by jpitney | Sep 9, 2025 | Elections, Local Government, Public Service
Merrill “Skipp” Stilwell `09 is running for city council in Littleton, CO: Mailers This is a 90s innovation that keeps on ticking and eats up most of my campaign donations. This is still expensive but effective & reaches the people we need. We can...
by jpitney | Sep 8, 2025 | Taxes
Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 21: It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption, that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that...
by jpitney | Sep 7, 2025 | Higher Education
Farid Zaid at Inquisitive: The idea that scholarly excellence could be measured with precision is a relatively recent invention. The Journal Impact Factor (JIF), introduced in the mid-twentieth century, marked the beginning of this shift – offering first libraries and...
by jpitney | Sep 6, 2025 | Civic Education, civic virtue, Higher Education, History
Jim VandeHei at Axios: America rocks. Yes, there are countless things we could do better. And lots of areas of legit concerns. But I beg young people to understand the enormous, indisputable advantages of this country, especially compared to other nations. We’re...
by jpitney | Sep 6, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Wall Street Journal: Nearly all of the new jobs last month were in social assistance and healthcare (46,800), which rely on government spending. Industries with high tariff exposure shed workers, including manufacturing (-12,000) and wholesale trade (-11,700)....
by jpitney | Sep 5, 2025 | Economic Policy, Reagan, Trade
Forty years ago, President Reagan said: My own feeling is that protectionism just leads to a restraint in trade and a lowering of prosperity for everyone involved. And I know in our own Great Depression back in the early thirties, I believe that depression was...
by jpitney | Sep 4, 2025 | Civility, Constitution, Deliberation, Higher Education
Princeton Professor Robert George My philosophy of teaching is straightforward and rather simple: My job is not to tell students what to think or induce or encourage them to think as I do; it is, rather, to help students to think more deeply, more critically, and for...
by jpitney | Sep 2, 2025 | Economic Policy, Trade
Michael Strain at AEI: Protectionists can appeal to intuitive economic logic. Tariffs are a tax on imported goods, but not on domestically produced goods. By increasing the relative price of imported goods, price-sensitive consumers will substitute away from imports....
by jpitney | Sep 1, 2025 | California Politics, Civility
Mark Z. Barabak at LAT: Jim Ross has had a long and fruitful career as a Democratic campaign strategist. Among his victories was electing Gavin Newsom as San Francisco mayor. Tom Ross has enjoyed similar success on the Republican side. He counts Kevin McCarthy’s...