first term, President Trump laid out a national security strategy recognizing the new world of great power competition. It was a welcome effort to articulate emerging global threats. The new strategy Mr. Trump released Friday is an all but explicit retreat from that competition. It will please China and Russia but discomfit America鈥檚 allies.
The 33-page paper is the Administration鈥檚 most complete attempt so far to explain its thinking on national security. Mr. Trump explains mainly in staccato social-media bursts, so this is the best insight so far into how the next three years might go. And maybe the next seven years, since the document bears the imprint of Vice President JD Vance.
The strategy isn鈥檛 an isolationist document that you might read at a libertarian think tank. But it is clearly a declaration that America can no longer afford to, and shouldn鈥檛 in the national interest, bear the burden of global leadership.
Most notably, the strategy puts the Western Hemisphere first, playing down the rest of the world. There鈥檚 a geographic logic to this but not a strategic one since the largest threats to U.S. security aren鈥檛 Brazil, or Colombia, or even Cuba.
The strategy usefully highlights the importance of removing malign interests from the hemisphere鈥攁lbeit without mentioning Russia or China or Cuba as those influences. It also suggests that migration and drugs are two of the gravest threats to America. But Mr. Trump has showed the U.S. can stop runaway migration, while reducing illegal drug flows requires slowing U.S. demand. Whether Nicol谩s Maduro remains in power in Venezuela will be the first test of this Americas focus.
By any measure the largest threat to the U.S. is the hostile power across the Pacific that has tripled its nuclear arsenal in five years鈥擟hina. Yet the document describes commerce as 鈥渢he ultimate stakes鈥� in the Pacific and treats trade imbalances as a bigger threat to U.S. prosperity than Beijing鈥檚 military buildup.
The best defense for this weakness on China is that the Administration wants to conciliate to buy time while Beijing holds the whip hand on rare-earth production. And the strategy paper does deserve credit for reiterating the U.S. interest in peace in the Taiwan Strait. The strategy promises to 鈥渂uild a military capable of denying aggression anywhere in the First Island Chain,鈥� albeit without committing to the increased defense spending that this requires.
China is also the main underwriter of Vladimir Putin鈥檚 war in Ukraine, and Russia is where the strategy鈥檚 wheels fall off. The document counsels 鈥渟trategic stability鈥� with the power that invaded eastern Europe and has been deploying nuclear blackmail against the U.S. and NATO. Congratulations on making the Ukraine war harder to end. Mr. Putin will wield the strategy as proof that NATO expansion and European decadence justify his imperialism.
Meanwhile, the document assails America鈥檚 friends across the Atlantic. The Administration is right about Europe鈥檚 decline in self-confidence and decades of neglecting hard power. But the Administration lectures Europe on free speech while saying we should ignore how the world鈥檚 dictatorships govern themselves.
The strategy is full of other contradictions. It offers a potted (and false) history of U.S. decline before Mr. Trump took office, while claiming the U.S. has the best economy in the world. It says we must rally allies in a joint effort to resist Chinese mercantilism, but celebrates tariffs on those allies that make them less likely to trust the U.S.
And the Administration says the U.S. must lead the world in science and technology but rejects any need for what it derides in scare quotes as 鈥済lobal talent.鈥� Where are all those AI engineers going to come from?
Some of these contradictions may result from the fight among those seeking to define MAGA foreign policy after Mr. Trump. The document鈥檚 nods to U.S. political freedom, free enterprise and civil society as sources of national power are welcome. They read like interjections from somebody in the Administration鈥攊s that you, Marco?鈥攚ho isn鈥檛 prepared to cede the world to spheres of influence.
The Administration is also far better on international institutions than a President Kamala Harris would have been. The paper is right in saying that the left has 鈥渓ashed American policy to a network of international institutions, some of which are driven by outright anti-Americanism.鈥� See the United Nations.
But at bottom the document is oddly unrealistic about the world鈥檚 threats. Revisionist powers are working together to mount a global and ideological challenge to the U.S.鈥攁n axis among China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. Prudential questions of priorities and U.S. intervention are crucial but flow from that larger competition.
Some will dismiss the strategy as another Beltway document President Trump won鈥檛 read. They鈥檒l point out that the strategy鈥檚 supposed 鈥減redisposition to non-interventionism鈥� is belied by his Caribbean campaign and the strike on the Iranian nuclear program.
But you can bet America鈥檚 enemies are reading this document, and what they鈥檒l see is a country consumed with its own infighting and unwilling to be honest about the real threats from China and Russia.
Americans elected Mr. Trump in 2016 in part because they didn鈥檛 fancy Barack Obama鈥檚 naivete about our adversaries and his retreat from U.S. leadership. The mystery is why Mr. Trump is reviving much of that failed grand strategy in his second term.
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Dec. 9
The Guardian says Trump’s relationship with Europe is more abusive than an alliance
Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz have become adept at scrambling to deal with the latest bad news from Washington. Their with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Monday was so hastily arranged that Mr Macron needed to be back in Paris by late afternoon to meet Croatia鈥檚 prime minister, while Mr Merz was due on for an end-of-year Q&A with the German public.
But diplomatic improvisation alone cannot fully answer Donald Trump鈥檚 structural threat to European security. The US president and his emissaries are trying to bully Mr Zelenskyy into an unjust peace deal that suits American and Russian interests. In response, the summit helped ramp up support for the use of up to 拢100bn in frozen Russian assets as collateral for a 鈥� 鈥� to Ukraine. European counter-proposals for a ceasefire will need to be given the kind of financial backing that provides Mr Zelenskyy with leverage at a critical moment.
More broadly, though, an ominous lead-up to Christmas has underlined the limits to firefighting and turning the other cheek to Maga provocations. The extraordinary paper published last week by the White House did European leaders a service in this regard. Brimming with contempt for liberal democratic values, it confirmed the Trump administration鈥檚 desire to minimise security guarantees in place since the second world war, while simultaneously pressuring the EU into betraying the principles on which it was founded. This was a 鈥渇or the record鈥� version of the US vice-president JD Vance鈥檚 mocking Munich last February. predicting the 鈥渃ivilisational erasure鈥� of Europe through migration and EU integration could have been written in the Kremlin, which duly an overlap in worldviews. Ditto the hostile calls to cultivate 鈥渞esistance鈥� to Europe鈥檚 supposed trajectory, and support for 鈥減atriotic鈥� nationalist parties. For good measure, Mr Trump 鈥済reat replacement鈥� conspiracy theory tropes this week in an interview that rammed home the same talking points in less coherent form.
However tempting it may be to pretend otherwise, given the desire to persuade Mr Trump to do the right thing over , a US administration that acts in such a way cannot be viewed straightforwardly as an ally. The president and his America First ideologues see the EU as a drain on security resources best deployed elsewhere, an economic competitor to be dominated, and a cultural adversary to be undermined at every opportunity.
The response must be a belated push towards greater and unity in defence, and the promotion of European interests in the wider economy. That, in turn, will mean playing hardball with Washington in a way that the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, conspicuously to do when negotiating a humiliatingly one-sided trade deal in the summer. A world where China and the US both wish to eat the EU鈥檚 economic lunch, and Russia harbours darker designs to the east, is no place for a romantic view of multilateralism.
The White House national security strategy paper and the US president himself have laid it out in black and white: Mr Trump seeks a fragmented, weakened Europe that is reliant on US industry and tech, and will therefore meekly comply with its aggressive demands. Europeans deserve far better than a continent made fit for Elon Musk. Time to fight back.
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Dec. 3
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the indiscriminate nature of Trump’s anti-immigration crusade
Even among the many sobering stories of cruelty and injustice arising from the Trump administration鈥檚 obsessive anti-immigration crusade, the story of Mohammad Ali Dadfar stands out.
An Afghanistan native who risked his life to aid America in its war there, Dadfar was living and working legally in the U.S., raising his family and patiently navigating the complex process of earning asylum here, when immigration officials in October arrested him without explanation. He then spent almost two months in a awaiting possible deportation back into the clutches of a Taliban that wants him dead.
Dadfar, 37, was finally ordered released on Monday by a federal judge who found the government had violated his rights with his warrantless arrest. But now Dadfar鈥檚 continuing quest to remain safely in the country he aided in war is again under threat, as the Trump administration 鈥� exploiting the tragic shootings of two National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., last month 鈥� widens its relentless persecution of immigrants to include those who are here legally and have committed no crimes.
President Donald Trump had initially justified his immigration crackdown as being aimed at those who enter America illegally and then commit violent crimes here 鈥� the 鈥渨orst of the worst,鈥� as he has put it. None of that describes Dadfar鈥檚 case.
During America鈥檚 war in Afghanistan, Dadfar was a security officer with the U.S.-allied Afghan government, traveling and working with American troops fighting the Taliban. After the U.S. withdrawal and Taliban takeover in 2021, Dadfar fled the country with his wife and four young children ahead of specific death threats he had received from the newly empowered terrorist organization.
The family settled in Colorado and began the process of seeking U.S. asylum. By all accounts, they were doing everything right. As the process inched along, Dadfar obtained a work permit and a job as a trucker.
It was while driving through Indiana on Oct. 10 that he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He was put in custody at the Greene County Jail in Springfield, Missouri, pending possible deportation.
There was no warrant, no explanation given, no allegation of a crime 鈥� nothing at all except a form generated by ICE in which the agency makes the unlikely claim that Dadfar told agents he didn鈥檛 believe his life would be in danger if he returned to Afghanistan.
As reported by the Colorado news site , one of Dadfar鈥檚 lawyers said Dadfar wasn鈥檛 ever asked that question 鈥� and noted that, if he had been, it would 鈥渕ake no sense鈥� for him to answer like that, given his years-long quest for asylum and written evidence of the Taliban death threat against him.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool of the Western District of Missouri finally ordered Dadfar . He ruled that the warrantless arrest and continued detention violated Dadfar鈥檚 Fifth Amendment right to due process. He further ruled that ICE violated its own procedures by locking Dadfar up for no specified reason as he was properly following the process of seeking asylum.
Dadfar reportedly is back in Colorado, hoping to resume his asylum process. That might sound like a just conclusion. But in fact, through no fault of their own, the injustice may not be over for Dadfar and others like him.
On Nov. 26, a different Afghan national, who had been granted asylum by the Trump administration in April, allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., killing one of them. The troops had been stationed there as part of Trump鈥檚 indefensible militarization of America鈥檚 cities.
The tragedy had nothing to do with Dadfar or, apparently, any other Afghan refugee. To suggest otherwise merely because of the alleged killer鈥檚 nationality and immigration status is bigotry, plain and simple.
Yet, predictably enough, the administration now is leveraging the shootings to halt all immigration and asylum cases for Afghanistan nationals 鈥� and more broadly 鈥渢o limit migration, both illegal and legal,鈥� in the words of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
For years, Trump has eagerly peddled the vicious lie that immigrants are more likely to commit violent crimes than natural-born Americans; statistically, . One alleged murderer doesn鈥檛 change that, no matter where he鈥檚 from.
It also remains true that Dadfar and others like him, who were there when America needed them, are overwhelmingly deserving of the chance at a new life here. Instead, he is among a great many immigration stories that should shame every American for what is being done in our names by our government.
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