Without offering a precise definition or measure of poverty, Desmond laments that America, the world's richest country, has "more poverty than any other advanced democracy." (That the United States is also by far the most populous advanced democracy might itself help to explain this alleged fact.) Relying chiefly on a report he had published in 2015, along with statistics issued by the Census Bureau and the OECD, Desmond asserts that "almost one in nine Americans" live in poverty, with over 38 million unable to "afford basic necessities" and another 108 million "getting by on $55,000 a year or less," "stuck in that space between poverty and security."

Of course a large majority of the world's population—including India, Pakistan, Indonesia, China, most of Africa, and much of Latin America—would envy an individual or even a family with an income half that large. And as Desmond acknowledges, the official definition of poverty, developed by Mollie Orshansky, an economist for the Social Security Administration in the 1960s, was a seat-of-the-pants calculation. Since poverty meant lacking enough income to cover life's basic necessities, with food the greatest need, she judged that because food expenditures (at the time) consumed roughly a third of an average family's budget, the poverty threshold as of 1965 should be set at $3,000 a year (assuming the family would need to spend $1,000 on food). This entailed that in 1965, 50 million Americans, including 22 million children, were poor. As Desmond observes, the government's Official Poverty Measure (OPM) is still based on Orshansky's calculations, adjusted for inflation, so that the poverty line in 2022 was set at $13,500 for a single person and $27,750 for a family of four.

Continued reliance on Orshansky's calculations, as economists like Nicholas Eberstadt and Phil Gramm have pointed out, has led to increasing distortions—for instance, higher agricultural productivity has reduced the proportion of income needed for food, and the national figure abstracts from wide geographic differences. And as Orshansky herself acknowledged, the OPM greatly overestimates poverty by counting only cash income, excluding such forms of public aid as housing assistance, Medicaid, and the "refundable" Earned Income Tax Credit (all of which have expanded since the 1960s).

While the OPM has been accompanied since 2011 by a Supplemental Poverty Measure, with a national panel of "experts" proposing an update last May that would supplant it, the panel's proposal itself suffers from serious problems of ideological bias, as explained in a recent analysis by Scott Winship of the American Enterprise Institute.

Another deficiency is that the OPM gives a misleadingly static impression of poverty, as if the same people remained at the lowest level throughout their lives. As Eberstadt noted in an essay on "The Mismeasurement of Poverty," given the dynamic character of the American economy, long-term rather than temporary poverty "appears to be the lot of only a tiny minority of the people counted as poor by the official U.S. poverty metric." Consider the fact that mostly poor immigrants are regularly arriving to fill bottom rungs of the economic ladder, while others move up—and many penurious graduate students will certainly rise in economic status once they complete their studies.

While Desmond uses the OPM to deny that there has been any lasting reduction in poverty over the past half-century, his own long note cites evidence that belies that claim. Notably, he cites research using an "anchored" poverty measure (that is, one based on actual living standards, rather than cash income), showing that poverty fell by roughly 40 percent over the past 50 years, and a "widely cited" report by a nonpartisan organization that found child poverty had declined by 59 percent just between 1993 and 2019. Desmond even acknowledges the evidence that government antipoverty programs have thus "borne fruit." But he carps that the progress took place mostly during two periods totaling 15 years rather than being steady, and adds his "feeling" that what really matters is that urban poverty has grown proportionately since 2000 (which means that non-urban poverty declined by even more than the overall average). Clearly, Desmond is grasping at straws to find statistics that justify his feeling.

In reality, the data that Desmond cites to estimate the extent of poverty are thoroughly flawed, as is demonstrated in the 2019 AEI "Report on U.S. Consumption Poverty" by economists Bruce Meyer and James X. Sullivan. This report corrects the "official" poverty measure by relying on patterns of consumption rather than far less reliable estimates of income. The OPM exaggerates the extent of inflation from 1980 to 2018; as already noted, it excludes non-cash sources of support such as housing vouchers, Medicaid, food stamps, and tax credits; and it ignores the underreporting of income by those classified as poor. By contrast, Meyer and Sulllivan conclude, between 1980 and 2018 the consumption poverty rate fell by over 10 percentage points—from 13 percent in 1980 to only 2.8 percent in 2018. (This despite the fact that the "official" rate fell by only 1.2 points during that period.)

The core of Desmond's argument, however, doesn't depend on statistics, but on the claim that Americans as a whole are engaged in "exploiting" the poor, a practice that will not end until we resolve to become "poverty abolitionists." Unlike most social scientists, Desmond rejects attributions of the persistence of real poverty to factors like the rise of single motherhood (an issue identified by Daniel Moynihan in his 1965 report The Negro Family—a problem that has greatly increased since then among African Americans, even as it has spread among the white lower class as well). Nor does he concern himself with the rotten state of inner-city schools: He discusses public education only to lament the insufficient degree of racial integration, rather than recommending the expansion of charter schools and school-choice programs, which offer poor families a real alternative to union-run public schools. (Instead, he favors policies to increase unionization throughout the economy.)

Desmond justifies his attribution of poverty to "exploitation" by viewing the economy as a zero-sum game, in which every gain by people in higher economic classes must have been won by depriving poor people of some good to which they were entitled. He accuses better-off people of hoarding wealth through their "excesses"—for instance, by buying "cheap goods and service" produced by "the working poor," investing in companies that produce such goods, enjoying free checking accounts that are "subsidized" by overdraft fees paid by others, and electing officials who "fabricate stories" about not making the poor dependent on government, "sinful[ly]" warning that "proposals to reduce poverty … would cost too much." (Actually, "cheap" goods sold by stores like Walmart and Costco are far more likely to be purchased by the less well-off; overdraft fees are easily avoided by balancing one's checkbook; and Desmond offers no remedy for the real problem of dependency.)

Disregarding the vast scope of programs at all levels of government that already serve the poor, Desmond is confident that much larger such programs could be financed by "crack[ing] down on corporations and families who cheat on their taxes" and compelling the well-off to "take" less from the government. To do this, he recommends "bump[ing] up the top marginal [federal] tax rate … to 50 percent, as it was in 1986; or 70 percent, as it was in 1975," while jacking up the corporate rate to 46 percent, "as it was from 1979 through 1986."

Desmond seems unaware of the many deductions from taxable income that were eliminated by the 1986 Tax Reform Act—unlimited medical deductions; liberal home-office deductions; tax averaging; and so on, which made the "official" top rates merely nominal. And he denies that any "serious social scientist" thinks that raising taxes on the rich or international corporations would have a disincentivizing effect, reducing national wealth and the resources to raise everyone's living standards. Note, however, that Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut, the 1986 reform, and Donald Trump's 2017 cut all unleashed economic booms, with African-American poverty falling to a record low in the Trump years. Do "serious social scientists" ignore these facts?

Another of Desmond's proposals, taxing capital gains at the same rate as regular income, ignores the fact that since the former aren't indexed for inflation, seeming gains may not constitute actual increases in wealth—and the tax code allows only limited opportunities to balance them against capital losses. And he endorses broadening the scope of antipoverty programs so as to benefit the middle class as well, just to make it politically difficult (as FDR planned with regard to Social Security) to repeal them. But Desmond refuses to call his proposals redistributive, since he "hate[s] the word." Instead, they are simply compensation for the government's considerable "effort" devoted to enriching "the American aristocracy."

Other elements of Desmond's agenda include such conventional left-liberal proposals as indexing the minimum wage for inflation or even making it illegal for companies to pay "degrading wages." (Currently, only 2 percent of American workers earn the minimum wage, and raising it would reduce the opportunity for teenagers and recent immigrants to obtain needed work experience.) To his credit, Desmond criticizes "snob zoning" laws, a point on which advocates of free markets agree.

But perhaps the most striking aspect of Desmond's argument is his claim that people who object to expanded government welfare programs are hypocritically ignoring the fact that they themselves "benefit most from government largesse" in the form of tax "breaks" like the mortgage-interest deduction (greatly reduced by the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act), while also enjoying "employer-sponsored health insurance." In effect, Desmond starts with the premise that all wealth belongs in principle to the government, so that any reduction in the taxes one pays, or any benefits one receives on the job, amounts to "taking" sums, part of which rightfully belong to other people. This is the opposite of the liberal principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

Near the end, citing the nation's "bounty," Desmond expresses agreement with an "ecologist" who advocates "an economy of abundance … in which wealth means having enough to share," and "where the gratification of meeting your family needs is not poisoned by destroying that possibility for someone else"—as if that is what non-poor Americans were currently doing. While "poverty," according to Desmond, "is the dream killer," he concludes that "[w]e don't need to outsmart this problem. We need to out-hate it." This statement helps explain many of the intellectual flaws of Poverty, by America. Whether it justifies the cost of a Princeton education I must leave to tuition-paying parents to decide.

Poverty, by America
by Matthew Desmond
Crown, 304 pp., $28

David Lewis Schaefer is a professor of political science at the College of the Holy Cross.

The post Poor Logic appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The bureau bars lenders from making statements that "discourage" minorities from applying for loans. Townstone may have violated that regulation, the agency said, when its employees discussed crime in Chicago on a company-hosted radio show about the mortgage market, which also advertised Townstone's services.

The offending statements, plucked from five episodes recorded over a three-year period, included a reference to the South Side of Chicago as a "war zone," as well as a recommendation that home sellers "take down the Confederate flag." Merely mentioning the flag, the agency argued, could scare off black applicants.

Facing a possible lawsuit and potentially stiff penalties, Townstone in 2019 retained a consumer testing firm, Kleimann Communication Group, to see if the remarks did in fact alienate African Americans.

The results were reassuring: Not a single black Chicagoan interviewed by the firm found the radio segments offensive, according to a copy of the firm's report obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Some even said they were more inclined to use Townstone for mortgages after hearing its employees' banter, which they found funny and relatable.

But in July 2020—two months after the death of George Floyd—the bureau sued Townstone anyway.

What followed was an unprecedented legal battle between a small business with under 10 employees and a powerful federal agency that claimed to know better than the consumers it was allegedly protecting. Where working-class black people heard harmless chit-chat, agency officials heard disparaging dog whistles, which their lawsuit said amounted to "redlining."

Such claims are usually levied at big banks with deep pockets. Townstone marked the first time the bureau, set up in 2010 by Elizabeth Warren, had brought a redlining complaint against a non-bank mortgage lender, which would struggle to afford the multimillion-dollar payouts typical of a settlement with the agency.

It felt like "David and Goliath," said Barry Sturner, Townstone's president. And it was happening in a country that ostensibly bars the government from targeting citizens for their speech.

"They twisted innocuous statements about crime into something nefarious and then tried to use it to ruin my reputation and destroy my business," Sturner said. "When a federal agency with an unlimited budget and army of lawyers comes after your business and smears you as a racist, you're forced to give in and take it or choose an uphill fight."

Three years later, Sturner is still fighting. Though a district court dismissed the lawsuit in February, the bureau is now appealing that decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which could catapult the case to the Supreme Court.

While the odds are stacked against the agency in both venues—the Seventh Circuit, like the High Court, is majority-conservative—the persistence illustrates how government bureaucrats, armed with the mandate of civil rights, can bully and bankrupt businesses for constitutionally protected speech.

Legal fees alone often reach hundreds of thousands of dollars in a case like Townstone's, said Jessica Thompson, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, who represented Sturner pro bono. Throw in the possibility of damages, and it's often safer to settle—a dynamic that allows the government to chill speech merely by opening an investigation and dangling the possibility of a lawsuit.

The result, Thompson said, is a system ripe for constitutional abuses.

"Content- or viewpoint-based restrictions on speech are antithetical to the First Amendment," she told the Free Beacon. "That means it's unconstitutional for agency bureaucrats to appoint themselves as speech police to censor discussions on public issues just because they might be offensive to some."

At least some of that censorship seems to have been due to the cultural distance between inner-city Chicago and Northwest Washington, D.C.

On a 2017 episode of Townstone's radio show, Sturner referred to a grocery store in the South Side of Chicago, Jewel-Osco, as "Jungle Jewel," adding that it was "a scary place" with patrons "from all over the world."

The agency cited the nickname as an example of language that "would discourage" minorities "from applying for credit." In fact, the jungle moniker has been widely used by black Chicagoans themselves, one of whom told Kleimann Communication Group that Sturner's comments were "reliable and helpful," according to the firm's report.

Other statements the agency cited were blunt but boilerplate. "You drive very fast through Markham," former Townstone president David Hochberg said on a 2014 broadcast, referring to a majority-black Chicago suburb that experiences more crime than 95 percent of American cities. "You don't look at anybody or lock on anybody's eyes." On a November 2017 broadcast, a Townstone employee likened the "rush" of skydiving to "walking through the South Side at 3 a.m."

The agency also chided the hosts for stating, in January 2014, that listeners should "take down the Confederate flag" before putting their homes on the market—guidance that reflects the official policy of the National Association of Realtors, which says displaying a Confederate flag may violate housing discrimination law.

"The Townstone Financial Show has regularly included statements that would discourage African-American prospective applicants from applying for mortgage loans," the lawsuit said. And its "home-selling advice has included recommendations regarding displays of the Confederate flag."

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau declined to comment.

It is doubtful that anyone complained to the agency about these statements, said Ted Frank, a well-known conservative attorney who tackles regulatory overreach. Instead, agency officials likely noticed that Townstone made fewer loans in black neighborhoods than others and began poking around.

African Americans only accounted for just 1.4 percent of Townstone's loan applications between 2014 and 2017, according to the agency's complaint, and less than 1 percent of its loans were for properties in predominantly black neighborhoods, which comprise around 14 percent of Chicago's population.

Though such disparities are not illegal in and of themselves—lenders can consider race-blind factors, such as credit scores, that vary on average between racial groups—they can be evidence of discrimination and the catalyst for a lawsuit. The result, Frank said, is a "racial spoils system" in which quotas, while not officially required, are effectively mandatory.

"If you don't have proportional representation among loan recipients, agencies will look for disparate impact and go after you," Frank said. "It's problematic to see Kendism"—a reference to "antiracist" activist Ibram X. Kendi, who argues that all racial disparities reflect racism—"be the official policy of the U.S. government."

Something like that policy has now been written into the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's operations manual. The bureau said last year that it would sue lenders for disparate impact "regardless of whether it is intentional," something Congress never authorized it to do.

It was the latest move by an agency that has long taken an expansive view of its mandate, at times interpreting laws to cover far more conduct than their plain text implies.

The Townstone litigation centers on the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, which makes it illegal to "discriminate against any applicant" for credit on the basis of race. The agency has interpreted that law to include "prospective applicants" in addition to actual ones—a potentially massive category. It relied on this inflated interpretation to go after Townstone, arguing that the lender could be guilty of discrimination even if it had not discriminated against anyone who had applied for credit.

The argument was so bold that Franklin U. Valderrama, the district court judge presiding over the case, didn't address the First Amendment issues in his opinion. He dismissed the lawsuit purely on separation of powers grounds, saying the bureau, an Executive Branch agency, had ignored the clear meaning of a congressionally enacted law. For now, it remains an open legal question whether lenders can speak candidly about crime.

The appeal to the Seventh Circuit comes as the bureau's entire funding structure is under review at the Supreme Court. The existential stakes of that case have stirred debate about how the agency should be reformed and what it is for.

At a congressional hearing in March, Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D., Mass.) answered the second question by pointing to Townstone.

"I for one am glad the agency took action against discriminatory lending practices," Pressley told the House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee, citing the company's "racist messages." "We need more, not less, of the CFBP."

Ryan Nevin contributed to this report.

Update, 1:39 p.m.: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that it was Sturner who made the comment about Markham. It was Townstone's former president David Hochberg.

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Minnesota's Department of Corrections in early June agreed to move Christina, formerly Craig, Lusk to the all-female facility, the first time the state has done so. The move comes after Lusk sued the Minnesota Department of Corrections last year over "discrimination and harassment" at the men's facility where he had been remanded, according to his lawsuit. Lusk complained of "misnaming and misgendering," as well as being denied sexual reassignment surgery, insisting the actions were in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, the Minnesota Constitution, and the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

The decision to move Lusk means Minnesota's only all-female prison is no more. It also aligns Minnesota with some of the nation's most liberal states, such as California and Connecticut, that have similarly eradicated their all-female prisons to allow transgender inmates to be housed there.

In California, the housing of transgender inmates in all-female prisons has affected biologically female inmates a great deal. Faced with the prospect of unruly male-to-female transgender inmates, prison officials have begun increasing restrictions on movement in female correctional facilities, the Washington Free Beacon reported in January. The state has also ignored claims of sexual assault and rape from biologically female inmates, according to a legal complaint filed on behalf of several female offenders housed under the California Department of Corrections.

"A goal of decreasing vulnerability of a subset of men (those with 'sexual minority' designation) cannot be pursued by increasing the vulnerability of women," the complaint reads. "Decreasing the risk that a subgroup of men will suffer prison rape only by creating a corresponding increased risk that women will suffer prison rape is neither constitutional nor compliant with PREA."

Similar problems have plagued other liberal states. Last year in New York, a transgender inmate at Rikers Island penitentiary raped a female prisoner while in the women's section of the jail and was sentenced to seven more years behind bars for the offense. More recently, in January, law enforcement officials in Cincinnati, Ohio, confirmed they were investigating an alleged rape of a female prisoner by a transgender inmate. In New Jersey, meanwhile, a transgender prisoner last year impregnated two fellow inmates, forcing the state to put the prisoner back into a male-only facility.

A third of biologically male transgender inmates seeking to be moved to female prisons are registered sex offenders, according to data from the California Department of Corrections.

California's liberal governor, Gavin Newsom, in 2020 signed the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, which requires the state's Department of Corrections to house inmates based on their preferred gender identity. Left-wing executives in Connecticut and Washington, D.C., have implemented similar policies, while other states transfer transgender inmates on a case-by-case basis.

More states will likely join the ranks of California and Connecticut. New York is considering legislation that requires jails and prisons to place anyone who "self-identifies as transgender, gender nonconforming, nonbinary, or intersex" in a correctional facility that aligns with his or her self-described gender status.

The post Minnesota's Lone All-Female Prison Is No Longer as Transgender Inmate, a Biological Man, Is Relocated appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The legislature this month approved a bipartisan bill that would bar the state from doing business with companies "taking adverse action, including changes to published commercial financial ratings … to inflict economic harm on Israel." The bill, which hit Florida governor Ron DeSantis's (R.) desk on Tuesday, aims to crack down on companies that work to hurt Israeli businesses under the guise of progressive Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) guidelines.

Chief among those companies is the financial ratings giant Morningstar, which has been plagued by accusations that it systematically downgrades companies that work with Israel—a move that generally discourages investors from funding companies. Morningstar subsidiary Sustainalytics, for instance, blacklists several companies that work with Israel to stop terrorism. Critics say this activity feeds the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement as it seeks to economically isolate Israel.

The bill comes as DeSantis clashes with various corporate titans over "woke" business practices. Earlier this month, DeSantis signed legislation that bans state officials from investing public money in ESG funds and bans the sale of ESG bonds in the state. The governor last year pulled $2 billion of state assets from the financial firm BlackRock in protest over the firm's ESG policies

 The legislation could provide a roadmap for other states that want to cut ties with Morningstar over its alleged anti-Israel bias, analysts told the Washington Free Beacon.

"It's the final countdown for Morningstar to end its blacklisting of Israel-based companies," according to Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "There's no doubt Morningstar is violating many state anti-BDS laws around the country, but some states aren't sure if their laws apply to financial ratings intended to drive divestment."

Goldberg and others say the Florida measure was specifically crafted to account for the type of BDS activity that has infected the ESG sector.

"Florida's Morningstar amendment," Goldberg told the Free Beacon, "is removing any doubt for its regulators who will soon need to put the company on the state's list of prohibited investments."

Over 35 states have enacted anti-BDS laws, which primarily apply to businesses that directly boycott Israel. But these states could soon follow Florida's lead and expand their statutes to include downgrading or blacklisting companies via ESG ratings.

"States have been holding back their anti-BDS laws because they believed Morningstar was working in good faith to improve their ratings," Goldberg said. "But today we know they are defending a BDS blacklist against 26 companies, including every Israeli bank—truly engaging in economic warfare against Israel. Time's up for states giving Morningstar the benefit of the doubt."

Pro-Israel advocacy groups are already lining up behind the Florida statute.

Sandra Parker, the chairwoman of the Christians United for Israel action fund, said the broad bipartisan support for the Florida measure signals that lawmakers are saying "'no' to those seeking to use ESG as a vehicle to surreptitiously infect American investments with BDS."

Christians United for Israel, one of several groups that have been pressuring Morningstar to eradicate anti-Israel bias, has also raised the issue in meetings with members of Congress, "who are deeply concerned about Morningstar's pro-BDS actions," Parker said.

"In the end it's quite clear that Morningstar, and anyone else pushing BDS on American investors, is going to change course rather than harm shareholders and suffer additional reputational damage," Parker said.

Morningstar has repeatedly rebuffed accusations of anti-Israel bias, insisting that it in no way supports the BDS movement. It has also taken steps to eradicate bias from its ESG ratings and adjust current guidelines to more favorably rate Israel.

The post Florida Bill Would Crack Down on 'Woke' Finance Company Morningstar for Actions That Harm Israel appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Selling assisted suicide to "historically marginalized communities" is a difficult business, because it tends to kill prospective clients and smacks of eugenics. Compassion & Choices, the nation's largest and most active assisted suicide lobbying group, has found a new way to remedy this. It has enlisted the help—and data—of a trusted brand: the Alzheimer's Association.

It's a bizarre fit. While the Alzheimer's Association spends considerable resources to overcome what it describes as "the stigma" of Alzheimer's and dementia, the CEO of Compassion & Choices, Kim Callinan, has described dementia as "a fate worse than death."

Compassion & Choices was known as the Hemlock Society until the group's support for fellow member Jack Kevorkian—and his increasing number of so-called mercy killings—tainted the brand. While the Hemlock Society celebrated Kevorkian's actions, the Alzheimer's Association issued a statement in opposition, noting that "we must … affirm the right to dignity and life for every Alzheimer patient and cannot condone suicide."

George Soros, whose mother was a member of the Hemlock Society, poured millions into the assisted suicide movement through his Open Society Foundations, in part to help the Hemlock Society rebrand itself as Compassion & Choices.

Once at loggerheads, Compassion & Choices and the Alzheimer's Association announced last December that, together, they will focus on a shared effort to improve "end-of-life care" to people with dementia in the "Black, Latino, Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander (AANHPI), and LGBTQ communities," according to a press release from Compassion & Choices. Together, the organizations will create national webinars, host conferences and local events, share data, "and more," according to the press release.

Compassion & Choices appears more enthusiastic about the partnership than its counterpart. The organization issued two press releases while the Alzheimer's Association said nothing. Neither organization responded to multiple interview requests. Days before publication, in a phone call with a director of diversity, equity, and inclusion engagement, the Alzheimer's Association agreed to send in comments to Washington Free Beacon about key questions raised from this report. By 5:00 p.m. on Friday, the association had not done so.

Now critics are raising concerns about the Alzheimer's Association's new partnership—which, contrary to its own policy to share "partnership information with all constituents," remains undisclosed on its own website.

Compassion & Choices isn't an "end-of-life care" organization but an assisted suicide lobby group, although its website describes the practice as "medical aid in dying." It spends considerable effort redefining what "end-of-life care" encompasses, and between 2017 and 2020, Compassion & Choices spent over $2 million on lobbying for assisted suicide, despite its own admission that certain people who shouldn't qualify for assisted suicide in the United States have already qualified.

"It is a very bad look for the Alzheimer's Association, who have done so much for patients, to form a partnership with the leading proponent organization for assisted suicide laws, putting people with dementia and other intellectual disabilities at grave risk of deadly harm," said Matt Vallière, the executive director of the Patients' Rights Action Fund, an advocacy group against legalizing assisted suicide.

From DEI to Please Die

There's a reason for Compassion & Choices's interest in "historically underserved communities": Non-whites are just not that interested in assisted suicide. Of the more than 2,100 assisted deaths in Oregon, only 1 has been African American; in the state of Washington, 92 percent of assisted suicide deaths have been white.

So Compassion & Choices has invested tremendous effort to disseminate "end-of-life planning educational resources" to "underserved communities," ramping up to 22,380 pamphlets and guides disseminated in 2020 from 0 in 2018.

Much of this material is written from the point of view of an assisted suicide lobby. An advanced directive is a document from a patient that provides instructions about how to make future medical decisions if the patient lacks the capacity to do so. Unlike other advanced directives in use, Compassion & Choices's advanced directive for dementia patients has no discussion of what dementia is, the life expectancy—between 5 to 20 years—and the stages of dementia. Instead, dementia is described as "unnecessary suffering."

The Alzheimer's Association is key to this effort. Unlike Compassion & Choices, its brand is a trusted and known entity. With this partnership, Compassion & Choices can instead use the Alzheimer's Association's reputation and contacts with minority groups to disseminate resources that put a gloss on assisted suicide under the guise of "end-of-life care."

Compassion & Choices's press release included a statement from the chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer at the Alzheimer's Association, Carl V. Hill. "We are excited to collaborate with Compassion & Choices to expand our reach, connecting families affected by Alzheimer's and other dementia to disease information, education programs, and access to care and support services," Hill said.

But even with this partnership, it seems unlikely that accessing resources on assisted suicide will persuade black Americans in underserved communities to choose a medical treatment that causes death. Even those who don't feel well served by the health care system turn away from it, according to Joel Zivot, an intensive care doctor and a professor at Atlanta's Emory University. "I can tell you that in the U.S., or where I'm practicing … my patients who feel disenfranchised from health care … are not demanding to die. They're demanding to live."

Zivot says some of his patients decline Do Not Resuscitate forms, and they tend to want to continue life-saving treatments. "The people who feel like the health care system had failed them their entire life," he says, are the same people who say, "Now you want me to roll over and die? No, thank you."

The situation is also pronounced with dementia patients. Although black participants in Alzheimer's research studies are twice as likely to develop dementia than white participants, they are 35 percent less likely to be diagnosed with it.

Fayron Epps, an assistant professor in nursing also at Emory University, created a specialized program for African-American churches to support families facing Alzheimer's and dementia. While she declined to speak about the Alzheimer's Association’s partnership—she is a board member of the Alzheimer's Association in Georgia—she agreed to talk about what supports black patients need.

The problem, Epps said, is that "minority racial ethnic groups" tend to be "in underserved areas," which "means that they do not have the resources" that are available to others. They lack adult day centers, adequate medical care, and the education required to detect Alzheimer's disease.

Without a diagnosis, these same families are unable to access the support that should be available to them. And even with these resources, family members in underserved and under-resourced communities must pick up the slack. "Historically, you know, people have said that black families keep their loved ones at home," Epps said. "I can say I've seen that in my work, that a lot of black families do the best that they can."

But sometimes, the best isn't enough. These families need help, too. The most telling part of my interview with Epps was when I asked her about her work with end-of-life patients. "I don't deal with end-of-life care patients," Epps said. Detected early enough, Alzheimer's patients tend to live for years after diagnosis.

But in jurisdictions with expansive euthanasia and assisted suicide programs, these same patients are automatically coded as "end-of-life." Anyone with a diagnosis of Alzheimer's in Canada, for instance, is eligible to receive "Medical Assistance in Dying" immediately after being approved, without any legislated delay. Epps looked surprised. "That's interesting. Okay. All right," she said.

Alexander Raikin is a writer in Washington, D.C.

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A law introduced earlier this month in the Connecticut State Assembly would let women skip the Candidate Physical Ability Test, a timed gauntlet used by fire departments across the country. The test, which only 10 to 15 percent of women pass, requires candidates to complete intense physical tasks while wearing a 50 pound vest. It’s designed to simulate the experience of navigating a fire in heavy gear—and to weed out those unable to do so.

The law, introduced by five Democratic lawmakers, would offer women an alternative test based on "revised physical standards," with the goal of ensuring that "additional female candidates" qualify for firefighter positions, text from the bill states.

But some firefighters, including women, who have climbed the ranks of their departments without workarounds, say the bill will set merit-based hiring ablaze and potentially endanger Connecticut residents. "If you can’t handle a 50 pound vest, you’re not going to be able to rescue a child from a burning building," said Leah DiNapoli, a retired firefighter in New Haven, Conn.

"A citizen in need of rescue doesn’t care if a firefighter is white, black, Hispanic, male, or female," said Frank Ricci, a retired firefighter who served as the president of the New Haven firefighters union. "They care that they can do the job. This attempt to socially engineer public safety positions will only serve to endanger the public."

Unlike in the military, where uniforms and equipment vary by gender, all firefighters wear the same gear, which weighs at least 59 pounds—9 more than the vest used for the physical assessment. That’s not including the weight of ladders, hoses, or other firemen, who must sometimes carry incapacitated colleagues on their shoulders. While a few pieces of protective gear now come tailored for women, most of the essential tools do not.

"They don’t make lighter saws or ladders," DiNapoli said. "When I was there, they didn’t even make female-sized boots."

The law, she added, is "absolutely insane. Either you can do the job or you can’t."

The bill has been referred to the state legislature’s "committee on public safety," which has not yet scheduled hearings on the law. Neither the bill’s sponsors nor Connecticut governor Ned Lamont responded to requests for comment.

Beyond putting lives at risk, critics say the law will exacerbate the suspicion, common among male firefighters, that women simply aren’t up for the job. Fire departments have always been an "old boys club," DiNapoli said, and around 91 percent of firefighters are men. In this testosterone-fueled environment, sex-blind tests often serve as a stopgap against stereotypes, providing an objective assurance of physical competence.

"It’s already tough for women in the fire service, because you constantly have to prove your worth," a retired female firefighter from Chicago said. "How are you going to prove yourself if you don’t take the same test as the men?"

Danny Stratton, a recently retired fire captain from Camden, New Jersey, drew a parallel to affirmative action. "When you lower standards for minorities, people assume they got the job because of the color of their skin," Stratton said. "Lowering standards for women creates the same kind of stereotypes."

Such suspicions are especially dangerous in the fire service, where trust and teamwork can mean the difference between life and death. "The guys I’m working with need to know that I can get them out of a bad situation," DiNapoli said. "If a woman can’t pass the test, men won’t want her on their shift."

This is not the first culture war between firefighters and government officials in Connecticut, where fire stations have been ground zero for diversity-related feuds. In 2003, the New Haven fire department threw out the results of a written exam after none of the African Americans who took it scored high enough for a promotion. Ricci, the former union president, who would have been promoted based on his results, sued the department, arguing that he and other non-black firefighters had been denied professional opportunities because of their race. The Supreme Court agreed, ruling 5-4 that New Haven had violated anti-discrimination law.

Fire departments have nonetheless faced pressure to axe both written and physical tests—especially when women do poorly on them. In 2011, the Chicago Fire Department was hit with a class action lawsuit over its physical abilities test, which was even more difficult than the Candidate Physical Ability Test used in Connecticut and other states.

The complaint argued that Chicago’s test discriminated against women because so few of them could pass it. The department eventually settled, offering jobs to many of the women who were rejected under the old standard.

"A lot of men ridiculed those women," recalled the Chicago firefighter, who had passed the original test.

Though some fire service tests have been struck down on disparate impact grounds, the Candidate Physical Ability Test is not one of them. Developed and validated by the International Association of Firefighters, it has survived multiple discrimination lawsuits, mostly from women, and has received the blessing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency that enforces civil rights laws in the workplace.

"The idea of the test was to keep politics out of fire service hiring," Stratton said. "Now they’re trying to add politics back in."

The post ‘Absolutely Insane’: Connecticut Law Would Axe Fitness Requirements for Female Firefighters appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The bill received wide bipartisan backing, with a majority of House Democrats—113 of the 210 who voted—joining their Republican counterparts to support it. 

The vote's bipartisan nature comes as a blow to President Joe Biden. After a July Free Beacon report showed that Biden sold 950,000 Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation, the Democrat's administration defended the move. White House spokesman Ian Sams, for example, accused Republicans who criticized the sale of "lying" and "pushing false conspiracy theories about the president." Many House Democrats, however, disagreed, and the bill will head to the Senate with wide support from both parties.

Should the bill pass the upper chamber, it's unclear if Biden would sign it given his administration's aggressive defense of foreign oil sales. The White House did not return a request for comment.

While many House Democrats rallied around the bill, some of their colleagues vocally opposed it. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D., Texas), for example, said that the bill would inhibit the president's ability to respond to domestic energy crises like the one seen in Texas last year. "This legislation literally says, if the president has the need and necessity to protect the American people, it will not be allowed." Lee's characterization of the bill, which ensures that "petroleum products will not be exported to the People's Republic of China," is false.

Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R., Texas) applauded the bill's passing in a Thursday statement:

"The Biden administration's anti-American energy agenda stamped out our energy independence and boosted our reliance on foreign oil, sending prices through the roof. We should not be selling emergency oil reserves to a geopolitical adversary, especially at a time when our country is facing an unprecedented energy crisis."

The post Bill To Bar U.S. From Selling Oil Reserves to China Passes House With Bipartisan Support appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Meanwhile, the increasing scarcity of another finite resource silently rivaled every other man-made product on the planet in the context of sparking potential doom: chips.

Not the potato, but rather the integrated circuit or "semiconductor" kind: tiny pieces of silicon with countless transistors carved into them.

"Last year, the chip industry produced more transistors than the combined quantity of all goods produced by all other companies, in all other industries, in all human history," Chris Miller writes in Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology. "Nothing else comes close."

This unimaginable influence—and also, unimaginable risk—certainly puts a toilet paper shortage into perspective.

Miller, an associate professor of international history at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, looks to examine the computer chip through a geopolitical lens, making the initial argument that "semiconductors have defined the world we live in, determining the shape of international politics, the structure of the world economy, and the balance of military power."

Speaking of his work, Miller argues that "no item has had a more decisive role on international politics" than the transistor since its invention in 1947. Given his definition of a transistor as "a tiny electric 'switch' that turns on (creating a 1) or off (0), producing the 1s and 0s that undergird all digital computing," it's difficult to disagree with this hypothesis.

Chip War is a fascinatingly detailed breakdown of this very resource—a resource on which the world depends. On its surface, the book's subject matter might seem somewhat intimidating for any non-expert in the world of computing. Armed with an initial glossary of 15 key terms, however, Miller's work stands as a deeply educational overview of even the most complex elements of this ever-growing technology.

Throughout, Miller carefully connects multiple timelines across multiple areas of modern history as precisely as the construction of semiconductors themselves, leaving the reader with an expansive understanding of the battlefield of computer chip development, while simultaneously providing gripping insights into the nonfiction billion-dollar international dramas that surround the science of semiconductors.

Miller leads us through a beginner's guide to the origins of Silicon Valley and the Soviet Union's flawed attempts to compete by copying; Japan's emergence from postwar defeat, first as a "transistor salesman" and then as an efficiency-obsessed technological superpower; and the continued rise and fall of allies and adversaries atop the global chip supply chain, all intricately tied together by economic and political forces, both intentional and unintentional.

The book is also filled with riveting nuggets of information—explaining the role of the U.S. federal government and military and the key decisions surrounding the technology of semiconductors that guaranteed physical American dominance in the aftermath of the Vietnam war; the sheer power wielded by corporations that grew across the world, some from mere ideas in a garage (AMD, Apple, Fairchild, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Nvidia, Samsung, and Sony are just a few examples); and finally the individuals responsible for the very technology we now take for granted (many of whom remain largely unknown)—with Miller's narrative bringing life to industry titan after industry titan.

One particularly interesting element of the book that may go unnoticed relates to the ongoing battle for control of microchips, with the United States grappling with a vast array of potential (and actual) competitors and enemies for their continued dominance over the world's "new oil."

Not only does Miller expertly usher readers through the story of the microchip—a story which is often as complex as the chips themselves, and as drama-filled as any binge-worthy Netflix series—his account also stands as a warning.

Throughout modern history, the world has relied on American dominance of just the right resource or technology at just the right time. After all, how unrecognizable (or, indeed, nonexistent) would the world be in an alternative reality where communist regimes had been driven by the technology that cemented the United States' position as the world leader in the second half of the 20th century?

And what was true then remains true now: The battle for dominance relies upon the next discovery, whether that be cutting-edge fuel sources (such as cold fusion) or computational supremacy (such as quantum computing).

Alternatively, it might be as simple as staying one step ahead of the competition.

Not only does the United States' international standing rely upon winning the next battle, the next battle is immeasurably more difficult to win. While our opponents of the 20th century were decades behind, our opponents of the 21st century are at best breathing down our necks, and at worst leaving us to choke on their dust.

Chip War stands as a superb insight into the battle for technological supremacy on the back of microchips, from the inception of Silicon Valley to the explosive rise of modern China under the CCP.

One can only imagine chapters that may need to be added in the future, but we must hope that the story of technological dominance continues to be written by Western powers.

As Miller explains, "China is devoting its best minds and billions of dollars to developing its own semiconductor technology in a bid to free itself from America's chip choke."

"If Beijing succeeds, it will remake the global economy and reset the balance of military power," Miller notes.

This alternative reality should terrify us all.

Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology
by Chris Miller
Scribner, 464 pp., $30

Ian Haworth is a writer, speaker, and former Big Tech insider. He also hosts a weekly late night show, Off Limits with Ian Haworth.

The post Will America Lose Its Grip Over the Microchip? appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans met Wednesday to discuss what taxpayers owe black Californians ahead of a July 2023 deadline. It will depend on the state legislature to implement the task's force recommendations. But members of the body, which was established by a 2020 California law, seemed flummoxed as they discussed the particulars of their plan.

"We don’t yet know what the actual racial wealth gap in the state of California is," noted task force member Jovan Scott Lewis.

He added that the commission is "limited by data in every instance," which "limits our ability to give really clear guidance at this point." And he asked advisers and others for help in finding the information they need to establish dollar amounts.

Outside economic advisers hired by the commission have already set categories that they believe some black Californians should be compensated for. The categories span from property seizures and devaluation of black businesses to housing discrimination, homelessness, and "mass incarceration and overpolicing."

But the task force has yet to settle on time frames for each of these categories. Nor has it decided how many black California residents should be eligible—just that reparations need to go to descendants of slaves, or those who can prove lineage in the United States before 1900.

The task force has already had to temper expectations of a huge payout. Last week, the New York Times reported that the group’s economic advisers had floated more than half a trillion dollars as the maximum amount potentially owed for redlining and other discriminatory housing policies alone. The story went viral, forcing the task force to dismiss the Times report as "misinformation."

With the clock ticking, Wednesday’s discussion showed the difficulties of enacting a tangible reparations plan. Members of the commission and state officials present at the meeting seemed more comfortable discussing more tangible social welfare programs, like wellness centers, universal basic income, and home-buying grants.

However, the task force and Democratic leaders will have to keep their constituents happy. Nearly all the people who showed up or called in to comment were focused on reparations, recommending amounts from $5,000 to $350,000 to $5 million. The group will reconvene Thursday for a second day of discussions.

With California facing a $24 billion deficit next year, it’s unclear how state Democrats will proceed if they need to raise extra revenue for a reparations proposal. The California legislature needs a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes. And while Democrats hold that supermajority, it’s not a given that all the party moderates would endorse a tax hike.

That could punt the measure to the electorate, where Latinos make up the majority and blacks account for 6.5 percent.

The post California's Reparations Task Force Has Just Months to Release A Plan. It Can't Even Settle On A Number. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Joining them is The Myth of American Inequality from former senator Phil Gramm and coauthors Robert Ekelund and John Early, all three of them economists. The U.S. government is getting key concepts all wrong, they say, including income, inflation, poverty, and inequality. They detail how some often-cited metrics are calculated—and how various corrections change the numbers.

It turns out things are better than you think!

Kidding aside, this is an impressive, clearly written book that can introduce everyday readers to the sausage-making process behind the numbers they see cited in the media. It also leaves room for disagreement about the authors' corrections to the official estimates, as well as their policy recommendations.

The book's core is a series of chapters taking on numerous concepts the government tries to measure.

Income? They're counting only cash income—leaving out in-kind transfers like food stamps and employer benefits, as well as failing to subtract taxes. Inflation? They're overestimating it, which means they assume more of our gains are eaten up by rising prices than is really the case. Both of these problems, meanwhile, affect the measurement of poverty, which depends on whether a family's income exceeds a threshold that is adjusted for inflation over time. Inequality also hinges on what is counted as income, and to make matters worse, international comparisons are sullied by the Census Bureau's failure to conform to the reporting rules other countries follow. These aren't wild conspiracy theories; they're backed up with careful explanations and citations, and for the most part already well known to people who follow these academic debates.

Even more interesting is the authors' attempt to present a fresh picture of American households' finances—both in terms of the current income distribution and in terms of trends over time—by accounting for problems like these.

Ranking households by their earned income (including employer-paid benefits and investment income), there's a 60-to-1 disparity between the top 20 percent and the bottom 20 percent. The official Census Bureau numbers, including all cash income, put the disparity at about 17 to 1. But add in all transfers and subtract taxes, and the gap shrinks to 4 to 1.

Government transfers to the lowest-earning quintile are enormous, totaling about $45,000 per household—about $19,000 from old-age entitlements, $2,500 from disability, $10,000 from Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, and $1,500 from food stamps, plus $13,000 from other programs. The mix is different for elderly and non-elderly households, but the authors report very similar total results when the elderly are excluded, with bottom-quintile non-elderly households also receiving about $45,000 in total.

Indeed, by Gramm et al.'s calculations, the bottom 60 percent of households have been made startlingly equal. The bottom 20 percent end up with roughly $50,000 after taxes and transfers, versus $54,000 for the second quintile and $66,000 for the middle one. If one further adjusts for household size, the lowest income quintile slightly beats the second-lowest, which works more but sees less government largesse and has more mouths to feed.

Regarding poverty, the official rate has stayed within a narrow range of about 10 percent to 15 percent for decades. But when the authors add in government benefits the official measure fails to count, the rate is more like 3 percent, and it falls even lower if the inflation adjustment is improved as well. Gramm et al. also cite work from Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan that reached similar numbers by measuring poverty based on consumption rather than income.

Has inequality been rising over time? Yes, in terms of earned income, for a number of reasons. Lower-skilled men have been working less, higher-skilled women have been working more (and marrying similarly high-earning men), the returns to education have increased, etc. But growing redistribution has counterbalanced these trends—and, simultaneously, encouraged declining earnings at the bottom, by promising benefits to people who don't work.

Things are better than you think, but they could be better still, as the authors urge policymakers to enact a suite of reforms to improve opportunity. These include broader use of work requirements for government aid, which will probably be the most contentious aspect of the book among the left. A central thrust of the authors' empirical analysis, after all, is that counting anti-poverty spending as income makes things look a lot better—and then they turn around and recommend cutting anti-poverty spending, because it's unfair for people to have similar incomes despite large differences in work effort.

Such reforms could increase work, as shown by the 1996 welfare reform, and there is also a strong moral case that taxpayers shouldn't support people who refuse to help themselves. At the same time, given the results presented in this book, even a reformed safety net will likely need to achieve substantial redistribution to keep poverty (and inequality, for those worried about it) suppressed.

Gramm and his coauthors are correct in their central claim: Official government statistics measure things in odd and inaccurate ways, and on balance this tends to make things look worse than they are. Those who follow academic work on these topics (and read the other books in this genre) have known this for years.

But it's also worth flagging that, however clear it is that the official numbers are skewed, "unskewing" the data is at least as much art as science, with numerous debates about which adjustments to make. Gramm et al. explain what they do clearly and provide additional documentation for those who want to dig in, but readers should think about the consequences of each decision.

Take, for instance, the authors' finding of an eerie income equality among the bottom 60 percent after adjusting for taxes, transfers, and household size, to the point that the bottom quintile makes slightly more than the next group up. A lower-income group has higher income than a higher-income group—a "blockbuster" finding.

This is possible because the authors rank households according to their earned income, then recalculate each group's income with the adjustments. If a single elderly man has little to no earned income, but more than $50,000 in Social Security and Medicare benefits, he's placed in the very bottom tier of society, and then the adjustments help to make that bottom tier look well-off. But one can argue for redoing the rankings themselves with the adjustments too, in which case that man wouldn't be assigned to the bottom tier to begin with, and it would be mathematically impossible for a lower quintile to have higher income than a higher one. This case is easiest to make with the household-size adjustment, which reflects basic economic realities rather than policy, and old-age benefits, which differ in kind from other government transfers.

Other subjective decisions abound. For instance, how does one place a value on public health care benefits, which are an enormous proportion of government spending on both the elderly and the poor and thus can dramatically change the numbers? The authors value health benefits at the amount the government pays for medical services. They present this as a conservative choice because the government underpays for these services, forcing providers to charge higher rates to the privately insured, and because their measure does not include the programs' administrative costs. If the government paid $2,000 for someone's medical care, that person received $2,000 in government benefits. Fair enough.

On the other hand, you can't eat Medicaid. Unlike, say, food stamps, this spending does not function anything like cash for the folks on these programs. It doesn’t necessarily improve their well-being in a dollar-for-dollar fashion, and the benefits are something of a lottery—invaluable for those who fall severely ill, helpful for those who avoid out-of-pocket costs or get routine care they'd otherwise skip, and just some peace of mind otherwise. It's a judgment call whether and how to account for these issues. In a 2016 report, for instance, Scott Winship decided to value medical benefits at one-quarter of their "market value" as determined by the Census Bureau. (See the discussion of the issue in Appendix 1 here.)

Correcting the poverty rate is also fraught with difficulties. In measuring trends over time, the rate should obviously consider government benefits and properly account for inflation. But what standard of living should the poverty line represent? If we start at the onset of the War on Poverty, with roughly a fifth of Americans officially considered poor, and just track improvement from there, we can say that the war is over and we won: Hardly anyone is poor by mid-1960s standards anymore.

But as standards of living rise in general, should our sense of what it means to be poor change as well? Critics noted that the aforementioned Meyer/Sullivan consumption measures, which suggest a poverty rate of around 3 percent in the late 2010s, were "anchored" to the official poverty rate in 1980. As a result, the late-2010s poverty thresholds were just $13,000 to $18,000 for a family of four (with the exact number varying across measures). Anchoring to 2015 (as Meyer and Sullivan also did in their reports) instead raises the poverty rate to about 12 percent and the thresholds by more than $5,000 each. The Supplemental Poverty Measure, the Census Bureau's own attempt to create a poverty metric that actually makes sense, has similarly classified around a 10th of Americans as poor in recent years.

There are any number of ways to fix the official numbers, and Gramm et al.'s approach is just one of them. But they have done a stellar job of critiquing the statistics at the heart of so many economic debates and providing a thought-provoking alternative.

The Myth of American Inequality: How Government Biases Policy Debate
by Phil Gramm, Robert Ekelund, and John Early
Rowman & Littlefield, 255 pp., $29.95

Robert VerBruggen is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The post A Better Read on the Economy appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The city's drug users congregate outside Access, Harm Reduction, Overdose Prevention, and Education (AHOPE), the Boston Public Health Commission's harm reduction facility, to pick up free drug paraphernalia such as syringes and crack pipes. The Washington Free Beacon saw several users inject in front of the building, where an officer sat inside a parked police car. Remnants of pipes, syringes, and drug capsules filled the cracks in the sidewalk. Security guards at a next-door homeless shelter said police monitor the area to counter violence—which erupts daily between addicts—but otherwise overlook public drug use.

"All the time—violence," one security guard told the Free Beacon.

So far this year, Boston police have made 29 arrests for aggravated assault on the one-mile street outside the AHOPE facility, which neighbors the Boston University Medical Campus and Boston Medical Center, according to police data. Police have also made arrests for 12 robberies, 5 auto thefts, 23 warrant arrests, and 32 "sick assists"—8 of which for "drug-related illness." While Boston police also made 44 arrests for "drug possession/sale manufacturing/use," it is unclear which specific charge was the cause for each arrest. Police officers declined to speak with a Free Beacon reporter on site, and the Boston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The disorder outside AHOPE provides a case study in how the Biden administration's controversial harm reduction approach to drug policy—which aims to make drug use safer for addicts rather than prevent it—can facilitate crime and dangerous drug abuse. The Department of Health and Human Services launched the nation's first federal harm reduction program in May, doling out $30 million in grants to organizations to distribute drug paraphernalia such as syringes and "smoking kits," which often include crack pipes. The White House claimed these funds would not go toward pipes, but several grant recipients distribute the drug supplies, according to a Free Beacon investigation.

Aside from clean pipes and syringes, harm reduction groups such as AHOPE also distribute fentanyl test strips, Narcan, and disease testing, which are intended to mitigate the health risks of drug abuse. Outside the Boston harm reduction facility, however, roughly a dozen drug users each day are rushed to the Massachusetts General Hospital for treatment after they show signs of an overdose, the security guards said.

While the area outside the facility is a de facto harbor for illicit drug use—one drug user said addicts naturally migrate there because of the free drug paraphernalia—formalized injection sites are illegal under federal law. The Biden administration is preparing to declare such injection sites legal, the New York Times reported in July, which would allow people to use drugs with oversight from medical professionals to help prevent overdose deaths. The Trump administration struck down an attempt to open an injection site in Philadelphia, but that decision is set to be overturned by the Justice Department. Injection sites currently operate in New York City.

During one visit to the harm reduction facility, police officers cleared all drug users off the street after declining to speak to a Free Beacon reporter. One of the security guards said that he had only seen police remove everyone from the area "a couple times" since he began working there this year.

"[Police] allow them to shoot up," he said. "But not in front of buildings."

"The good thing is we give them sleep and hope," the security guard added. "The bad thing is you keep the addiction prolonged."

The Boston Public Health Commission and Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program, which treats addicts after they overdose on public streets, did not respond to requests for comment.

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The National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP), which says it develops state "health policy innovations and solutions" on everything from health care coverage to prescription drug prices, promoted the left-wing agenda at its annual conference this month, which included panels on "investing in equity" by increasing the number of minority employees working in health care. The nonprofit hosted a speech from Democratic governor Jay Inslee (Wash.), who last year signed a bill into law that eliminated certain crimes from background checks for health workers because of their "inequitable impact" on minority applicants.

The conference comes just months after the group released a brief titled "State Strategies to Increase Diversity in the Behavioral Health Workforce," which encouraged states to "target increasing engagement of [Black, Indigenous, and people of color] across the workforce" through policies such as required "structural racism" training.

This push for health equity—a catchphrase among left-wing policymakers that can include the rationing of medical resources based on race—has gained traction within the Biden administration and blue state health departments in recent years, raising questions about the group's claim to be a nonpartisan arbiter of health care policy. Oregon's health regulatory board, for example, requires "cultural competency" training for licensed health providers. Massachusetts, meanwhile, spent $250,000 last year to launch a program to recruit minorities to its behavioral health workforce.

The end goal of such "health equity" initiatives is to help health providers "confront the systems and policies that have resulted in the generational injustice that has given rise to health inequities," according to the Biden administration's Centers for Disease Control guidelines.

A spokeswoman for NASHP said its equity memo is accepted by policymakers from both political parties.

"Reducing health disparities—and addressing their social and economic causes—is at the heart of many of these efforts, with both blue and red states taking this on," she told the Washington Free Beacon.

In light of NASHP's health-equity push, however, Republican officials such as Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares say the group cannot be trusted by policymakers as a nonpartisan source of information and analysis. 

"It's disturbing to see the National Academy for State Health Policy, which claims to be nonpartisan, embrace a partisan liberal agenda," Miyares told the Free Beacon. "States should closely examine NASHP's rhetoric and activities and not embrace more division and divisiveness, particularly around public health."

This is not the first time NASHP has boosted Democratic policies—the group played a crucial role in helping Democrats extend Obamacare subsidies through the Inflation Reduction Act that passed in August. The subsidies were previously set to expire this year, which would have led to a significant spike in premiums for Obamacare enrollees across the country. 

The group met with several Democratic lawmakers in May who feared this spike could jeopardize their party's midterm campaigns. A week later, a group of 26 Democrats sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) that cited NASHP's research on the necessity of this extension, the Washington Examiner reported.

NASHP boasts deep ties to Democratic Party infrastructure, according to a Free Beacon investigation. Trish Riley, who led the group for much of the past four decades as president and a member of the board of directors, worked for former Democratic Maine governor John Baldacci and is now a chairwoman of a Maine Democratic Party committee. She donated more than $50,000 to Democratic campaigns since 1992, according to Federal Election Commission records. 

Several other NASHP employees worked for Democratic campaigns, offices, and leftwing organizations, such as the Center for American Progress. The group is funded by Arnold Ventures, a billionaire-backed dark money group that pushes for climate change regulations and gun control.

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Under the Inflation Reduction Act negotiated by Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), the agency would receive $80 billion in funding to hire as many as 87,000 additional employees. The increase would more than double the size of the IRS workforce, which currently has 78,661 full-time staffers, according to federal data.

The additional IRS funding is integral to the Democrats' reconciliation package. A Congressional Budget Office analysis found the hiring of new IRS agents would result in more than $200 billion in additional revenue for the federal government over the next decade. More than half of that funding is specifically earmarked for "enforcement," meaning tax audits and other responsibilities such as "digital asset monitoring."

That would make the IRS one of the largest federal agencies. The Pentagon houses roughly 27,000 employees, according to the Defense Department, while a human resources fact sheet says the State Department employs just over 77,243 staff. The FBI employs approximately 35,000 people, according to the agency's website, and Customs and Border Protection says it employs 19,536 Border Patrol agents.

The money allocated to the IRS would increase the agency's budget by more than 600 percent. In 2021, the IRS received $12.6 billion.

Although Democrats say the hiring of additional IRS agents will help root out tax cheats and other criminals, federal tax revenues have steadily risen over the past several decades. Federal tax receipts are projected to hit $5.7 trillion in 2027, up from just over $4 trillion last year without additional IRS agents.

But the roughly $450 billion in new spending proposed by Democrats requires new funding mechanisms. Some of the new spending includes $161 billion for clean electricity tax credits and $64 billion in new Affordable Care Act subsidies.

The majority of new revenue from IRS audits and scrutiny will come from those making less than $200,000 a year, according to a study from the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation. The committee found that just 4 to 9 percent of money raised will come from those making more than $500,000, contrary to Democrats' claims that new IRS agents are necessary to target millionaires and billionaires who hide income.

Senate Republicans argue that the roughly $45 billion the bill puts towards hiring IRS agents could be better spent on other priorities, such as helping students rebound from the learning loss suffered during COVID school closures. A proposal by Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) would amend the spending bill to put the IRS money towards education tax credits.

"When faced with the decision to spend $45 billion on America’s largest revenue collection agency, or give it back to parents to help them get their kids the help they need, the Senate needs to choose the latter option every single time," Scott told the Free Beacon.

The Washington Free Beacon previously reported that, despite White House claims to the contrary, the Inflation Reduction Act does little to combat inflation. A report from Moody's Analytics found the Democratic bill will shave just .33 percent from the Consumer Price Index over the next decade.

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The deal Manchin struck with Senate Democrats to fight inflation includes tens of billions of dollars worth of electric vehicle tax credits, a policy once considered a non-starter for Manchin. As recently as April, Democrats thought negotiations reached an impasse after he said electric tax credits "make no sense to me whatsoever."

"There's a waiting list for EVs right now with a fuel price at $4.00, but they still want us to throw $5,000 or $7,000 or a $12,000 credit to buy an electric vehicle," Manchin said on the Senate floor. "We can't produce enough product for the people that want it and we're still going to pay them to take it. It's absolutely ludicrous, in my mind."

Despite those words, the Inflation Reduction Act includes electric vehicle tax credits for up to $7,500 per vehicle. Those tax benefits apply to any family making up to $300,000 and can be used on any electric vehicle that costs up to $80,000.

The electric vehicle provision is the latest reversal for Manchin, who held up Democratic Party spending plans for more than a year over a litany of concerns that have been seemingly tossed aside. Last week, the bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation concluded that the budget reconciliation package would raise taxes by billions on Americans making less than $200,000. Manchin previously said he would never support tax hikes during a recession, which the U.S. economy entered in July. Why Manchin caved on electric vehicle subsidies is unclear. Manchin said in March that he was "reluctant to go down the path of electric vehicles" over concerns about the ability for manufacturers to meet demand.

"I’m old enough to remember standing in line in 1974 trying to buy gas. I remember those days," he said. "I don’t want to have to be standing in line waiting for a battery for my vehicle, because we’re now dependent on a foreign supply chain, mostly China."

Republicans are unanimous in their opposition to the spending package. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted Manchin over hypocrisy last week and called the Inflation Reduction Act a "reckless taxing and spending spree that will delight the far left and hammer working families even harder."

"They want Americans to be faced with skyrocketing prices and higher taxes and fewer jobs, all at the same time," McConnell said. "Democrats have outlined a giant package of huge new job-killing tax hikes, Green New Deal craziness that will kill American energy."

The post Manchin Reconciliation Package Includes Policy He Once Called 'Ludicrous' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

If, unlike that field specialist, you think the existence of New York City is generally a good thing, you will enjoy M. Nolan Gray’s Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It, a slim book that articulates the historic and economic case for YIMBY (Yes In My BackYard) politics. But in the interest of building a big tent coalition, Arbitrary Lines also leaves out some of the most compelling arguments for zoning reform.

Gray bounds his argument carefully. He is a vicious critic of zoning itself, the practice of segregating land uses and regulating densities, but makes clear urban planning is not his target. His attack on zoning comes from four directions: Zoning has created an affordability crisis, it has taken a bite out of economic growth, it encourages and at times enforces racial segregation, and it causes environmentally damaging, spiritually deadening suburban sprawl. Gray acknowledges his goal of shifting the "Overton window" by limiting his critique to zoning, which is often purposefully opaque and run by feckless local bureaucrats.

It’s primarily an economic argument slightly abutted by the argument from racial justice ("zoning remains first and foremost a tool of racial and economic exclusion"). Gray tells us that "by blocking the growth of our most productive cities, zoning is stunting growth and innovation nationwide." Alain Bertaud’s model of the city as labor market features prominently: Cities that allow people to live densely near their work experience far greater economic growth than those that impose finicky zoning rules.

The economic argument is powerful: Gray notes that one in four American renters spends more than half their income on rent. In New York City, "zoning regulations restrict the number of apartments that can be subdivided within a building, not out of any health and safety concerns, but simply to restrict housing production." And many suburban and rural zoning codes outright ban manufactured housing. These regulatory burdens are often imposed by corrupt or venal local politicians.

Gray argues that our model of the home as an investment vehicle is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back to a particular mix of 1970s inflation and tax code innovations. The "homevoter hypothesis" comes in for particular criticism for the vicious cycle it created. "A mixture of rapid inflation and generous federal tax policies heavily incentivized the treatment of a home as an investment, which in turn provided homeowners with an even stronger incentive to oppose new housing construction."

To many readers, particularly the younger and more online, these critiques will not be foreign. YIMBY political organizing has become one of the few bipartisan issues in my age cohort, uniting center-left wonk types and "I just want to grill" right-wingers against the far left and older homeowners. But Gray stays away from the rawest nerves of the zoning debate. One of the reasons the YIMBY movement skews so young is that my age group sees zoning as a tool of generational warfare, wielded by boomers who castigate the young for their dissolute ways while barring the developments that would allow them to change their lifestyles.

Gray also stays away from the value-laden conservative case for fixing our zoning problem. Every behavior that the right would like to see more of in younger generations—getting married, settling down, having kids, putting down roots—is out of reach for increasing numbers of Americans. Culture obviously shapes those norms, but so does lack of material availability. Why even consider moving to the suburbs and having a couple kids if you’re priced out and your commute time will triple? Like NEPA, the environmental review law that often bars environmental improvements, too much zoning aimed at encouraging quiet family neighborhoods has the side effect of discouraging family formation in the first place.

Arbitrary Lines also highlights the role of the federal government in driving restrictive zoning, and the tools at its disposal to reverse that trend. Rather than allowing municipalities that break "fair housing" laws to "make it right" with "antiracism poster competitions," the federal government could simply stop providing HUD dollars to those municipalities.

There is value to local control over neighborhoods. But Gray points out that the current zoning model doesn’t even do much of that. Zoning in many municipalities is so restrictive that new buildings are largely at the discretion of a handful of bureaucrats, through variances, special permits, rezonings, and planned unit developments. It’s an argument that will be reminiscent to conservative free-marketers: "In every other sphere of public policy, the idea that this anachronistic style of top-down planning can achieve even passable outcomes has been thoroughly discredited. Why is zoning any different?"

Ultimately, Arbitrary Lines makes its appeal to the right on classically liberal economic lines. But it avoids the more charged, socially conservative arguments that may carry greater weight.

Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City and How to Fix It
by M. Nolan Gray
Island Press, 256 pp., $30

Santi Ruiz is a writer and editor based in New York City and helps run Interact, a tech talent network.

The post Zones of Conflict appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

But why should that special relationship exist? There is an obvious difference in scale between America's 330 million inhabitants and continental territories and the state of Israel, which comprises around 10 million people in a territory the size of New Jersey. There are also ideological differences. At least since World War II, many Americans have embraced a creedal nationalism open to everyone who consents to the Constitution and its underlying principles. According to a law passed in 2018, by contrast, Israel is the "nation state of the Jewish People," which offers legal citizenship but not full inclusion to ethnic and religious minorities. While its relative power is waning, the United States remains the world's only superpower and sustains military, political, and economic connections throughout the world. Israel's interests have grown far-flung compared with the state's early days. But they remain focused on its immediate neighborhood.

Walter Russell Mead's The Arc of a Covenant is the most recent attempt to resolve this question. The book ranges widely through periods and sources. At bottom, though, Mead argues that American culture has a deep affinity for the idea of a Jewish state in the biblical promised land.

Although it does not require personal faith, Mead argues that affinity has religious origins. It was born from the British Reformation, which emphasized widespread reading of the Bible, including portions of what Christians consider the "Old Testament" focused on the political history of the Israelites. English-speaking Protestants also developed theologies of covenant, according to which God establishes legal arrangements with human peoples, conditional on their fulfillment of divine purposes. Above all, many Protestants concluded that God was not yet done with the Jews. While proclaiming Scotland, England, or Britain's American colonies to be a kind of "new Israel," they also insisted that the Lord was still working on and through the original chosen people.

These ideas were particularly influential among the Puritan settlers of New England, whose identification with the biblical narrative is reflected in towns called Salem or Sharon and multitudinous sons named Joseph, Samuel, and Josiah. But they were nationalized and, to some extent, secularized in the late 18th century, when the liberation of the biblical Israel from slavery became one of the favored metaphors of the revolutionary period. As the independent United States expanded, Americans also found inspiration in the narrative of a covenantal people struggling through the wilderness. This version of manifest destiny would later be refracted through popular narratives of Western settlement. Encouraged by Hollywood, Americans still perceive Israelis as heroic bearers of civilization defending themselves against savage resistance.

Unlike more apologetic accounts, Mead is careful to acknowledge that philo-Hebraic religion and popular culture did not necessarily involve friendly attitudes toward living Jews. American Christians were mostly horrified by the kind of murderous Jew-hatred that became increasingly evident in Europe as the 19th century wore on. As persecution and violence drove more Jews to the United States, though, Jews were often included—and sometimes emphasized—in arguments that undesirable immigration threatened liberty, prosperity, and virtue. Mead points out that sympathy for the nascent Zionist movement offered a kind of escape valve for old-stock Americans who were squeamish about the increasing Jewish population but also allergic to outright anti-Semitism. The Jews were a nation, with the same dignity and rights as all the others, the logic went. Therefore, they should inhabit their own land and practice their own customs rather than subverting, intentionally or otherwise, the American way of life.

The implication that Jews deserve a home of their own, but at a safe distance, helps explain the historical resistance of most American Jews to the Zionist movement. Among the paradoxes of the "special relationship" is that it often seems to connect American Christians with Israeli Jews, leaving their American cousins out of the picture. Before the Second World War, the American Jewish establishment distanced itself from Zionism, insisting that the United States was the modern promised land. It was only after the exposure of Nazi horrors and the recognition that the United States would not accept large numbers of Jewish refugees that many American Jews embraced Zionism—usually at the level of abstract principle rather than as a personal goal. Some of the old resistance has even returned in recent years. Inclined to religious and political liberalism, the American Jewish community has drifted away from an increasingly Orthodox and hawkish Israeli society.

Mead is not naïve about the geopolitical incentives that drew the United States closer to Israel around the middle of the 20th century. The book's most original chapters explain how American strategists came to regard Israel as an ally in the Cold War. This process was slower and more tentative than conventional accounts suggest. When Kennedy offered his dramatic assurance to Meir, Mead notes, France and West Germany were still Israel's major suppliers of weapons. And Kennedy's goal was not to unleash Israeli power, but provide security assurances that might dissuade Israel from pursuing nuclear weapons.

Still, Mead mounts a compelling critique of what he calls "Vulcan theory"—a reference not to Star Trek but to the 19th-century theory that irregularities in the orbit of Mercury were caused by a hitherto unknown planet (dubbed "Vulcan" by the French astronomer Urbain Le Verrier). Mead adopts the term to describe a different way of accounting for the apparently disproportionate role of Israel in American foreign policy. In this view, cultural affinities and overlapping priorities are not sufficient explanations of the close, though not codified, alliance. There must be some sinister explanation, often linked to the dual loyalties of Jews or eschatological hopes of evangelical Christians.

But there's no need to make such dubious assumptions. American support for the state of Israel since 1948 is sufficiently explained by mainstream public opinion, including a predilection for the perceived underdog. Nor are these views limited to the right, which now dominates the "pro-Israel" issue. Before the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, in fact, enthusiasm for Israel was more characteristic of the American left, which saw the Jewish state not only as the haven of an embattled minority but also a model of democratic socialism. This perception of Israel was somewhat mythological—as is the image of a Jewish Sparta that has largely replaced it. But that doesn't mean it wasn't sincerely believed by many ordinary Americans—or the politicians who took their opinions seriously.

But Mead's riposte to Vulcan theory isn't limited to Middle East policy. This large, somewhat ungainly book exceeds the boundaries of its nominal subject in mounting a case against any attempt to reduce American foreign policy to the mechanistic calculation of quantifiable interests. This kind of Vulcanism—more like Spock than Le Verrier—simply fails to understand the influence of ideas, culture, and history on America's intensely moralistic politics. Although it's unlikely to change any readers' views about U.S. relations with Israel, The Arc of a Covenant sheds welcome light on why they have been—and remain—so distinctively, often frustratingly, special.

The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People
by Walter Russell Mead
Knopf, 672 pp., $35

Samuel Goldman, an associate professor of political science at George Washington University, is the author of After Nationalism and God's Country: Christian Zionism in America.

The post The Other Special Relationship appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

That’s not meant as faint praise. 21st Century Monetary Policy is 100 percent white-meat prose and certified equation-free. Bernanke doesn’t assume you know what "quantitative easing" or "Phillips curve" actually mean and takes time to explain them in a way that’s neither overbearing nor belittling. He explains the basics of monetary policy much better than textbooks and keeps sentences short and simple.

One thing’s for sure: Bernanke did not learn his communication skills from Alan Greenspan.

But he did learn from Greenspan, and from all the Fed chairs who preceded him. Bernanke’s book may be titularly about the 21st century, but much of it is history. Therein lies the value of his outlook, which couldn’t come at a more crucial time.

George Will has said that if he were in charge, the only major anyone would be allowed to choose in college would be history. That may not work for everyone, but knowing the history of monetary policy is crucial to understanding its future, and Bernanke understands that on a deep level.

He tells the story of how the Fed responded to the Great Inflation of the late 1960s and ’70s—and how it failed. He writes about Paul Volcker’s victory over inflation, when the Fed became "the only game in town." He writes about the Great Moderation of the ’90s and early ’00s under Greenspan. And of course, he writes about his own tenure.

He does so in such a way that sometimes you forget he was there. The book is not a memoir (that came out in 2015). There are a few spots where he switches to first-person narration, and it can be a bit jarring as you remember: That’s right, this guy actually made these decisions. But overall, his approach to history is descriptive.

Bernanke’s tone is always sympathetic toward the Fed, and you can tell he takes great pride in the institution. That may lead him astray at times, but he does see defects. He famously confirmed Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz’s thesis that the Fed deepened the Great Depression: "You’re right, we did it. We’re very sorry. But thanks to you, we won’t do it again."

That spirit of learning from mistakes and making incremental improvements embodies Bernanke’s approach to monetary policy. He doesn’t have any grand, sweeping pronouncements. He’s very hesitant about any major structural changes to the Fed’s independence or framework.

Bernanke evaluates a number of different approaches to monetary policy than the one the Fed has actually adopted. He looks at price-level targeting, nominal GDP targeting, and raising the inflation target, and considers pros and cons for each. He also discusses increasing coordination between monetary and fiscal policy as a possible new track for the Fed to follow. But he’s not particularly taken by any single new approach. Even in our current inflationary crisis, he doesn’t think regime change at the Fed is needed.

While his pride for the Fed is great, his pride for macroeconomics as a discipline is greater. He understands (better than just about anyone) how uncertain and complicated macroeconomics is.

Bernanke writes of quantitative easing, "We had a theory of how QE might work, but there was a lot we didn’t know. We didn’t know precisely how big our purchases needed to be to achieve a given reduction in longer-term interest rates." The point of QE is to reduce longer-term interest rates. The Fed has a whole staff of brilliant economists and is governed by people who know more about central banking than just about anyone in the world. And they didn’t really know how one of the most important policy changes the Fed has ever made would shake out.

It's important to keep that dynamic in mind when watching the Fed today. Nothing about monetary policy is easy, and there’s a lot we don’t know. That goes both ways: Fed critics should be patient, but the Fed should also be receptive to criticism.

For that reason, Bernanke values transparency at the Fed. He views that, not any particular policy decision, as his most important legacy as chairman. "The Fed now works harder to explain its actions to Americans broadly, not just financial market participants," he says. The power to control the money supply is no light thing, which is why we don’t entrust it to politicians. But since central bankers are removed from direct democratic accountability, they have an obligation to be straightforward with the public they serve.

What makes a good Fed chair to Bernanke? Definitely transparency, humility, and teamwork. But aside from those basic principles, it’s very case-by-case. Arthur Burns was hurt by his close relationship with Richard Nixon, but Greenspan’s close relationships with politicians of both parties in the ’90s and ’00s were helpful, Bernanke says. He even thinks simply acting independently isn’t always a good thing: William McChesney Martin, Fed chair when the Great Inflation began, actually stood up to politicians quite often.

Given that the individuals matter so much, it’s important that they continue to behave in such a way to earn our trust even after they leave the Fed. In this respect, Bernanke is far superior to his successor. Janet Yellen is a very smart economist who has a distinguished career in the field. She was 71 years old when her term as chairwoman expired. She could have gone into retirement and done exactly the sort of thing Bernanke has done: Write and speak about monetary policy, how it can be refined and adjusted to meet our current circumstances.

Instead, she has joined the Biden administration as Treasury secretary, where she acts in a partisan political role, pushing nonsensical tax narratives that she has to know are wrong and making grotesque defenses of abortion before the Senate. She’s not the first Fed chair to become Treasury secretary, but the only other one, G. William Miller under President Carter, wasn’t very impressive in either role, and we shouldn’t make it a trend.

It would be a far better tradition for each chair to use his or her post-Fed career writing a 500-page book about monetary policy. That way we might continue to build our knowledge of monetary policy from the people at the nexus of practice and theory who worked atop the most important central bank in the world.

21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19
by Ben S. Bernanke
W.W. Norton, 512 pp., $35

Dominic Pino is the Thomas L. Rhodes Journalism Fellow with the National Review Institute.

The post For the Love of Money appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The question of how we got to this point, though, is not as easily answered as it might seem. Though it is certainly true that population exodus during COVID and the retreat of law enforcement in the wake of the George Floyd protests contributed both to public disorder and violence in much of the country, the origins and expansion of homelessness in particular have a much longer and more complex history. (For instance, places like Detroit that have a much higher rate of crime also have much lower rates of homelessness.) Stephen Eide's new book, Homelessness in America: The History and Tragedy of an Intractable Social Problem, sheds new light on this issue.

The language is eminently readable; unfortunately the actual text is not. And it's not just my aging eyes. Do yourself a favor and get the e-book. I hate to harp on a problem that is not entirely the fault of the author, but this is a topic that deserves broad (not just academic) attention and I might have skipped the 30-page bibliography in favor of spacing out the 150 pages of miniscule font a little more.

To the substance: Eide first adds some important historical context to the debate. The homeless population has always been predominantly men as it is today, but other aspects of it were different. It used to be much larger, for instance. Nationwide estimates in the early 20th century ranged from 500,000 to 5 million. As Eide notes, "adjusted for population, any of those estimates would dwarf the current count of around 580,000." A researcher in the 1920s noted that the homeless population in Chicago alone was 30,000 in good times and 75,000 in hard times. In the late 19th century one historian estimated that between 10 and 20 percent of the populations had a family member who had used a homeless shelter.

Perhaps in part because homelessness was so common it was not thought of in the same way. In earlier eras, hobos, tramps, and bums were all the subjects of sometimes humorous, sometimes romanticized portrayals in movies and music. "These 'knights of the tie and rail' eschewed steady work for independence and adventure," Eide writes. "In our day homeless advocates strenuously deny that anyone chooses to be homeless. The hobos and tramps of the late nineteenth century took pride in having chosen to be homeless."

Indeed, the fact that these homeless of yore worked made them significantly different from today's homeless population, who are typically not employed. Today's population is disproportionately black, while the homeless used to be almost entirely white. In a legally segregated society black people could not safely wander from place to place without shelter. Alcoholism and substance abuse have always been problems among the homeless. Eide notes that "our focus on the connection between modern homelessness and drug addiction (crack was the concern in the 1980s, meth and opioids are now) can cause us to overlook how bad alcoholism was in former eras."

So what has changed? The first is the prevalence of serious mental illness among the homeless due in large part to the widespread deinstitutionalization of the 1960s and '70s. The idea originally was that those who were being served in psychiatric institutions would then make use of a new network of community mental health centers. Critics say that not enough of these were built, but Eide notes that CMHCs "served a different clientele with easier-to-treat maladies and, in some notable cases, didn't function as much of a medical facility but rather a center of political activism." While the number of mental health providers and spending on mental health vastly increased in the second half of the 20th century, much of this "went to people with milder mental health disorders."

While institutionalization is commonly thought of today as a draconian and needless process instigated by government bureaucrats, it was actually families who, often after years of trying to care for mentally ill at home, decided they had no other option but to commit a loved one. Unfortunately, this is all but impossible in today's environment. Not only is there a severe shortage of mental health beds, but meeting the legal threshold for involuntary commitment—even of someone who has previously shown violent tendencies—is extremely rare.

Eide describes a sector that has been plagued by a lot of poor thinking, including the elevation of "lived experience" as a means for deciding how to help the homeless. If a person with mental illness says that they prefer to live in a tent in Times Square and enjoy using opioids, does that mean that we have to let them? Sometimes, as Eide notes, listening to "lived experience" produces contradictory edicts. "Homeless people demand that shelters be made safer but also criticize shelters for restricting clients' personal freedom." Eide wisely recommends not just consulting the homeless themselves but also the families who care for them. "Families could explain to homeless policymakers what programs and reforms could have helped them better manage their homeless relative, and, thus, may have prevented their descent into the streets."

The policy that has unfortunately taken hold of the entire sector for the past few decades has been "Housing First," the idea that if we can just provide the homeless with some form of permanent shelter, then all the other problems will either be diminished or disappear entirely. If you just give people housing, then they will have an address to give an employer and they can get a job. If you give people housing then their health will improve and they won't be as likely to engage in alcohol or drug abuse.

Eide shows that there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of the Housing First approach, and in many cases offering housing with no strings attached merely serves to remove any incentive that the homeless might have to get their lives back on track. Supportive housing, though, that requires residents to attend sobriety programs or engage in some kind of work, is less popular but seems to produce better results. "To improve lives," Eide writes, "government should sometimes structure people's choices using material inducements."

A second change has been the lack of cheap single-room occupancy housing. While these kind of residences that were once found on Skid Row or in the Tenderloin District were hardly great places to live, they did provide a way for people who engaged in only casual labor or on subsistence level wages to find shelter. They may not have had a permanent place to stay but they were also not sleeping in a public park. Zoning laws have largely eliminated such housing. But in an effort to improve housing for the poor it is possible that we have effectively pushed some to choose between shelters and the street.

The final change has been that a larger percentage of the homeless today are families. One reason for this is that women are more willing and legally able to leave abusive relationships. Unfortunately, they often don't have the financial wherewithal to set up their own household right away. Families are still not a large portion of the homeless population and Eide is right to point out that the stories reporting thousands of homeless children are including children whose families are "doubling up," that is, they are living with relatives.

It is true that the conditions may be cramped and not up to the standards that we are used to, but as Eide notes, "the doubled-up population is much less at risk of being victimized than the sheltered and unsheltered homeless population."

Doubling up is, writes Eide, "a 'fix-it-first'-style solution to homelessness, a way to work with what we've got. … Maybe instead of citing statistics on doubling up as evidence for a broader homelessness crisis that merits increased investment in affordable housing, we could explore ways to make doubling up more tolerable."

Like many of the social problems plaguing urban areas, homelessness has suffered from advocates who put ideology over practical solutions. Demands for more money and more sensitivity to lived experience have not actually done much to help those who are most vulnerable. The tide may be turning. New York mayor Eric Adams has been systematically taking down some of the tent cities that have been erected around town. But Eide points out that "no American city has ever brought unsheltered homelessness permanently under control after first allowing it to get out of control." For anyone interested in the ounce of prevention approach, Homelessness in America is a good place to start.

Homelessness in America: The History and Tragedy of an Intractable Social Problem
by Stephen Eide
Rowman & Littlefield, 258 pp., $35

Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Independent Women's Forum and the author of No Way to Treat a Child: How the Foster Care System, Family Courts, and Racial Activists Are Wrecking Young Lives.

The post It's Not a Housing Problem appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Biden said when he was a senator, a trauma doctor told him "a 9 mm bullet blows the lung out of the body."

"So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is of—there's simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting," the president said.

Twitter users were baffled by Biden's claims, saying that 9 mm bullets are often used in handguns intended for self-defense.

"'A 9MM bullet blows the lung out of the body' has to be one of the dumbest things I've ever heard," Republican congressional candidate Robby Starbuck wrote. "Why do the people who know the least about guns want to yap their gums the most about guns?"

"I had wondered if Biden was mistaking 9mm for AR rounds," Republican strategist Matt Whitlock wrote. "But he was intentionally targeting 9mm, the most popular home defense caliber in America."

RealClearInvestigations senior writer Mark Hemingway wrote, "We're banning handguns now?"

Nine-millimeter pistols made up a majority, 56.8 percent, of all pistols produced in 2019, Fox News reported.

The president on Monday also repeated his long-debunked claim that a citizen "couldn't buy a cannon when the Second Amendment was passed."

The post 'We're Banning Handguns Now?': Biden Suggests Outlawing 'Most Popular' Self-Defense Caliber appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Bernanke, the Fed's chairman during the Great Recession that began in 2008, said he hopes Chairman Jerome Powell can reduce inflation without taking the extreme measures of the 1970s or causing a recession.

"Even under the benign scenario," however, the country will probably go through "a period in the next year or two where growth is low, unemployment is at least up a little bit, and inflation is still high," Bernanke predicted. "So you could call that stagflation."

Bernanke is not the only Obama administration official to predict worsening inflation under Biden. Former Obama economic adviser Steven Rattner in March called rising costs "Biden's inflation." Former Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, who served as Obama's director of the National Economic Council, has warned for at least a year about Biden's economic policies, blaming the president's American Rescue Plan for skyrocketing inflation and blasting Biden's plan to cancel student loans.

Bernanke also criticized Biden's plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in loans, calling the idea "very unfair."

"Many of the people who have large amounts of student debt are professionals who are going to go on and make lots of money in their lifetime," Bernanke said. "So why would we be favoring them over somebody who didn’t go to college, for example?"

Biden said in April that he is considering mass student debt cancellation, though even many Democrats doubt that such a plan is legal.

While the Times wrote that he "isn't worried about a 2008-style crisis," Bernanke is "concerned about housing prices, saying they have 'risen a lot, like 30 percent in the last two years.'"

"That's something that needs to be watched," Bernanke warned.

Biden, who for months said rising prices wouldn't be here long, is facing inflation levels not seen in 40 years. Gas prices have shot back up this month to record highs. Experts predict that canceling student loans will drive up inflation even higher, the Washington Free Beacon has reported.

The post Even Obama's Fed Chairman Predicts Biden Stagflation appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.