Seattle’s Minimum Wage Hike Hurts Workers
“Seattle’s minimum wage increased to $20.76 per hour”
https://reason.com/2025/01/06/seattles-minimum-wage-hike-hurts-workers/
Month: March 2025
Trump just signed an executive order ‘to begin eliminating’ the Department of Education. Here’s how that could affect student loans and local schools.
Trump just signed an executive order ‘to begin eliminating’ the Department of Education. Here’s how that could affect student loans and local schools.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-just-signed-an-executive-order-to-begin-eliminating-the-department-of-education-heres-how-that-could-affect-student-loans-and-local-schools-205908574.html
Germany updates US travel advice after 3 citizens are detained
“Germany has updated its travel advisory for the United States to emphasize that a visa or waiver allowing entry does not guarantee Germans to enter the U.S. after several of its citizens were detained at the border.
According to an advisory on Germany’s Foreign Office website, the country warned that entry through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) system or a U.S. visa is not guaranteed every time and that the U.S. border control has final decision.
“It is recommended that you bring proof of your return journey upon entry,” the office said.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/germany-updates-us-travel-advice-012325804.html
MAGA Boomers About To Have Serious Regrets
Trump and Musk are exaggerating the level of fraud in Social Security and are cutting it in a way that will hurt seniors.
Musk has unlimited money to spend on political campaigns, giving him great influence over congress members who fear Musk will spend money for their primary opponents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6ErMIViLzM
Musk Said No One Has Died Since Aid Was Cut. That Isn’t True.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9eg46qG9d4
Was the Las Vegas Bombing a Case of the Afghan War Coming Home?
“The attack on Nimruz was, in fact, worse than what came before. Rather than the usual strikes on empty buildings at night, the U.S. military bombed buildings full of people during the day, and it was “the first time that UNAMA had received allegations of civilian casualties of such a scale,” according to the UNAMA report.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/06/was-the-las-vegas-bombing-a-case-of-the-afghan-war-coming-home/
Why Building a Lot of ‘Affordable’ Housing Is Bad News for Affordability
“Housing becomes affordable when a lot of it is built, not when capital-A “affordable housing” makes up a larger slice of a tiny new housing pie.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/07/why-building-a-lot-of-affordable-housing-is-bad-news-for-affordability/
Texas Cop Chases Prostitution Suspect, Causes Car Accident, Gets Immunity
“Corral’s reckless chase was in pursuit of someone suspected of soliciting prostitution. The whole business was kicked off by the suspect offering to pay an undercover female cop posing as an adult sex worker.
Police put in danger the lives of countless people in order to arrest someone for trying to have consensual but non-state-sanctioned sex.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/08/texas-cop-chases-prostitution-suspect-causes-car-accident-gets-immunity/
Congress Just Made It Harder for Congress To Block Trump’s Tariffs
“In a near party-line vote.., the House of Representatives blocked the most direct pathway for lawmakers to revoke the emergency executive powers Trump used last month to impose tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China. That change helps further cement executive control over trade policy and creates additional challenges for lawmakers seeking to claw back some control over tariff decisions.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/12/congress-just-made-it-harder-for-congress-to-block-trumps-tariffs/
Biden’s Infrastructure Bills Leave a Legacy of Big Spending and Little Payoff
“The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act apportioned more than $1 trillion to a wide variety of projects deemed “infrastructure,” including $550 billion toward “‘new’ investments and programs.” Among its line items, the law included $7.5 billion to build electric vehicle (E.V.) chargers across the country.
The rollout was uninspiring. Under the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program, which controls $5 billion of the $7.5 billion total, only 183 chargers have come online at 44 stations across the country, more than three years after Biden signed the bill into law. (Under federal rules, each station funded by the law is required to have at least four charging ports.)
In fairness, not all of the cash has been spent: The NEVI has only allocated $2.4 billion and awarded $520 million, as of press time.
Still, it’s a dispiriting result from an administration that came into office with big promises to “build a national network of 500,000 charging stations.”
Similarly, the 2021 infrastructure law included the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, with $42 billion to expand broadband internet access across the country. In his speech at the 2024 Democratic National Convention, Biden equated it with the New Deal, calling the broadband expansion “not unlike what Roosevelt did with electricity.”
But three years after its creation, the program has disbursed no money and supplied broadband to zero households. “Thanks to a federal affordability requirement that telecommunications companies say is too tight, many states have sparred with Washington over their funding applications, delaying the rollout,” Politico wrote in September.”
…
“Biden’s supporters would counter that while the initial rollout was underwhelming, much of this spending is designed to pay off over time: NEVI, for example, is apportioned $1 billion per year through FY 2026 when the program’s funding runs out.”
…
“it’s clear by this point that Biden’s big-spending dreams were hamstrung by bureaucracy and red tape, much of which was included in the bills themselves or in administration guidelines.”
https://reason.com/2025/01/08/bidens-infrastructure-bills-leave-a-legacy-of-big-spending-and-little-payoff/