Ted Cruz Gets A Challenger

Today, Ted Cruz gets his first official Democratic opponent in next year’s Texas senatorial race. Beto O’Rourke, a Congressman representing Texas’ 16^th district, has formally declared his intention to challenge Cruz’s bid for a second term.

About the best that can be said for O’Rourke’s nascent campaign is that, as a sitting member of Congress, he is a more serious candidate than others Democrats have nominated for statewide office in Texas in recent years. Which isn’t exactly saying much. And, if he does end up being the nominee (several others are reportedly also looking at a run), he will likely do better in a head-to head matchup than Wendy Davis.

And that’s all the good that can be said about him. To say that O’Rourke is a poor fit for Texas statewide office is an understatement. His voting record and public statements paint him as a fairly generic liberal Democrat—opposed to gun rights, enforcement of federal immigration law, and just about every other issue that has won at the ballot box in Texas over the past quarter century. He took part in the Democrats’ Congressional sit-in last summer. He won his congressional seat in 2012 by primarying a sitting member for not being liberal enough, and Hillary Clinton won the district by double digits in 2016—while losing the state by ten points. The sixteenth district is generally rated “Safe Democrat”, and O’Rourke didn’t even face a Republican opponent in last year’s election.

Ted Cruz is without question the better member of Congress, and should be the favorite to beat O’Rourke. But, all that being said, it would be a sore mistake to ignore the race as a sideshow. Democrats—and establishment Republicans—will be looking to make an example of Cruz for never failing to stand strong for conservative principles, and O’Rourke will undoubtedly rake in cash and endorsements from across the country.

For all that is good, we must keep Ted Cruz in the Senate. No matter what, the Texas Senate race will be one of the most important of 2018.

The Return of Obamacare Repeal

On Monday, I wrote about how it seemed like Paul Ryan and Donald Trump were running up the white flag on repealing Obamacare. Now it seems like Congressional leadership is retreating from their earlier assertions that the Affordable Care Act is here to stay:

But by Tuesday morning, Republicans appeared to have regrouped, and Ryan stressed the GOP conference would continue to work toward gaining consensus on a replacement plan even as they tackle other legislative priorities.

“We’re going to get this right,” Ryan said, “and in the meantime, we’re going to do all the other work we came here to do.”

…

According to The New York Times, the House Freedom Caucus and centrist Tuesday Group are engaging in talks with Stephen Bannon, President Donald Trump’s top strategist.

Paul Ryan made a big mistake on the original Obamacare “repeal” bill, no question. But to his credit, he seems to have put that failure behind him, and by all accounts is resisting calls for sanctions against the Freedom Caucus, choosing instead to engage and work directly with him. One can’t help but wonder what John Boehner’s response would have been, were he still Speaker.

President Trump, are you paying attention? This is how things get done, not through ultimatums or angry Twitter outbursts.

Now let’s get to it, and get a bill that actually repeals Obamacare.

A Real Obamacare Repeal Bill

Now this is what I call a full repeal.

Alabama Representative Mo Brooks—who is, perhaps obviously, a member of the Freedom Caucus—has introduced a one-sentence bill that actually repeals Obamacare in its entirety. (What a novel idea.) The text of the bill is as follows: “Effective as of December 31, 2017, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111–148) is repealed, and the provisions of law amended or repealed by such Act are restored or revived as if such Act had not been enacted.”

When Republican congressional candidates promised a full repeal, over and over again, over the past seven years, I have to believe this is what many voters imagined. It’s certainly what I imagined. No tinkering around the edges, no replacement of one government mandate with another. Just a simple, straight-up repeal.

To be perfectly honest, a one-line repeal may no longer be feasible, even if it were to pass. Implementation has likely gone too far by this point, and the 2015 repeal bill (which is considerably longer) would be the best bet at this stage. But Rep. Brooks’ bill deserves debate, and a vote.

Congress: Do what you were elected to do. Repeal Obamacare. That’s all we ask.

What's Next for the Obamacare Debate

On Friday, House Republican leadership, acting on the behest of President Trump, pulled the awful American Health Care Act from consideration, only minutes before a scheduled vote.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Speaker Ryan, Trump, and the rest of leadership now seem to be running up the white flag on Obamacare repeal. Trump: “I’m glad I got it out of the way.” Ryan: “Obamacare is the law of the land…for the foreseeable future.”

Are you kidding me? They spend seven years campaigning for full repeal. They promise millions of voters that if their party just controlled the House of Representatives, Obamacare could be repealed. Then they just needed the Senate. Then, of course, once they had the Senate, Congress was no good unless they had the presidency as well. And now, after only two months and one half-baked, terrible bill that succeeded in uniting moderates, conservatives and Democrats in opposition, they’re giving up?

I don’t think so. Not if we have anything to say about it. The solution is simple: just pass the same damn bill Congress sent to President Obama in 2015. Don’t worry about the replacement for right now. Just repeal the mandates, repeal the taxes, repeal the regulations. Do what was literally the one thing every single member of the Republican conference was elected to do over the past four election cycles.

Go back to the drawing board. Talk to members. Lead. And repeal Obamacare, in full. Because if a solidly Republican Congress, working with a Republican president, can’t even achieve their single signature promise, then having a GOP majority isn’t worth a bucket of spit. And that, rather than actually keeping a core campaign promise, will be the one thing that could actually cost Republicans the majority in 2018.

Summarizing The Gorsuch Confirmation Hearings

In a word: Excellent. Or, in four: future Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Gorsuch, as expected, did just about everything right during his confirmation hearings this past week, skillfully parrying the expected Democratic attacks on issues such as campaign finance and abortion (you can read my take on the abortion-related exchanges here). He was always a favorite to be confirmed, absent some shocking gaffe at his confirmation hearings, and with the hearings now past even that remote possibility is dead.

Chuck Schumer and the more liberal members of the Democratic caucus may make noises about filibustering the nomination, thereby requiring sixty votes to confirm, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they lack the votes within the caucus even to sustain a filibuster. There are probably at least 6-8 Democrats, up for reelection next year in vulnerable seats, who would consider voting to confirm—or at least voting to end any potential filibuster. And no Republicans are likely to oppose Gorsuch, either.

All that said, Neil Gorsuch will be on the Supreme Court by June at the latest, and could be confirmed by Easter, providing a big win to both conservatives and the Trump administration.

Don't Be Worried About Gorsuch's Abortion Comments

Abortion has been a hot topic so far in Judge Gorsuch’s confirmation hearing, resulting in several memorable exchanges between the (hopefully) future justice and Judiciary Committee Democrats.

Dianne Feinstein has been the senator most focused on the abortion issue, questioning whether Gorsuch would consider overturning Roe v. Wade, to which Gorsuch replied that he could make no guarantees on how he’d rule in any future case, but that “Once a case is settled, that adds to the determinacy of the law. What was once a hotly-contested issue is no longer a hotly-contested issue. We move forward.”

“[Roe] has been reaffirmed many times, I can say that,” he said later. He also said that if President Trump had asked him to overturn Roe, “I would have walked out the door.”

Some conservatives might be concerned by this, unhappy with any response that doesn’t amount to, “I will definitely push for the abolition of Roe the moment I am confirmed.” But this would be pretty stupid from a political standpoint, and also, as Gorsuch and others (including the late Justice Scalia) have said, not an attribute one should look for in a good judge. Judges should always wait until hearing the facts of a case before making any final decision.

I was also curious what Samuel Alito, an unquestionably fine conservative justice, had to say on abortion during his own confirmation hearing a decade ago: “What I have said about Roe is that if it were -- if the issue were to come before me, if I’m confirmed and I’m on the Supreme Court and the issue comes up, the first step in the analysis for me would be the issue of stare decisis. And that would be very important. If I were to get beyond that, I would approach that question the way I approach every legal issue that I approach as a judge, and that is to approach it with an open mind and to go through the whole judicial process, which is designed, and I believe strongly in it, to achieve good results, to achieve good decision-making.”

And: “Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It was decided in 1973. So it’s been on the books for a long time. It has been challenged on a number of occasions. The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the decision; sometimes on the merits; sometimes—in Casey—based on stare decisis.”

Those responses are, substantively, little different from what Gorsuch has offered on the same issue over the last couple days. Of course, no one can predict with 100% accuracy how any given judicial nominee will rule once on the bench—see Souter, David, and Roberts, John. Confirmation hearings have become more about partisan maneuverings and avoiding verbal traps laid by the opposing side than a window into judicial thought. But Gorsuch’s statements over the last few days, on abortion and other issues, is fully in line with those of past conservative nominees.

"The Great Wall" Flopped. Why?

Before its release, the Universal-China Film Group collaboration The Great Wall was being hailed as the first in a new line of movies produced in a joint venture between Hollywood and Chinese filmmakers. The more excitable among movie watchers and film critics were discussing how the movie was an important milestone in China’s growth as an entertainment powerhouse, and that the country’s film industry would soon overtake that of America’s.

And then The Great Wall collapsed at the box office, losing over $75 million and being declared a box office disaster, based mainly on its abysmal performance in North America (though it also had a disappointing run in China). Word is that, even with Hollywood’s hunger for international collaboration, any similar major deals are dead for the time being.

What happened, after the studios went all-in on the project, from extensive advertising to casting Matt Damon in an obvious attempt to appeal to the U.S. market? The popular critical reaction is basically what you’d expect: bad reviews. And, even though I haven’t seen the movie, I can tell from the trailers that I really don’t want to. It seems like pretty standard boilerplate fare, the kind of story that’s been done a thousand different ways by this point, with no indication that there’s any sort of new and exciting twist.

But I have another theory, one unrelated to either bad reviews or the troubles inherent with American-Chinese film collaborations (government censorship being prime among them). Promotion for the film ramped up in earnest during October, the heat of the presidential campaign, and it was released in North America soon after President Trump’s inauguration. Is it too much to believe that many prospective moviegoers heard the title, immediately thought of another “great wall” currently in the news, and said, “I’ve had enough of politics. Let’s just stay home.”

Obviously, an unfortunately timed name can’t account for a full $75 million in losses. But it could easily have been a contributing factor, especially considering the movie industry’s well-known liberal leanings and tendency for inserting those leanings as allegory into film. And, for all I know, these hypothetical movie goers could be right—although it really doesn’t matter. Perception, in this case, creates reality.

If Hollywood wants to avoid such a potential problem in the future, there’s an easy solution: Make your brand entertainment again, rather than self-righteous preaching, and people will follow.

The Gorsuch Confirmation Hearings Begin Today

Today, a month after being nominated to the Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch will finally have his first day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

This week will be brutal for Gorsuch; I don’t envy him the process. The hearings will be the highlight of the confirmation process, the moment when he will have the greatest ability to answer questions about his legal philosophy and prospective future tenure on the Court. And Democrats will also have the greatest opportunity to find, in a public setting, the slightest hint of scandal or trumped-up excuse to block his confirmation. In the end, it is a near certainty that Gorsuch will be confirmed. But look for the committee’s most liberal members to hound him every step of the way.

Many of the committee Democrats will almost certainly ask whether Gorsuch intends to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, in an attempt to sink him with that oldest of liberal totems. Gorsuch will likely say, repeatedly, that he will judge each case before him on the merits of that case alone. Democrats will not be amused, looking for a simple “yes” or “no”. Expect a similar back-and-forth with regard to Citizens United, and the gun control cases of the late 2000’s.

Gorsuch is a conservative and an originalist; there can be no doubt of that from his past legal opinions and other writings. But he is also charming, talented, and eminently qualified for the position to which he has been nominated. It will be a tough week, but soon enough—possibly within a month’s time—Neil Gorsuch will be the newest member of the Supreme Court, confirmed on a bipartisan vote.

Why I Am A Conservative

I am a conservative because I believe the government must obey the confines of the Constitution, and respect our national heritage and traditions. Because I believe that all just government “derives its power from the consent of the governed,” and that the people, not the government, are those best able to control their own lives and make their own decisions. I believe in the principles of the 10th Amendment, and the role of the states not as subordinates, but coequal branches of government alongside the federal body.

I am a conservative because I believe the government has a moral obligation not to spend more money than it takes in, and that it must remember that money is not its’ own, but rather is entrusted to it by the citizens. That the primary purpose of the government is not to regulate and restrict, but to enable. Not to intrude more and more into the private sphere every day, but to perform only those duties ascribed to it by the Constitution. Not to expand and control, but to defend liberty and a free economy at home and abroad.

I am a conservative because I believe in the sacredness and value of every life, particularly the need to defend the innocent and unborn. Because I believe in the importance of the family and that marriage is the fundamental building block of society. Because everyone is created equal, endowed by God with unalienable rights, and must therefore be judged by the law and society not on the basis of race or gender, but on who they are and what they can accomplish. And because every person has a right to self-defense, to protect their homes and families against those who would do them harm, and the government must not infringe on this right.

I am a conservative because I believe that there are some in the world who would do us harm, and that if peaceful alternatives fail we must not flinch from using force and the threat of force to defend ourselves and our allies. That we must respect the sovereignty of other nations, but if a clear and significant threat emerges to ourselves and to freedom, democracy, and the rule of law we must not hesitate to act.

I am a conservative because I believe in American exceptionalism, and the uniqueness of the American Dream. That the United States is the greatest nation on Earth, and—despite the inherent flaws of anything man-made—we remain a shining beacon of liberty and hope throughout the world. Because throughout human history, no country has served as a refuge for all those yearning to be free, and given as much in blood and treasure to the cause of freedom, justice, and human rights, as America. And that our Constitution, democratic republic, and fair and free elections truly set us apart from any other nation.

I am a conservative because I believe the best way for the government to help the less fortunate is to restore their dignity and self-worth. To provide not a permanent welfare state that demeans the individual, but a temporary safety net, a crutch for people to lean on in times of incredible hardship. I believe that welfare and entitlements, if abused and incentivized, create a stricken underclass that is the worst form of social injustice. I believe that true social justice is putting people back to work, giving them the dignity of a job, and preventing the system from being abused at the expense of those who truly need it.

I am a conservative not because I wish to return to the past, but because I believe the past offers lessons that can make the future a brighter place. Because I believe we must return to our roots, our core beliefs, and the fundamental wisdom of the Founding Fathers in order to continue strengthening America, and that as long as we place our trust and hope in our faith, family, and freedom, there is nothing we can’t accomplish.

A Path to Meaningful Entitlement Reform

The national debt is rapidly approaching $20 trillion. The current federal budget deficit is nearly $600 billion. If the debt were apportioned equally, every man, woman, and child who is a citizen of the United States would owe $61,345, as of this writing. Those are simply the facts.

Here are other facts. The primary driver of the exploding national debt is so-called “mandatory spending”—in other words, entitlements. Medicare and Medicaid combined cost more than $1.1 trillion, while Social Security is over $925 billion annually. Defense spending, by contrast, totaled just under $600 billion in fiscal year 2015.

Yes, according to popular belief Social Security is supposedly a system where the government acts as a guardian of retirement funds, withdrawing those funds from a working person’s paycheck and returning the money years later to new retirees. But in reality, those funds were spent long ago. The government is funding Social Security benefits for current retirees with the tax revenue from current workers—and there are no longer enough new workers for the government to keep up the charade. The system truly is a Ponzi scheme of epic proportions, and sooner, rather than later, the system will come crashing down, absent significant reforms. If we continue following the present course, today’s workers cannot expect to see any Social Security benefits of their own, decades in the future. They (including myself) will have been, quite simply, stiffed.

Most Democrats—and many Republicans—don’t want to talk about the real reasons behind the massive national debt. Even many of the so-called “deficit hawks” prefer to nibble around the edges of the problem, going after government waste but unwilling to speak out strongly against the rapid growth of the entitlement state. If they truly want to get the debt and deficit under control, the answers lie within the reformation of the “Big Three”: Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security.

To be perfectly honest, Social Security was a mistake. If I were a member of Congress in the 1930’s, I would have voted against it. But the fact of the matter is that in the decades since its enactment, millions of seniors have come to depend on it, and the program is now an integral part of the fabric of the nation. Like it or not, Social Security as a basic institution is here to stay.

But that doesn’t mean that significant reforms can’t be attempted, to make the program better and more financially sound. For starters, the Social Security retirement age, for full benefits, is either 66 or 67, depending on date of birth. When the program was first enacted, the retirement age was 65, and the average life expectancy was 62. Today, the average life expectancy is 79. A program originally intended to support senior citizens in the final few years of their lives now routinely serves to fund an increasingly active lifestyle for decades. For the program to remain solvent, the retirement age for full benefits must be raised to at least seventy (excluding, of course, those at or near the current retirement age).

Reducing—or eliminating entirely—Social Security benefits for high-income earners should also be seriously considered. Making millions of dollars over the course of your career is cause for celebration, but there is no reason for you to receive an additional check from the government every month.

And (again exempting current and soon-to-be retirees), the reduction of Social Security benefits for everyone should be an issue closely studied.

Medicaid and Medicare are also in need of substantial reform, particularly with regard to the current payment method of Medicaid benefits. A system of block grants to the states, which would allow for greater flexibility and innovation in existing state programs, would save money and reduce waste even if no cuts to benefits were considered.

It’s time for lawmakers in both parties to let go of their fear of the “Third Rail”, and challenge established wisdom regarding the entrenched entitlement state. The fiscal future—and national security—of the country depends on it.

Grading President Trump's First Fifty Days

Ever since FDR’s famous (or infamous) “First Hundred Days”, filled with the rapid implementation of dozens of new government programs in response to the Great Depression, the first three months in office for a new president has been seen as critical for setting the tone of the rest of his tenure. The Daily Signal has a good recap of the major actions President Trump has taken so far here, as well as comparing them to his promises on the campaign trail.

Overall, if I were a Trump voter who agreed with every one of his campaign promises, I would be enormously pleased with the record so far. As it is, I am, quite frankly, surprised that Trump has shown as much commitment as he has to fulfilling campaign pledges. As I said many times during the campaign, one of my major issues with Trump was that he simply hadn’t given voters any reason to believe that he would actually follow through on many of his more conservative proposals—securing the border, for instance, or pushing to defund Planned Parenthood—based on his history.

But in areas of policy, Trump has actually stayed remarkably consistent. And, he has actually surrounded himself with many good people—Jeff Sessions and Betsy DeVos, to name two—despite the mocking of that particular claim by myself and others during the campaign.

Of course, he’s had some missteps and done things I disagree with, some quite strongly—embracing Obamacare Lite being only the latest example. And his Twitter feed is another matter entirely.

But on the substance, I would have to give Trump a solid B for his first fifty days in office. May his presidency have many more such days, without the missteps (both overblown and real) which have plagued the administration thus far.

A Repeal and Replace Plan That Works

For more than six years, the one constant in every single Republican campaign was a promise to repeal Obamacare. Presidential candidates said it. Prospective senators and congressmen said it. Gubernatorial candidates, too, said that if elected they would do everything in their power to fight the Affordable Care Act’s many encroachments on state power. Given the chance, even Republican mayors and county councilmen would loudly proclaim how opposed they were to Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

In return, Republicans were given the House in 2010. They were given the Senate in 2014, and, against all odds, the White House in 2016. And what do they do with their newfound power to finally repeal and replace Obamacare, a day many believed would never come?

They introduce the American Health Care Act, a bill whose first sentence begins, “the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act… is amended.” A fitting summary of the contents of the bill.

The individual mandate is repealed—and replaced with a new mandate, a requirement for insurance companies to charge extra those who allow their insurance to lapse. Such a measure is just more government overreach, and of doubtful constitutionality.

Medicaid is reformed—but not until 2020. And those reforms are clumsy and unnecessarily complicated, far short of the simple block grant program that many have argued for.

Some taxes are repealed—but others are kept, including the ridiculous Cadillac tax on “deluxe” health plans.

And the Independent Payment Advisory Boards, or “death panels”, remain in place.

Without a doubt, this is better than the current Obamacare framework. But it should not be enough for Congress to merely pass a bill where the best thing that can be said about it is that it is better than a disaster. We can and must do better.

The first step should be to repeal Obamacare outright. Ideally, this would consist of a one-sentence bill: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is hereby repealed.” Unfortunately, such a bill would have been feasible only in the early years following the ACA’s initial passage. Measures have already been implemented that cannot be easily taken away without disrupting the lives of millions.

Instead, Congress can merely repeal the individual and employer mandates, taxes, and all other assorted regulations, along with halting all further Medicaid expansion. Repeal, too, the requirement that insurance companies must allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26. Whether there would be some kind of staggered end to this provision, or a grandfather clause, could be up for discussion and debate.

Don’t worry about anything else in the repeal legislation. Stop Medicaid expansion, but don’t reform the program just yet. Don’t worry about the familiar cries of “But what will you replace it with?” The American health care system circa 2009 may not have been ideal, but there weren’t hordes of starving people dying in the streets. And the gap between the end of Obamacare and the beginning of a new kind of health care system need not be long, because Republicans could already be working on a replacement while the repeal bill was passed and implemented.

That replacement bill, that vision of a new health care system, would be radically different from both Obamacare and House leadership’s own proposal. It would put the marketplace and the individual first by offering true choice and competition, and eliminating all government mandates. It would dramatically expand Health Savings Accounts, far more than the AHCA proposes, and allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. It would address badly-needed tort reform head on. All of these are classical GOP beliefs on health care policy that, somewhat surprisingly, get little mention in the tepid proposal put forth by Congressional leadership.

Yes, Speaker Ryan and the rest say that additional legislation will be forthcoming, once the AHCA has been passed. But given the milquetoast nature of that proposal, coupled with leadership’s long history of proclaiming their intent to “fight another day”, how likely does it seem that radical health care reform legislation is imminent?

Because that is exactly what we need: radical reform. Reform that places individual choice, not government coercion, at the forefront of the health care policy debate. Accordingly, the American Health Care Act should represent the opening salvo of negotiations, not a final product.

Spacing Out: We Could Be Looking at a Space Age Revival

The eight years of the Obama administration were dark days for a number of reasons (Obamacare, increased federal spending, and the expansion of the administrative state chief among them), but also because of what was essentially a gutting of the U.S. space program. The Space Shuttle program was retired, and the program that was to have replaced it, Constellation, was scrapped. Ambitious plans to return to the Moon and send the first astronauts to Mars by the 2020’s were quietly retired, replaced by a retooled NASA mission philosophy that placed more emphasis on combating climate change. American astronauts were left unable to even reach the International Space Station without hitching rides with the Russians.

Now that may be changing.

In both of President Trump’s two major speeches since taking office, he has hinted at a renewed space program, saying in his joint address to Congress on February 28 that “American footprints on distant worlds are not too big a dream” by 2026. Members of the Trump administration in general seem to be more favorable toward space exploration than their Obama-era predecessors, including Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And just this week, a bill sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz, which would provide NASA with a robust budget and amends its mission statement to more prominently push for the exploration of other planets, passed the House.

These are all obviously early steps, and actually putting a person on Mars, or even returning to the Moon, is still years away. But it highlights a newfound seriousness in Washington toward the goals of space exploration and colonization, and refocusing NASA away from climate change activism and back toward its original mission.

As I’ve said before, private enterprise and commercial exploration should be an important part of America’s long-term space missions, but this is also an area with calls for more robust government involvement, particularly in the early stages. Finally, others in Washington are waking up to that fact.

Is This Really Going To Be The Next Four Years?

Donald Trump has only been in office for six weeks, but it already seems much longer. The frequency of the leaks, pseudo-scandals, angry Tweets, and assorted controversies have left many watchers feeling exhausted.

The question is how much longer this pace can keep up, with regard to both Trump and his critics. Will liberals continue to manufacture outrage at this same level, over every little thing Trump does or says, for the next four years? Will Trump be able to keep saying outrageous things?

The answer to the second question is a self-evident “of course!” Whether he will, or will instead become “so presidential [we’ll] be bored,” is a different question. But I can’t imagine that the next four years will be the same as the last month. The pace of the controversies and outrage, from both sides, just seems too frenetic, outpacing even the infamous Bush Derangement Syndrome on the left.

Something has to give. Either Trump will grow in office, liberals will tire of complaining about every single perceived slight, or some combination of the two. More likely the last option.

But either way, the past few weeks should not be a harbinger of the next several years. It certainly can’t get any more bitter, divisive, and just plain exhausting.

Can it?

Affirmative Action: Government-Approved Discrimination

There has been abundant research, over the several decades since affirmative action was first widely instituted, to show that it demonstrably does nothing, over the long term, to improve the fortunes of individual members of minority groups. One of the more controversial arguments states that artificially elevating individuals to a level they are not sufficiently prepared to excel at does little to improve those individuals' lives.

Justice Clarence Thomas, only the second black justice in the history of the Supreme Court, is perhaps one of the strongest and most capable critics of affirmative action. He has many times argued that these programs serve to, in effect, taint the achievements of even the most deserving and qualified members of minority communities.  The programs cheapen their achievements and causing others to wonder whether they had merely been given an inside track to college admittance or job hiring because of their race, doubts that in turn serve to inhibit the very cause of racial integration, and elimination of historical racial preferences as a stigma, that affirmative action was supposed to help achieve.

However, all of the many varied arguments against affirmative action make a key distinction, treating individuals exactly as that—individuals, rather than as members of a homogenous, communal group. The primary arguments in favor of affirmative action, meanwhile—corrective, to make up for a general lack of opportunity in minority communities; compensatory, in order to pay some form of group reparation directly to the black community to make up for a history of slavery and discrimination; and diversity, to facilitate a more representative and inclusive environment, whether in colleges or in the workforce—do exactly the opposite, treating individuals as merely members of a group.

Furthermore, the debate regarding the policy merits of affirmative action avoid the tougher moral and constitutional questions, since affirmative action, by its very nature, treats individuals differently based solely on their race. Throwing to the wind Martin Luther King Jr.'s wish for future generations to be judged “not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character,” as well as the clear text and intent of the modern Constitution as a "color-blind" document, modern affirmative action programs do exactly the opposite.

As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in one of the last affirmative action cases to reach the Supreme Court, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Mandating Employee Benefits is a Terrible Idea

“My administration wants to work with members in both parties to make childcare accessible and affordable, to help ensure new parents have paid family leave, to invest in women's health, and to promote clean air and clear water, and to rebuild our military and our infrastructure.”

--President Donald Trump, address to Congress, February 28, 2017

The issue of requiring employers to provide paid sick leave and family leave benefits is, quite simply, complicated. Supporters of the policy have done a good job of portraying themselves as the defenders of the working class, thereby casting conservative opponents as only concerned with helping big business. The narrative is compelling and can be hard to break.

But requiring employers to provide paid family leave, sick leave, and similar benefits is a manifestly bad idea. This extends from broader arguments about liberty and the role of government in the private sector economy, to the point that requiring paid sick leave is simply bad policy. Like proposals to increase the minimum wage, it hurts employers of all stripes, particularly small businesses, and ultimately hurts the very employees Democrats claim to be trying to help.

By requiring paid sick leave or other benefits, the government would force small businesses to expend greater resources for the same number of employees. Ultimately, those businesses would be forced to choose one of two options, in order to absorb rising costs: lay off some employees, or pass the added costs on to the consumer--or both. In the first scenario, employees, many of whom are likely low-income workers, would lose their jobs. In the second, everyone who patronizes a particular business would be forced to pay more—likely including at least a few workers who lost their jobs due to the same policy of mandatory paid sick leave.

When the government attempts to mandate employee benefits, whether in the form of an elevated minimum wage, paid sick leave, or the employer mandate in Obamacare, it is ultimately small businesses and workers who must pay for it. Higher wages and paid leave are great—but let businesses reach those decisions on their own, with the help of natural market forces and without government interference.

Birthright Citizenship Needs To Go

Under the current interpretation of constitutional law, every individual born within the United States is automatically entitled to full U.S. citizenship. This applies equally to the children of American citizens, legal immigrants, and illegal immigrants. If aliens landed in Montana and had a child, that child would presumably be entitled to birthright citizenship, as well.

This is a profoundly bad policy. More importantly, despite liberal arguments to the contrary, birthright citizenship is nowhere mandated in the Constitution. Formally changing the policy would therefore require nothing more than a simple act of Congress.

Arguments that birthright citizenship is constitutionally mandated can be traced back to a single section of the Fourteenth Amendment: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” Sounds pretty straightforward, right? If you’re born here, you’re a citizen.

But it is the qualifying phrase, “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”, that liberals routinely forget about or ignore outright. Merely being born in American territory, according to the Fourteenth Amendment, is not enough. You must also be in compliance with federal law. Illegal immigrants, by definition, are in the country illegally and are therefore in violation of federal immigration law. Hence, their children are not constitutionally required to receive citizenship upon birth.

This is not to say the current regime of granting citizenship to every child of illegal immigrants is unconstitutional. The Fourteenth Amendment sets a mandatory minimum, as it were, for citizenship. Congress, if it wanted to, could pass a law granting full U.S. citizenship to every person on the planet. But just because something is constitutional does not make it good policy.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has several times held that birthright citizenship, of the kind currently encoded in federal law, is not constitutionally mandated. In 1884, the Supreme Court held in Elk v. Wilkins that Indians could not claim birthright citizenship as the tribes were considered independent political entities not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, thereby requiring additional passage of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. In 1898, the Court held in U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark that a child born to immigrant parents in the United States was automatically conferred citizenship under the 14th Amendment, a fact often cited by modern proponents of birthright citizenship—however, what those proponents fail to mention is that the parents in that case were legal immigrants, “subject to the jurisdiction” of both the United States and California, a fact expressly cited in the Court's opinion.

Birthright citizenship was not discussed again by the Supreme Court until 1982, when Justice William Brennan used a single sentence in an opinion footnote to state his belief that birthright citizenship was constitutionally required.

Birthright citizenship as it is currently defined is bad policy, granting blanket U.S. citizenship privileges to thousands of illegal immigrants who have no respect for American institutions or ideals of liberty and limited government. If Congress wants to solve the problem, the time is now. Enough blaming other branches of government for the current mess.

The Irony of Democratic Women Honoring Suffragettes

One of the lesser-noted events from Trump’s Tuesday night address to Congress was the spectacle of many Democratic women wearing white, apparently in an attempt to show solidarity with the early suffragettes—as well as outfits like Planned Parenthood.

Set aside the grandiosity of claiming the mantle of the “next generation of suffragettes. No one, to my knowledge, is threatening to take away women’s right to vote. But obviously, these Democrats don’t know the history of the very movement they praise and attempt to emulate at every turn, or they would see the hypocrisy of standing in support of Planned Parenthood and the suffragette movement at the same time.

Susan B. Anthony considered abortion one of society’s great evils, running in her newspaper columns critical of the practice. As Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, wrote in National Review earlier this year, Anthony would often reference “the newspaper reports every day of every year of scandals and outrages, of wife murders and paramour shooting, of abortions and infanticides, are perpetual reminders of men’s incapacity to cope successfully with this monster evil of society.”

Her colleague, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, also decried abortion and “the murder of children, either before or after birth… We believe the cause of all these abuses lies in the degradation of women.”

And another early feminist, Victoria Woodhull (who was the first woman to formally run for president), said, “Wives deliberately permit themselves to become pregnant of children and then, to prevent becoming mothers, as deliberately murder them while yet in their wombs. Can there be a more demoralized position than this?”

Hard to imagine any Democrat in the House chamber Tuesday night saying something like that.