Economist: Uncle Sam Needn’t Default
“Seldom has more nonsense found its way into print and pixels than in today’s discussion of the debt ceiling,” sighs Milton Ezrati at City Journal. Even if the ceiling is reached, Washington could still pay its debt obligations with revenue from taxes and fees, as in the past. It would need “some $665 billion” for this, “leaving $4.2 trillion” for “other essential government services.” National parks and monuments might close “until Congress gets its act together,” “some government employees might face temporary furloughs,” and, worst case, the Federal Reserve could step in and forgive Treasury debt it holds (fueling inflation). “But there would be no default, nor the ensuing disaster [Treasury Secretary Janet] Yellen and others have conjured.”
Culture critic: Royal Pains’ Ziegfeld Folly
Royals Harry and Meghan told a barely credible “tale of being terrorized in midtown Manhattan and barely surviving a more-than-two-hour-long, white-knuckle, high-speed paparazzi chase,” snarks National Review’s Jim Geraghty. Yet the area surrounding the Ziegfeld Ballroom, which hosted the couple, is “crammed with more vehicles and people, and with more cameras and witnesses” than any place on earth, making a “high-speed” chase seem unlikely. Indeed, the NYPD’s assessment of “what actually happened was much, much less dramatic.” It’s clear “Harry and Meghan’s new strategy to remain relevant is to just make stuff up.” Yet focusing on the Sussexes’ “fake problems” leaves us less time to spend “discussing and trying to solve real problems.”
Conservatives: GOP Can Win on Welfare
“The GOP has the high ground on the merits and the politics” when it comes to pushing stronger welfare work requirements in debt-ceiling talks, argues The Wall Street Journal editorial board. The food-stamp program (SNAP) currently “stipulates 20 hours per week of work or training for able-bodied adults under age 50 without children”; Republicans would raise that to 55. They’d also “crack down on states that water down the requirements” and “introduce a work requirement in Medicaid” that doesn’t extend to parents. Despite Democrats’ wailing that this is an attack on the poor, welfare work requirements introduced in 1996 proved to be “an engine for upward mobility.” Republicans can “win this debate, if they can explain that welfare should be a temporary hand up, not a permanent sinecure in return for doing nothing.”
COVID journal: Unravel Nursing-Home Deaths Now
New York’s “directive compelling nursing homes to accept COVID-infected patients” from hospitals should be “closely investigated” to ensure future officials have better options, urges the Empire Center’s Bill Hammond in congressional testimony. The transfers were likely associated with “possibly more than 1,000 additional resident deaths.” And they formed only “one link in a chain of public health policy failures,” like New York lacking “plans for predictable contingencies” such as “the need for more hospital capacity” and “masks, gloves, gowns and ventilators.” Most notably, when disaster struck, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other state officials “clouded the truth.” So “setting the record straight” here “is an important first step,” and “the time to do it is now, before memories fade.”
World Bank watch: China’s Using Us as Suckers
A new Government Accountability Office report “lays bare” how China and its state-subsidized businesses “win the biggest slice” (30%) of economic-development contracts funded by the World Bank, grumbles the bank’s former US executive director DJ Nordquist at The Hill; US firms garner less than 1%. Meanwhile, America is “the bank’s largest shareholder,” thanks to “generous taxpayer funding” — meaning “China is using the World Bank system to further its goals, with U.S. taxpayers and other democracies footing the bill.” Incoming bank prez Ajay Banga needs to “take a hard look at China’s broader role” in the institution’s operations. And, to free up resources for needier countries, Beijing “should no longer be allowed to avail itself of World Bank loans” — especially given its self-declared “economic success.”
Compiled by The Post Editorial Board