Tag Archive for: economics

Restoring the American Dream from Myth to Reality

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For generations, an ordinary and flourishing American life was beautifully simple — work hard, buy a home, raise a family, and retire comfortably. It wasn’t a utopian fantasy, it wasn’t just some dream, it was a reliable and easily calculated reality.

Today that feels like a distant and outdated relic.

For the modern-day family, the markers that once defined a stable, self-reliant adulthood have been priced far out of reach. We are witnessing a breakdown of the traditional dynamic of reward for hard work. The math no longer adds up for the working class.

The Decline

The American Dream’s erosion can be tracked through several abysmal economic shifts over the last couple decades. The trajectory of the housing market is evident of this: in the 1960s, the average cost of a home was about twice the average annual salary. Today, that stability is gone, with the average home costing nearly six times the average income. What once was a normal milestone for the average worker to achieve in their 20s is now a debt trap that levies decades of financial strain.

Higher education has adopted an even more predatory direction. Tuition, which at one point consisted of a mere couple hundred dollars, allowed students to work a summer job and independently work their way through school. Today, that same degree will cost a student tens of thousands of dollars, ensnaring young Americans in excessive debt before they make their first paycheck.

The most devastating consequence, however, is felt inside the home. A singular income traditionally had supported a family. Now, it commonly takes two full-time jobs just to scrape by. The once-normal traditional family structure has been severely strained as parents are forced out of necessity to spend more time working to outpace inflation than raising their own children.

The events that have led us here are in no way accidental. They are the direct result of a series of catastrophic policy shifts. From Richard Nixon’s fateful 1971 decision to suspend the conversion of the dollar into gold, launching runaway inflation, to George W. Bush’s decision to admit during the 2008 financial crisis that “the market is not functioning properly,” government intervention has distorted the natural economy.

Restoring the Dream

If we want to preserve the foundation of our nation, the crisis must be understood in the context of the structural problem that it is. A reality in which American families can flourish requires four essential policy shifts:

The first is building more housing. You can’t have affordable living if government red tape stifles the construction of new homes. Local zoning laws, slow permitting processes, and other bureaucratic hurdles all choke the housing supply and drive-up prices. Practical solutions require reform in zoning, permits, and more supply so that the market has a chance to naturally correct itself.

Second is fixing the education pipeline. The cultural myth that every American needs a traditional degree to achieve a good life must be debunked. Higher education has evolved into an inordinately expensive, ideologically-captured gatekeeper. Trade schools must be expanded, tangible skill sets should be rewarded, and student loans should be directly tied to real-world career outcomes instead of academic accolades.

Third, attack health care costs head-on. The current American health care system is riddled with a lack of regulatory capture that protects corporate middlemen while costing patients. Real price transparency, increased market competition, and bringing an end to the regulatory protection that keep consumer prices high are what’s needed to restore trust in private institutions and encourage human flourishing.

Lastly, hard work must be rewarded again. The middle class carries most of our system’s economic burdens. A pivot must take place in government policy that backs the lowering of the tax burden on middle-class families, encourages the growth of small businesses, and cultivates economic environments where upward mobility is framed as entirely possible, not unattainable.

“The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become,” President Ronald Reagan once said.

The American Dream was never convoluted and has always been based in simple logic. It rested on a stable framework that prioritized honest effort yielding a predictable reward — a reward that encourages thriving families and dynamic self-governing social groups. It worked once, and it will work again. But it won’t just happen by accident. A dismantling of the bureaucratic hurdles hindering the next generation is inevitable — and when it happens, that dream will become reality again.

AUTHOR

Zachary Patton

Zach Patton is an intern at Family Research Council.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Why Are So Many Americans Voting for Socialists?

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In the wake of a series of electoral and primary victories in deep blue cities by politicians who profess to be socialist, many are wondering how voters in the country with the foremost free enterprise economy in the world are voting for political candidates who espouse anti-capitalist wealth redistribution policies that have a track record of deepening corruption and spreading poverty.

Earlier this month, Washington, D.C. city councilmember and Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) member Janeese Lewis George easily defeated Democrat Kenyan McDuffie in the mayoral primary, virtually assuring her victory as D.C. mayor in November. This followed fellow DSA member Nithya Raman’s victory in the Los Angeles mayoral primary, who will face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in a runoff in November.

Last week added more socialists to the list of primary victors, as democratic socialists swept three primary races in New York, including Darializa Avila Chevalier for the state’s 13th congressional district (who has said, among other highly controversial things, that she is “fighting for the eradication of Western Civilization”) and DSA member Claire Valdez. Yesterday, yet another democratic socialist won Colorado’s primary for its 1st Congressional District, as Melat Kiros defeated Diana DeGette, who has been in Congress for almost three decades.

All of this follows the election of avowed socialist Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City last November, along with Katie Wilson for mayor of Seattle.

Exit polls indicate that young voters under the age of 30 are the primary drivers of the socialist victories. In the NYC mayoral race, Mamdani won “78% of voters under 30 and 66% of those ages 30 to 44.” These results line up with recent polls indicating that over half of Americans under 30 say that socialism is “beneficial.”

So why are more and more young Americans putting their faith in socialism at the ballot box? Some insiders say a large part of the appeal toward socialist policies is their promise of government intervention in an economy marked by a high cost of living. “People are feeling like they have to work way harder to get by, and meanwhile they’re seeing Elon Musk become the first trillionaire in the world,” stated national DSA co-chair Ashik Siddique. “The Trump administration is just administering policies that make people’s lives worse, and many people feel like the Democratic Party establishment is not really putting up a fight.”

Further analysis indicates that inflation, rapidly increasing housing prices, and rising health care and child care costs are pushing younger and blue collar voters toward embracing socialist policies like rent freezes, guaranteed federal jobs, and universal health care, all of which are foundational DSA policies.

Young socialists like Asad Dandia, described by Vox as a “public historian from Brooklyn,” say they are economically “stuck.” “DSA largely comprises young people — people in their 20s and 30s — who are for the most part college-educated and renters,” he said. “I’m including myself in this category. We don’t have access to the resources and the wealth and the necessities for us to achieve the American dream. We get stuck with being perennial renters. We’d like to advance in life, just like everyone else has, and we haven’t had the opportunity to do so because of these gaping inequalities.”

These are the issues that seem to be driving many young urbanites in deep blue cities to vote for candidates backed by the DSA, but underneath the surface lies a much more extreme agenda than merely wealth redistribution. As noted by National Review’s John Fund, the DSA issued an updated platform earlier this month that “calls for abolishing the U.S. Senate, defunding the Pentagon, offering universal amnesty to illegal immigrants, transferring the ownership of major corporations to the public, and replacing ‘the President and Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by and subordinate to Congress.’ It also includes a demand that police budgets be cut ‘annually to zero.’”

So which countries do the DSA uphold as socialist paradises that the U.S. should aspire to? Cuba appears to be one. Fund observes that the DSA issued a statement last month lambasting the U.S. for committing acts of “imperialism” against the country, ending with the words “Long live the Cuban Revolution.” Meanwhile, the Cuban regime, which has maintained a government-controlled socialist economy for over six decades, currently oversees a country where 89% of families suffer from extreme poverty, with a per capita income that is below $1.90 a day.

But as the recent success of American socialist politicians illustrates, an increasingly substantial amount of young progressives today can’t be bothered with the miserable track record of socialism. They just want the government to help them make ends meet, even if it means embracing wealth redistribution and abandoning the free enterprise principles that have made America the most prosperous nation on earth.

It appears that both traditional Democrats and Republicans will need to do a better job of coming up with bold and creative solutions to address the economic concerns of so many young people. As Fund emphasizes, liberals have failed to “govern America’s cities effectively or efficiently,” and Republicans “have also dismally failed to promote their own solutions to urban problems. The result is that socialism, which had never really taken root in America, is now in danger of becoming the secular religion of many voters — especially disillusioned young people.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Study: Illegal Immigration Drives Up American Housing Prices

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President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance have both repeatedly asserted that the Trump administration’s immigration policy — chiefly, deportations — will significantly ease economic burdens on Americans, especially in sectors like housing. A new report is confirming those statements as likely accurate.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, the millions of illegal immigrants ushered into the U.S. by former President Joe Biden and his administration drove up housing costs significantly, making it harder for American families to afford homes. “According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, net entry of this category of immigrants added roughly 7 million people to the U.S. population over 2021 to 2024 (1.75 million per year), nearly double that of legal immigration,” the Federal Reserve report found. “To put this growth in perspective, net unauthorized immigration — that is, immigration of individuals who entered the country without being formally admitted for purposes of immigration law — averaged only 0.1 million a year from 2000 to 2019 and was slightly negative from 2010 to 2019.”

“We then turn to the effects of unauthorized immigration on the broader local economy, focusing in particular on the housing market,” the report continued. Between 2021 and 2024, the price of housing increased by 2.2% and rent increased by 1.4% for every 1% that illegal immigration increased a locale’s population. “A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that [unauthorized immigrant worker flows] can explain about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market,” the report concluded.

“Increased housing prices is one of many reasons why mass deportations are still needed,” said Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, in comments to The Washington Stand. “We have at least 20 million deportable aliens in the U.S. Deporting millions of them will free up housing supply, bring down housing costs, allow young Americans to buy homes and start families. All of this is needed for America to thrive,” she continued. “Border security is half of the equation. Deportations are the other half.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas report findings are in line with the conclusions of other studies. A Housing and Urban Development (HUD) investigation last year similarly concluded that mass immigration drives up housing costs, particularly for low-income individuals and communities. The HUD report examined “worst-case housing needs, which it defined as Americans who are low-income but do not receive government assistance or welfare and who pay more than one-half of their income toward housing costs. “Between 2021 and 2023, cases of worst-case needs remained elevated at 8.46 million households, virtually the same as the 2019-to-2021 period,” the report found. “One key cause of elevated worst case needs is immigration.”

“Between 2021 and 2024, the foreign-born population of the United States increased by more than 6 million — the largest such increase over such a short period in American history,” HUD found. “The foreign-born population now stands at more than 53 million individuals, making up the highest share of the American population in history,” the report continued. “This immigration-driven increase in households has contributed to a significant increase in housing demand, thus driving up housing prices. In fact, in some markets, immigration has accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand in recent years.”

The HUD report found that economic growth over the same period “has been insufficient to lift the wages of low-income renting families high enough to make rent affordable.” The report further concluded that “national macroeconomic policies, such as record immigration, have combined to drive sustained high rental demand, which has continued to place upward pressure on rent prices.” Largely due to mass immigration, fewer than 60 affordable housing units were available per 100 American renters considered “very low-income,” HUD found, and fewer than 40 affordable units were available per 100 American renters considered “extremely low-income.”

Early last year, HUD signed a “memorandum of understanding” with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in an effort to collaborate to ensure that taxpayer-funded housing benefits are received by American citizens, not illegal immigrants. In places like Springfield, Ohio, where the Biden administration dumped tens of thousands of Haitian immigrants under temporary protected status (TPS), Americans have been driven out of their homes, with landlords often raising rent prices higher than American workers can afford in order to take advantage of the taxpayer-funded housing assistance afforded to foreign nationals.

“When we talk about housing and why costs are so high, we don’t talk enough about demand, and one of the drivers of increased housing demand is that we’ve got a lot of people over the last four years who have come into the country illegally,” Vance observed last year. “That’s something we have to work on if we want to meaningfully reduce the cost of housing. … We want Americans to be able to afford the American dream of home ownership.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Oil Prices, Strategic Trade-offs, and the Strait of Hormuz

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One unavoidable side-effect of gasoline prices being prominently posted in front of every roadside service station is that Americans remain constantly aware of the volatile fluctuations in gas prices. Since the start of President Trump’s military action against Iran, the national average price for a gallon of regular unleaded fuel has jumped from $2.98 on February 28 to $3.72 on March 16. World oil prices, which ended December under $60 per barrel, have now reached as high as $106 per barrel (as of this writing, they sat at $93 per barrel). With a jump like that, not only Americans but the entire world is taking notice.

The current spike in oil and gas prices is a direct result of the U.S. military’s combat against Iran. Instead of acting like a responsible state that follows the laws of war and spares non-combatants, the Islamist Iranian regime reacted by launching missiles indiscriminately at all its neighbors, including at civilian targets.

Iran’s indiscriminate attacks have not spared international commercial shipping, including oil tankers. Since the conflict began, U.K. Maritime Trade Operations has recorded at least 14 reported attacks on ships in the Persian Gulf or Strait of Hormuz. This has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, as the owners and crews of those vessels naturally do not wish to become foolhardy casualties of war. (Notably, Iranian and Chinese ships continue to sail through unmolested.)

This closure affects global oil markets because the oil-rich countries of the Persian Gulf produce 20% of the world’s oil supply, and their crude oil must pass through the strait to reach global markets. (The Strait of Hormuz, which separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula, is the Persian Gulf’s only outlet to the sea; at its narrowest point, it measures a mere 24 miles across, no wider than the Amazon River in the rainy season.)

Global oil markets, in turn, affect U.S. gas prices because of the basic principles of supply and demand. Under normal circumstances, the U.S. only imports a small amount of oil from the Persian Gulf, around 2%, while countries like China and India import a much larger quantity. However, when the oil supply from the Persian Gulf is cut off, all the countries that did buy its oil still have the same demand for oil, and they go looking for other suppliers to make up the difference. Thus, an impact on the oil supply in one area of the world will affect oil prices globally.

American strategists have long considered an oil price shock due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to be an expected — or at least likely — consequence of war with Iran. “Planning around preventing this exact scenario — impossible as it has long seemed — has been a bedrock principle of US national security policy for decades,” CNN quoted an anonymous former security official.

Yet, to hear CNN tell it, the Trump administration did not prepare for this likely scenario at all. “Top Trump officials acknowledged to lawmakers during recent classified briefings that they did not plan for the possibility of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to strikes,” the original version of the article claimed.

Such an outrageous claim was bound to be challenged. “Of course, for decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” responded Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth. “This is always what they do: hold the Strait hostage. CNN doesn’t think we thought of that. It’s a fundamentally unserious report.” The National Review editors note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned Iran against closing the Strait just last year, and that one of the Trump administration’s stated goals in the current conflict is to degrade Iran’s capability to do so.

CNN’s story now includes the following “CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to reflect additional developments and clarify that top Trump administration officials briefed lawmakers on long-standing military plans to address a major disruption to the Strait, according to one official, but that multiple sources familiar with the session said there was no indication there were any near-term solutions.”

There’s a big difference between, “The Trump administration totally forgot to account for this glaring vulnerability,” and, “The Trump administration considered the vulnerability but doesn’t have a near-term solution for it.”

As in all of life, politics is about trade-offs, and particularly so in war strategy. The Wall Street Journal reports that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine briefed President Donald Trump on Iran’s ability to close the Strait of Hormuz with mines, drones, and missiles. “Trump acknowledged the risk … but moved forward” anyway, they wrote. “He told his team that Tehran would likely capitulate before closing the strait — and even if Iran tried, the U.S. military could handle it.”

In hindsight, this assessment was clearly too optimistic, but every war strategy suffers from setbacks, accidents, and unknowns. On the other hand, allowing Iran the time to build more missiles and potentially a nuclear weapon could have resulted in even worse consequences.

The reason why the U.S. Constitution invests executive power in one individual is so that one seasoned leader can be responsible for weighing the various tradeoffs and reaching a final decision. In other words, the U.S. presidency exists to make hard decisions just like this one. And those who don’t like the decisions Trump makes had their opportunity to elect a different president.

While the heightened price of gas and oil is causing Americans undeniable pain at the pump, the National Review editors allow that “None of this is catastrophic. The price of Brent crude settled above $100 a barrel on Friday. That’s the highest in four years, not in, say, 60 years. But the clock is ticking.” Indeed, oil prices hit $113 per barrel in June 2022 and $128 per barrel in July 2008. In between, oil prices peaked in April 2011 ($108 per barrel), March 2012 ($105 per barrel), August 2013 ($102 per barrel), and June 2014 ($98 per barrel). So, administration critics do have legitimate grounds to hit Trump over high gas prices, but only as hard as they hit President Joe Biden for the historic inflation in 2021-2022.

That said, the Trump administration is not doing themselves any favors in public perception by appearing desperate and unprepared for this eventuality. The Trump administration has promised military escorts for oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, but they have yet to work out the logistics. Meanwhile, the U.S. issued a 30-day waiver for countries to buy sanctioned Russian oil — after President Trump slammed U.S. allies for doing just that — offering Russia’s tottering regime an invaluable financial lifeline.

Errors of strategy and judgment are inevitable in war, even when a superpower like the United States is dominantly pummeling a stubborn rogue regime like that of the Iranian mullahs. But just because the Trump administration has fumbled one snap does not mean that they failed to call the right play. A turnover can be costly, but the only thing that matters is the scoreboard when time expires.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

EPA Exonerates Carbon Dioxide

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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday committed “the single largest deregulatory action in U.S. history,” as EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin described it, by eliminating an Obama-era verdict against carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. The 2009 Endangerment Finding functioned as the bottommost block in the Left’s Jenga tower of climate regulation, and the Trump administration hopes to save U.S. taxpayers more than $1.3 trillion by knocking it clear.

“The Trump EPA is strictly following the letter of the law,” Zeldin proclaimed, “returning commonsense to policy, delivering consumer choice to Americans, and advancing the American Dream.”

America’s two-decade mistake of treating carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant began during the Bush administration, when left-wing activists and progressive-leaning states sued the administration for not regulating carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act of 1963.

On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which a 5-4 liberal majority determined that carbon dioxide was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, finding that its definition includes “any physical, chemical … substance or matter which is emitted into or otherwise enters the ambient air” and “embraces all airborne compounds of whatever stripe.” It directed the EPA to study whether carbon dioxide was worthy of regulation.

Of course, carbon dioxide is not a pollutant under any common understanding of the word. A pollutant is a substance that contaminates the surrounding environment with something foreign or harmful — like an oil spill or the harmful compounds that cause acid rain. Carbon dioxide, however, is the primary product of human (and animal) respiration and the primary input to the photosynthesis of plants.

Along with water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2) is produced in any combustion reaction involving hydrocarbon-based (CHX) fuels and oxygen gas (O2) — whether in a simple fire or in cellular energy production. It is therefore the natural byproduct of any carbon-based form of energy production, whether by wood, charcoal, coal, natural gas, oil, or some other product.

However, on December 7, 2009, Obama administration EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson found that atmospheric carbon dioxide (and five other gaseous compounds) “threaten[ed] the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

This finding “led to trillions of dollars in regulations that strangled entire sectors of the United States economy, including the American auto industry,” Zeldin lamented. “The Obama and Biden administrations used it to steamroll into existence a left-wing wish list of costly climate policies, electric vehicle mandates and other requirements that assaulted consumer choice and affordability.” Since then, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars propping up green energy projects that were not ready for economic prime time, leading to widespread blackouts and lost investment in impractical electric vehicles. At the same time, the endangerment finding has been used to rachet up the fuel efficiency requirements on cars, making those cars more expensive in the process.

However, the EPA cited two more recent Supreme Court decisions that it said justified its decision to rethink the law. The first was West Virginia v. EPA (2022), which struck down a Biden-era carbon tax scheme based on the Endangerment Finding on the ground that such “major questions” of policy should be decided by Congress, not an agency. In 2024, the Supreme Court issued Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overruled the infamous Chevron test and reframed the level of deference due to agencies in rulemaking.

Following these decisions, President Trump issued a day-one executive order, “Unleashing American Energy.” In the order, Trump authorized an “immediate review of all agency actions that potentially burden the development of domestic energy resources,” which would include the 2009 Endangerment Finding.

The EPA’s decision came after an extended public comment period of 52 days, four days of virtual public hearings with testimony from more than 600 individuals, and approximately 572,000 public comments on the proposed rule. The extent of the feedback illustrates the magnitude of its consequences for American energy and business.

As a result of that review, the EPA concluded that the Clean Air Act “does not provide statutory authority for EPA to prescribe motor vehicle and engine emission standards in the manner previously utilized,” and therefore “the 2009 Endangerment Finding made by the Obama Administration exceeded the agency’s authority to combat ‘air pollution’ that harms public health and welfare, and that a policy decision of this magnitude, which carries sweeping economic and policy consequences, lies solely with Congress.”

Notably, the EPA ran “the same types of models utilized by the previous administrations and climate change zealots” and found that, “even if the U.S. were to eliminate all GHG emissions from all vehicles, there would be no material impact on global climate indicators through 2100.” The only effect such auto emissions standards would have is to make life more difficult for American consumers.

President Trump was present at the White House press conference announcing the EPA’s decision. “We are officially terminating the so-called endangerment finding, a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers,” he said. “This determination had no basis in fact — none whatsoever. And it had no basis in law. On the contrary, over the generations, fossil fuels have saved millions of lives and lifted billions of people out of poverty all over the world.”

Naturally, the left-wing response to the announcement was furious. NBC News memorialized the 2009 Endangerment Finding as “the legal finding that it [the EPA] has relied on for nearly two decades to limit the heat-trapping pollution that spews from vehicle tailpipes, oil refineries, and factories.” Unmentioned was the way that carbon dioxide also “spews” from human lungs with every exhalation, or the way that its “heat-trapping” quality prevents the earth from turning into the dark side of Mercury at night.

Of more substantial impact, major environmental groups have promised to challenge the decision’s legality. The Trump administration would likely have to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Massachusetts v. EPA.

In the meantime, however, the Trump administration has smashed the rule “referred to by some as the ‘Holy Grail’ of the ‘climate change religion,’” as Zeldin put it. It “didn’t just regulate emissions, it regulated and targeted the American dream,” he said. Even more fundamentally, the Trump administration has exonerated the essential, natural compound of carbon dioxide. As Interior Secretary Doug Burgum weighed in, “CO2 was never a pollutant.” And it should never have been regulated as one.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Americans Are Continuing to Flee Blue States for Red States, Census Data Show

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Newly released census data has revealed that the trend of a mass exodus from states controlled by Democrats to states run by Republicans is continuing. Census Bureau population estimates indicate that the five fastest-growing states are red, while four of the five states that are facing a shrinking population are blue.

As noted by the National Review editorial board Monday, the data show that since 2020, the U.S. has added about 10.3 million people, only 1.9 million of which were natural births over deaths. The remaining 8.3 million constituted immigrants. “[T]he notion of a future in which we add four new immigrants for every net increase of one homegrown American is alarming,” the editors observed.

The census estimates further demonstrated that states run by Democrats (with one exception) continue to lose residents. The only five states that suffered losses in population were Vermont, Hawaii, West Virginia, New Mexico, and California, with New York narrowly breaking even. Many of these former blue state inhabitants seem to be fleeing to red states. The five fastest-growing states have Republican-controlled governments — South Carolina, Idaho, North Carolina, Texas, and Utah.

This latest data indicates that the population trends that began in 2020 are only continuing. An Institute for Family Studies (IFS) report from September 2024 found that in 2021-2022, the five states that lost the most families were the Democratic strongholds of California, New York, Illinois, Washington, and Oregon. Meanwhile, the states that gained the largest number of families were the Republican bastions of Texas, Florida, and South Carolina, along with the purple states of Georgia and Arizona.

Compounding the population problem for blue states is further data showing that fertility rates in Republican-run states are higher than they are in Democrat-run states. An October 2024 report from IFS analyzing 2023 data found that the 10 states with the highest fertility rates were all red, with the top three being South Dakota, Nebraska, and North Dakota. True to form, the 10 states with the lowest fertility rates were blue, with Vermont, Rhode Island, and Oregon being the three states with the lowest rates. The trend dovetails with studies showing that conservatives marry at higher rates and have more children than liberals.

A recent tax proposal for billionaires in California has left many scrambling the exits. The levy is emblematic of the heavy tax burden that Democrat-led states put on their citizens, with blue states securing the top 10 highest income tax rates in the nation. In addition, red states generally have fewer restrictions on home construction, have more business-friendly policies, have more jobs, and have lower energy costs, among other factors that make the cost of living less.

Experts like FRC Action Director Matt Carpenter say that the migration from blue states to red states will also likely have a big impact on future elections.

“If these projections hold up, the apportionment following the 2030 census will undoubtedly tilt future elections toward the GOP,” he told The Washington Stand. “With red states looking to pick up additional seats in Congress and additional electoral college votes, the Republican path to winning the presidency and Congressional majorities will depend less on winning swing states and swing districts in blue or purple states and will be achievable staying within red states alone.”

“It’s bad form in politics to assume outcomes, and red states will likely have to deal with an influx of more moderate and even liberal voters fleeing blue states,” Carpenter acknowledged. “But it’s even worse form to drive your population out of your state with insanely unpopular agendas.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Virginia’s New Democratic Trifecta Targets Taxes, Guns, and Sentencing

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A new wave of elected Democrats in Virginia is showing how much of a difference one election can make.

In Virginia’s 2025 midterm elections, Democrats managed to sweep the state, claiming three high-ranking political positions: governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. It didn’t take long for the shift in power to translate into policy action. Governor Abigail Spanberger was sworn in on January 17, 2026, and almost immediately, a flurry of new legislation emerged from the Democratic-controlled General Assembly.

Some of the early proposals included gun-related measures that critics argued targeted Second Amendment rights, such as expanded restrictions or heavy taxes on firearms and ammunition. However, scrutiny has intensified across the board as Democrats continue to push broader priorities that stir controversy and appear to diverge sharply from campaign promises.

One high-profile example is House Bill 863, sponsored by Democratic Delegate Rae Cousins. The bill seeks to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for a range of serious crimes, including manslaughter, rape, possession and distribution of child pornography, assaulting law enforcement officers, certain repeat violent felonies, and even the mandatory five-day jail sentence for some first-time DUI offenders. According to The Post Millennial, “many left-wing activists have criticized mandatory minimum sentencing, labelling the practice as racist.”

Supporters have described it as a “common-sense proposal” that removes “one-size-fits-all” requirements. “This change would give the experienced judges in our communities more discretion to make decisions based on the unique facts of each case,” Cousins said. Proponents also argue it promotes fairer, more individualized sentencing and addresses long-standing criticisms of mandatory minimums as overly rigid or disproportionately harmful. Critics, however, are sounding the alarm.

Law enforcement advocates and former Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, for example, warn that removing these required prison terms could lead to lighter punishments for dangerous offenders, potentially undermining accountability, endangering public safety, and increasing risks of re-offending. One expert, Josh Ederheimer of the University of Virginia’s Center for Public Safety and Justice, explained to Fox News that “from a law enforcement standpoint, I think police generally want offenders to be held accountable, and frustration among law enforcement officers grows when individuals are released quickly and subsequently re-offend — and even more so if it involved a violent felony.”

Considering how this would affect victims and their families, he added, “I think that the police and public alike have expectations that convicted criminals will be held accountable, and that full sentences should be served. Mandatory minimums assure victims — and the community — that a convicted person will serve their sentence. It is the circumstance when convicted felons are released early that victims may feel a sense of betrayal or that justice was not served. That’s the dilemma.” Notably, HB 863 is only one part of a larger Democratic push on criminal justice reform in the 2025-2026 session.

But for some Virginians, the concerns expand beyond gun rights and criminal justice. For instance, shortly after Democrats consolidated power, a separate set of tax proposals were introduced — mirroring (if not surpassing) some of California’s rates.

Only months after campaigning on affordability and vowing lower costs for families, Virginia Democrats set forth legislation that would create new higher-income tax brackets, including an increase to 8% on income over $600,000 and 10% on income over $1 million. They also added measures like a 3.8% net investment income tax on higher earners, which could lower after-tax returns on investments and discourage saving and investing. Combined, some say these could push Virginia’s top effective income tax rate to around 13.8%, which would potentially surpass California’s current top rate, the highest in the nation.

Even so, supporters frame the changes as a “Fair Share” approach, arguing that millionaires and high earners should contribute more to fund education, housing, public services, and affordability initiatives. Groups like The Commonwealth Institute, a left-wing policy group backing the tax plan, estimate such reforms could generate over $1 billion annually for these priorities. Meanwhile, critics are accusing Democrats of breaking campaign promises.

During her 2025 run, Spanberger emphasized an “Affordable Virginia Plan” to lower health care, housing, and energy costs, with pledges to deliver savings in 2026. Opponents, including House Minority Leader Terry Kilgore (R) and the Republican Party of Virginia, call the tax hikes a betrayal that could drive jobs, investment, and residents away — following what they describe as the “failed paths” of high-tax states like California and New York. National figures like Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform have labeled the timing “particularly foolish” amid competitive pressures from neighboring states lowering taxes.

Family Research Council’s Matt Carpenter, director of FRC Action, addressed the apparent shift in priorities with The Washington Stand. “When [Spanberger] was representing the people of Virginia’s 7th congressional district,” he said, “she was an informal member of the ‘mod squad’ of allegedly moderate House Democrats who wanted to work with their Republican counterparts on issues of mutual interest, like agriculture, veterans’ affairs, and fentanyl. She may have done some work on these issues with moderate Republicans, but the reality is Spanberger’s vote history in Congress shows her to be committed to the left-wing cultural revolution playbook.”

As he went on to explain, “She was a reliable vote when taxpayer funded abortion, gender transitions on minors, special rights for adults’ ‘sexual orientation and gender identity,’ and more, came up. And yet, during the 2025 election, she was adept at stepping around controversial topics like men participating in women’s sports throughout the campaign, maintaining her carefully curated moderate brand.”

These early moves, from gun laws to criminal justice to taxes, illustrate how dramatically one election cycle can reshape a state’s direction. With Democrats holding trifecta control for the first time in years, the 2026 legislative session is already advancing these and other priorities at a rapid pace. And yet, Carpenter concluded, it’s not surprising. Rather, he said, “It’s safe to assume [Spanberger] will do as governor just as she did while in Congress: campaign as a centrist and govern as a bona fide leftist.”

AUTHOR

Sarah Holliday

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Trump Promises Support for Iranian Protestors

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President Donald Trump has found a new source of leverage against Iran’s Islamist regime — the Iranian people themselves. Protests that began nine days ago have now spread to 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces, as economic unrest catalyzed widespread dissatisfaction with the regime to the brink of open revolt. As is its habit, the repressive regime is now turning its weapons upon its own subjects, earning a stern warning from President Trump. “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their [the protesters’] rescue,” the president said on social media. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

The protest began with shopkeepers and bazaar merchants closing their doors in response to dire economic conditions. Since Iran’s war with Israel, its rial currency has lost 60% of its value, dropping at one point to a record low of 1.445 million to the dollar. Iran’s annual inflation rate reached 42.2% in December, with food prices up 72%. Meanwhile, Iran’s central bank registered a decline in gross GDP of 0.6% (0.8% excluding oil) for the six months beginning in late March 2025.

Residents of the oil-rich country have also suffered power outages and now face rising fuel prices; the central government puts more focus on building missiles, enriching uranium, and keeping its own coffers full than on the plight of its own people. The Iranian regime has even neglected to procure a stable water supply for the capital metropolis.

But what began as protests over economic conditions quickly grew into a more general challenge to the unbending regime. Footage emerging on social media showed protestors chanting “freedom” and “death to the dictator,” as well as calling for a return of Reza Pahlavi, son and heir of the late shah who was booted from power in 1979.

At first, the Iranian mullahs attempted to placate the protestors’ concerns, acknowledging “the pressure on people’s livelihoods” and promising reform. Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran’s chief central banker, resigned last Monday as the fall guy for the ongoing inflation.

But the protests kept spreading and the popular hatred for their government began to cross the line into open rebellion. In one attack, demonstrators breached a police station affiliated with Iran’s Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) and burned several police cars. In another, they threw stones at police officers and regime-aligned militia members, resulting in one death and a dozen injuries among the government-aligned forces.

Soon, the Iranian regime had reverted to its more typical tactics of suppressing dissent through brutal force. Across protests at 22 locations in 78 cities, the Iranian regime has allegedly killed at least 20 demonstrators and arrested 990, according to data compiled by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) on Monday.

But the crackdown predated the protests. Since its catastrophic war with Israel in the summer of 2025, the Iranian regime says it has arrested 21,000 “suspects,” and international watchdogs have documented between 1,500-2,000 executions. “The only strategy the regime knows is repression,” said professor Saeid Golkar.

After sweeping out the shah to popular approval, Iran’s Islamist regime has faced increasing popular opposition in recent decades. In 2009, protests in the “Green Movement” challenged former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection. “Day of Rage” protests lasted for a year during the 2011 Arab Spring. High food prices spurred protests in 2017 and 2018, gas prices sparked riots in 2019, and the deadly enforcement of Islamic morality laws initiated protests in 2022.

In response to the 2022 protests, the Islamist regime quelled the protests by killing more than 500 people, suggesting the current repression could become even more deadly.

Yet some signs suggest the result of the current protests could be different. Over the past two years, Iran has suffered one humiliating setback after another, from the devastation of its terrorist proxies, to the collapse of the allied Assad regime in Syria, to Iran’s own defeat by Israel and the United States. As a result, Iran’s military might has been hollowed out, both physically and morally, prompting more protestors to boldly shake the already-shaking regime.

Additionally, Iran continues to face pressure from both Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both expressed solidarity with the protestors. “We’re watching it very closely,” Trump told reporters. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”

Furthermore, one underreported aspect of the Iranian protests is the rapid growth of Christianity within the country, FRC’s Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom Lela Gilbert told The Washington Stand. Despite a lack of official statistics, a 2021 report suggested Christianity was the fastest-growing religion in the country. In 2024, an Iranian court sentenced five Christian converts to 25 years in prison for abandoning Islam.

“Despite anti-Christian persecution and crackdowns, numerous reports of Iranian converts to Christianity continue. These appear on social media and through personal contacts,” Gilbert explained. “There are stunning stories of increasing numbers of new believers, even in the face of potentially harsh reactions and abuse by disapproving authorities. Yet, despite these concerns, and alongside personal attacks from families and friends, these new believers remain faithful and amazingly outspoken.”

Christianity constitutes a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36), and it rarely presents a direct challenge to the governing authorities that exist (Romans 13:1). However, the spread of Christianity also promotes ideas of human dignity and individual freedom, working these through a society like yeast leavening dough (Matthew 13:33). This has made Christianity one of the most powerful forces for toppling despotism in history.

Former President Barack Obama later reflected that he made a mistake not to do more to encourage the Green protests in 2009. Under a President Trump flush with victory, the United States could do many things short of military action —which is probably not off the table — to aid Iranian protestors against the regime. The Wall Street Journal lists several possible options: “restoring internet access when the regime cuts it off, unmasking regime thugs,” enforcing accountability for human rights abuses, and tightening enforcement of existing oil sanctions.

Would these actions be enough? Only the one “who brings princes to nothing” (Isaiah 40:23) knows for certain. But a certain former Venezuelan dictator might advise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to underestimate President Trump. According to The Times, a British paper, Khamenei has already worked out an “escape plan” whereby he and 20 close associates would flee to Russia with about $95 billion in assets. Such is not the plan of a man confident is his regime’s longevity.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2026 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Treasury Secretary Bessent Foresees ‘Accelerated’ Economic Growth in 2026

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is forecasting that a “substantial acceleration” will occur in the country’s economy in 2026 as a result of decreasing prices in consumer goods and increasing real income.

During a recent interview with Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo, Bessent argued that inflation is now becoming manageable under the Trump administration, whereas under Biden, it reached upwards of 9% in 2022. It currently stands at around 3%.

“We inherited this terrible inflation. We are flattening it out,” he remarked. “I believe we are going to push it down. Energy prices are down, interest rates are down. But the real thing that is going to happen that is going to give Americans real purchasing power increases, it’s going to be through growth. … [T]hanks to the president keeping his campaign promises — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans … Working Americans will change their withholdings, and they will get a bump up in their real incomes. I will expect in the first quarter, we are going to see the inflation curve bend down and the real income curve substantially accelerate, and when those two lines cross, Americans are going to feel it.”

The comments come as economic uncertainty has rattled the consumer goods market, with the price of beef surging almost 13%, coffee increasing almost 19%, and bananas rising almost 7%. Some experts like Omaha Steaks President and CEO Nate Rempe say that beef could reach $10 a pound by next year. But Bessent predicted that prices will begin to level off due to Trump removing tariffs as a result of trade deals.

“We’ve been working on trade deals with Central and South American countries for six [to] eight months,” he pointed out. “Just this past week we signed the trade deals. So not only will the tariffs come off … coffee, cocoa, [and] bananas, [and] many other items, that’s a result of the trade deals going through, and then we will see this go down. We are also seeing the import barriers for the other countries come through. So this is a complete trade policy, and now we are going to see it affect the prices.”

Bessent further contended that America’s economy will begin to take off at the beginning of next year.

“I think we are going to see a substantial acceleration in the economy in the first, second quarter, and I think we are already seeing on many prices … we’re bending that curve down, and the increase in real income, I think Americans are going to feel it in the first quarter, second quarter,” he underscored. “I think [in] 2026, thanks to President Trump’s signature plans, is going to be a great year for working Americans, for the markets. I call it parallel prosperity — main street and Wall Street can both do great, but I think main street is going to have a great year in 2026.”

Economists like Dave Brat, who serves as senior vice president of Business Relations at Liberty University, are also predicting booming growth as a result of significant global investments secured by the Trump administration.

“[Trump] is bringing in $2 trillion pledges in capital investment and over $10 trillion in capital coming in from abroad,” he told Family Research Council’s Jody Hice during “Washington Watch” last week. “That capital is the number one determinant of economic growth. So that will guarantee help [for] the economy going forward. But that capital probably takes two, three, four years to even start having its effect. [For] GDP growth, the Atlanta Fed has this growing at 4[%] … [T]he long run trajectory is only 2[%].”

Brat, a former congressman, went on to posit that a renewed focus on education must be implemented in order to strengthen the American economy.

“[O]ne thing that politicians don’t pay any attention to is education,” he lamented. “If you want the economy to get going, you cannot have 12% literacy rates — 12% reading rates for poor kids in Chicago’s inner city. How in the world are you going to have an economy? If Trump does that … the black, brown, blue-collar workers will stay strong with Trump if he shows he really cares about them.”

AUTHOR

Dan Hart

Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The New Communist Pope From Chicago Now Bashing Rich Job Creating Capitalists

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The newly elected Communist Pope from Chicago has started his week with his first ever interview since taking command of the Catholic Church by bashing rich capitalists.

His biggest complaint is the so-called widening pay gap in corporations between the executives that carry the responsibility of the company’s success versus the workers who are gainfully employed by these hard-working capitalists.

So, comrade Pope Leo (no relation to Leo the lion) stated in an interview For Crux News for his up-and-coming biography where he will probably make millions of dollars for the church at publication stated:

“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving — 600 times (now),” Comrade Pope Leo said in this interview with Crux News the official Catholic News site in Colorado.

He also stated in this interview “Yesterday (there was) news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world,” He went on to say, “what does that mean, and what’s that about? if that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble.”

Well, when Comrade Leo was a Cardinal, he did swear an oath to poverty while still making $5,600.00 a month but now as the new Pope he will get a pay cut to about $2,820.00 a month but will get all his housing, travel expenses, health care, food, and “water into wine” allowance all covered by the Vatican while living rent free all the while ignoring the fact that Americans fund most of this free stuff from donations.

So according to the new great Papal leader Leo, the Catholic church is now in “Big Trouble” Not in Little China but globally because of hard working, job creating capitalists like Elon Musk who started out living in his mom’s basement eating Ramen Noodles for lunch and dinner every day,

Ok so Elon is the richest, or was the richest man in the world but who is the richest lady in the world? That would be a French woman by the name of Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, aged around 70. She is the granddaughter of Eugene Schueller who founded L’Oreal in 1909.

Ms. Meyer holds a 33% share in L’Oreal beauty Corporation, which also includes Prada and Yves Saint Laurent among her holdings. A recent uptick in L’Oreal’s stock value pushed her wealth over the $100 billion mark actually making her the 12th richest person in the world.

Ms. Meyer is a Roman Catholic who pledged $173 million British pounds to assist in the cost to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral what was destroyed by fire in 2019, Ms. Meyer along with other millionaires are major benefactors to the Roman Catholic Church.

No word yet if the new Pope Leo will bash Ms. Meyer for her entrepreneurship spirit or thank her for the donation, I doubt he will ever acknowledge her contribution which rebuilt the church, Communists like him, and other reasons are why I left the Catholic church 30 years ago and became a Baptist.

I even found out the Catholic Church also funded the NAZI rat lines from Germany to Argentina helping mass Nazi murderers escape justice from the Nuremberg trials in 1946 but that’s for another missive.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

Despite $27 Billion Surplus in June, More Fiscal Reforms Are Needed

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The U.S. Treasury Department announced Friday that the federal government ran a surplus of $27 billion in June, raising hopes that Washington may have turned a corner away from debt-bound demise. The month-in-black marked the first June surplus since 2017, the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first term, and it improved substantially upon the $71 billion deficit the government ran in June 2024. However, while the monthly surplus is a positive sign, the U.S. government is not out of the woods just yet.

Administration officials credited Trump’s tariffs for the budget surplus. “Another promise made. Another promise kept,” tweeted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “As President Trump works hard to take back our nation’s economic sovereignty, today’s Monthly Treasury Statement is demonstrating record customs duties — and with no inflation!” Indeed, the U.S. government collected some $27 billion in customs duties in June, a number strikingly close to the surplus.

Does this result signal that tariffs are the solution to America’s excessive federal debt?

The short answer is no, because the reality of government finances is far more complex.

To explain this, it’s helpful to begin with a definition. As many readers will already know, a surplus occurs when total income (receipts) exceeds total expenses (outlays). Last month, the federal government brought in $526 billion (a $60 billion increase, or 13%) and spent $499 billion (a $38 billion decrease, or 7%).

Right away, these figures make it apparent that the total surplus ($27 billion) was less than the decrease in outlays ($38 billion) and less than half the increase in receipts ($60 billion). Even though tariff income roughly equaled the surplus, it was not the largest factor in June’s budget result.

The decrease in outlays was primarily due to “calendar adjustments,” which happen when payments are made a few days earlier or later than normal, the Treasury Department acknowledged. Since June began on a Sunday, any payments due by June 1 would have been paid on the previous business day, Friday, May 30; these payments would therefore count towards May’s total, instead of June’s. Without these calendar adjustments, June would have registered a $70 billion deficit, the Treasury Department noted. (That’s a remarkably high discrepancy of $97 billion, or roughly 20% of all outlays, but there is also a remarkably high percentage of payments due on the first day of the month.)

The increase in receipts was also due primarily to non-tariff-related factors. While customs duties in June totaled $27 billion, they also brought in $23 billion in May, resulting in an increase of $4 billion. That means most of the $60 billion increase in revenue was raised from other sources, likely quarterly tax payments. “June is one of Treasury’s biggest revenue months of the year,” wrote The Wall Street Journal editors, “because it’s a month when companies and individuals file their quarterly estimated tax payments.”

This raises another essential point, which is that balancing the budget requires responsible spending across all 12 months of the fiscal year, not just a surplus in certain high-revenue months. Before the June surplus of $27 billion, the U.S. federal government ran a deficit of $316 billion in May, with nearly as much income from tariffs. For the current fiscal year, which began in October, the government has run a deficit of $1.34 trillion. In comparison, June’s surplus is little more than a rounding error (technically, $0.027 trillion).

“June was the highest monthly level so far [for customs duties],” the WSJ editors allowed, “but even on an annual basis that’s about $300 billion a year. That’s not nothing, but it won’t balance a $7 trillion spending budget.”

However, the effort to relate tariff revenue to the budget surplus does underscore one obvious point: the path to balancing the budget requires both more taxes and less spending. (Tariffs are a tax on imported goods.) Politicians don’t like to talk about this reality because both items are unpopular, but there’s no way around it, just like a family may be forced to both cut expenses and produce extra income (perhaps through a side hustle) to make ends meet.

Unfortunately, taxes have other ill effects. In economic terms, all taxes reduce efficiency by driving prices way above the supply-demand equilibrium, resulting in lost productivity known as “Dead Weight Loss.” Of course, taxes are necessary to support government, which God instituted as a means of common grace, and Scripture instructs Christians to pay their taxes (Matt 22:15-22; Romans 13:7). Nevertheless, taxes siphon off economic resources, making it beneficial to keep them as low as possible.

Already, the effect of tariffs may be slipping into U.S. inflation statistics. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.3% in June, after increasing 0.1% in May, for a 2.7% increase over the past 12 months, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Tuesday. Subtracting the volatile categories of food and energy, the “core” CPI increased 0.2% in June and 2.9% over the past 12 months.

While overall inflation numbers were only slightly higher than average, prices increased sharply in categories that are heavily dependent on foreign imports. For instance, apparel prices increased 0.4% in June, while household furnishings and appliances increased a whole 1.0% in a single month. Even pro-Trump Breitbart News attributed these increases to tariff pressures.

(In fairness to the administration, Trump’s tariffs have caused far less inflation than some critics have predicted, as Bessent recently pointed out. However, this is partly due to the fact that the higher tariff rates have yet to take effect for many countries.)

In addition to fueling inflation, tariffs (like all taxes) will also reduce economic activity. Even when taxes are beneficial, such economic downsides are inevitable. Thus, the simplest solution is for the government to avoid spending money it doesn’t have in the first place.

Alas, such warnings have gone unheeded for decades. Given the depth of the fiscal hole the U.S. government has dug for itself, there are no easy ways out — not tariffs, not DOGE cuts, not rescissions. Only hard, deep, and painful cuts — such as serious entitlement reform — can set the nation on the path to fiscal sustainability. And that is unlikely to happen until voters, like they did in Argentina, are willing to listen to real solutions.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

8 Policies to Help Young People Marry and Have Babies

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The number of babies born in the United States falls every year to new lows, imposing costs that experts warn could stretch into “quadrillions of dollars.” Now, analysts from two continents have proposed policies to help families get married and raise children — and help governments reverse the societal impact of the global demographic time bomb.

Governments should analyze how policies impact families, address inflation, lower housing costs, end the marriage penalty, make deadbeat dads support their children, and destigmatize marriage and family, say experts. The recommendations come from two reports, one in the U.S. and the second from an organization comprised of 56 nations stretching from the United States and Europe to central Asia.

“Demographic change is a defining megatrend with far-reaching implications for societies, economies, and governance structures which impact labour markets, pension systems, healthcare services, and social stability,” Gudrun Kugler, a member of Austria’s parliament and author of the transatlantic study, told The Washington Stand. “I am very concerned about the long-term consequences of an aging workforce, population decline, and the increasing burden on healthcare and pension systems, which, if left unaddressed, could undermine social stability, economic growth and even regional security.”

To arrest this trend, Kugler authored an in-depth study largely focused on the cost of depopulation, in her capacity as vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA). Meanwhile, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) produced a detailed series of policy recommendations, edited by Timothy Carney, a columnist at the Washington Examiner and senior fellow at AEI, who was joined by numerous distinguished public intellectuals.

AEI recommended:

1. Require a Family-Formation Review of New Federal Actions. Federal law already requires the government to perform an environmental impact statement analyzing how rules will impact the planet every time it proposes a new rule. The Paperwork Reduction Act tries to address the amount of time each new rule will force business owners to spend in regulatory compliance. Why not treat the American family as well as the delta smelt? “Congress should require federal agencies to examine how their actions affect family formation,” writes Carney. “Does a new regulation create a marriage penalty? Does it make homeownership more difficult? Does it discriminate against larger families?” Good policy begins by minding how government policy impacts the family unit.

2. Remove Roadblocks to Starter Homes. Young families cite the high cost of raising a family, especially the rising cost of housing, as a disincentive to have children. The government should reduce the portion of bloated home costs due to federal regulations.

“The Federal Emergency Management Agency and Environmental Protection Agency develop national model building codes, which states and localities use to draft their regulations. The Clean Water Act and Occupational Safety and Health Administration directly affect builders. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that the cost of regulatory compliance constitutes nearly a quarter of the cost of a single-family home,” noted Carney.

He advised the federal government to measure which regulations most inflate the cost of housing and find ways to “mitigate the added costs.”

President Donald Trump is already curbing the national regulatory burden through his January 31 executive order “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation,” which forces regulators to cut 10 rules from the federal code for every new federal rule, regulation, or guidance.

3 and 4. Reform the Child Tax Credit for inflation and incentivize work. The report contains two recommendations to improve the impact of the Child Tax Credit (CTC).

First, the government should inflation-proof the CTC. President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act doubled the Child Tax Credit to $2,000 beginning in 2018. But rampant inflation under his successor, Joe Biden, reduced the credit’s real value today by $500,” or 25%, wrote Kevin Corinth. “The simple solution is to extend the TCJA while increasing the CTC to $2,500 and indexing it for inflation.”

Second, the CTC should encourage recipients to find gainful employment. The 2021 CTC “made the mistake of offering unconditional cash payments to nonworking families, which can undermine the connections among work, marriage, and family life,” wrote Brad Wilcox. “Congress should pass a CTC that requires a modest income threshold of $20,000 before the full $2,000-per-child credit kicks in.” Wilcox recommends a CTC increase 10-times as large as Corinth’s, writing, “That credit should increase to $5,000 annually for each child under age five and $3,000 for each school-age child under 18.”

5. Use the Child Support Payments to Bring Low-Income Men into the Workforce. Single women find it difficult to raise children if low-income, absentee fathers refuse to pay child support. One in eight (13%) U.S. families lacks a working father: 8% of American homes have no working parents, and mothers support 5% of all families, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“Congress could adopt a work requirement for low-income men who owe child support payments” before they can receive Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) — as it currently does for women, wrote Howard Husock. Specifically, the Department of Health and Human Services should withhold federal grants to assist states with child support enforcement unless those states implement work requirements for TANF.

Furthermore, there should be penalties for men who choose to remain deadbeat dads: “[N]oncustodial parents who fail to gain employment or participate in a state employment training program should face imprisonment,” advised Hucock.

6. Reform the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Rules on Subsidized Housing. HUD policy tends to increase government dependence, particularly for single parents. The average person living in public housing has been there for 10 years, according to HUD statistics. “Two-parent families with children occupy just 3 percent of subsidized housing,” wrote Husock. Congress should impose a five-year time limit for federal housing benefits, similar to that of TANF, which “would incentivize households to increase their earnings and move up and out.”

7. Schools Craft Better Cell Phone Policies. Last December, the outgoing Biden-Harris administration issued a report on cell phone usage in schools, titled “Planning Together: A Playbook for Student Personal Device Policies.” Then-Education Secretary Miguel Cardona suggested states explore how cell phones and other smart devices affect learning. Christopher Scalia suggests Congress pass the Focus on Learning Act, which would mandate a national study on the impact of cellphone use on schoolchildren’s education, behavior, and overall mental health. The bill “would still help states and school districts understand, explain, and implement the best policies to overcome the challenges posed by cell phones in school,” wrote Scalia. “It’s a modest but realistic measure that respects federalism.”

8. Re-enchant marriage, motherhood, and religious faith. In her report, Kugler called for a social and religious reformation supporting marriage, child-rearing, and the religious faith that inspires and sustains family formation.

“A broad cultural transformation is needed to create an environment that supports family formation and its stability over time, child-rearing, and work-life balance,” including efforts to “restore societal prestige” for parents including “family and child-friendly TV content” and “family-friendly curricula in schools.” She asked social leaders to raise awareness about the dangers of delaying pregnancy until later in life, including “higher risks of infertility, complicated pregnancies, and increased rates of miscarriage.” Culture should aim to increase marital stability, “avoid stigmatizing stay-at-home parents,” and “facilitating adoption.”

A faith-filled environment benefits families as well, wrote Kugler. “Religion plays a significant role in family values, and research shows that people with faith adherences tend to have higher birth rates. A balanced approach that respects religious beliefs and supports family life can help create a more inclusive society. Governments must recognize the positive impact that religious institutions can have on family stability and uphold freedom of religion,” wrote Kugler.

Everyone agrees the costs of inaction are high. Unless Americans reverse the nation’s low birthrate, “the U.S. will face an existential economic crisis” which “could have an impact measured in the quadrillions of dollars,” wrote Jesús Fernández-Villaverde in The American Enterprise, AEI’s monthly publication.

“Aging populations, declining birth rates, and increasing unplanned childlessness, lead to a concerning worker-retiree dependency ratio that necessitate[s] urgent and coordinated political action. It is therefore crucial, to adopt policies that support families, parents, and having children, and to promote intergenerational solidarity,” Kugler told TWS. “At the same time, we will have to intensify urban and rural development policies that ensure adequate infrastructure and services while undergoing demographic changes.”

The West’s way of life cannot continue “without major adjustments,” her report concluded.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Having Fewer Babies Will Cost U.S. Economy ‘Quadrillions of Dollars’: Study

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The West’s growing epidemic of childlessness and depopulation will “fundamentally alter our societies” and impose “an existential economic crisis” on the United States that will cost the U.S. alone “quadrillions of dollars,” according to two new reports.

Despite decades of warnings about overpopulation, the United States and Europe have long had fertility rates below the replacement level of 2.1 children per family. The global population bust will lead to nations with lower GDP, higher welfare spending, fewer workers, less economic power — and, possibly, a shift away from a global order led by the once-Christian West to one overwhelmed by a growing Muslim population.

“If we are unable to address our fertility crisis, the U.S. will face an existential economic crisis driven by a steep decline in fertility rates — one that could have an impact measured in the quadrillions of dollars,” wrote Jesús Fernández-Villaverde in The American Enterprise, the monthly publication of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). “[Y]es, tackling fertility has an impact measured in discounted terms of quadrillions of dollars, not just small change like a miserly trillion dollars here or there.”

“Seems bad,” quipped Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies (IFS).

If anything, the economic concerns minimize the full extent of the social revolution soon to be ushered in through low fertility, say experts in Europe.

The world’s impending underpopulation “should be treated as a primary political issue: We will be witnessing the reshaping of our region’s social, economic, and political landscape, impacting social structure, infrastructure, labour force, retirement, old age and health, state finances, and security — almost every aspect of life. It will break the system,” wrote Gudrun Kugler of Austria.

Global Population Bust

No one questions the fact that nearly every corner of the globe is producing fewer babies. Global fertility has plunged from five children per woman in 1950 to around 2.25 children per woman in 2023, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s “World Population Prospects” report. “Globally, the total fertility rate is likely already below replacement — that is, below the level needed to sustain the population in the long run, approximately 2.18 children per woman. In the U.S., it’s around 1.6,” wrote Fernández-Villaverde.

The birthrate in every society on nearly every continent is below replacement level, except sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, noted Kugler — who is vice president of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA).

Of OSCE region’s 56 member nations, only the primarily Muslim nations of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan currently have replacement-level birthrates. Roman Catholic Malta had the lowest birthrate at 1.08. “Even in India birth rates have fallen below replacement levels: Only five out of thirty-six states are now above replacement level,” noted the OSCE report. After decades of a brutally enforced one-child policy, “China could lose as many as 600 million inhabitants by the end of the century,” added Fernández-Villaverde.

“This trend is evident in both wealthy and poor nations, in religious and secular states, in countries with right-wing governments, as well as those with left-wing governments, and in nations with free abortion access and those with restrictive abortion laws,” wrote Fernández-Villaverde.

However, abortion impacts the global fertility replacement level in one way: “[T]he global replacement rate of 2.18 is slightly higher than that of the U.S. due to selective abortion of girls in Asia and higher female mortality in Africa.”

To make matters worse, the full extent of the problem is hidden by a phenomenon known as “population momentum”: Women in the Millennial and Gen Z cohorts continue to have babies while their parents are alive, coasting on previous fertility rates. “All of today’s global population growth is solely a result of this momentum,” stated the AEI report.

The largest driver of the West’s demographic decline is unplanned childlessness. While those who become parents have roughly the same amount of children as usual, the rates of those who never have children has increased as much as 10-fold in Italy. Most were not childless by choice: Only 32% of childless Europeans did not want children, compared with 38% who desired children but never had them, noted Kugler in her report, “Demographic Change in the OSCE Region: Analysis, Impact and Possible Solutions of a Mega Trend Reshaping Society.”

These changes will have a profound impact on the entire world.

Economic Catastrophe

With fewer children, the U.S. economic engine will soon run out of fuel. It’s simple math: “Since the Civil War, the long-term average growth rate of output per worker in the U.S. has been approximately 1.9% annually,” according to Fernández-Villaverde. Economic growth is the output per worker plus the size of the labor pool. With fewer children, American GDP will grow at a slower rate, and “in downturns, the economy will contract, not just grow more slowly.”

The population advantage can be measured by comparing the U.S. to one of the nations at the forefront of demographic decline: Japan. From 1991 to 2019, the U.S. averaged 2.53% average economic growth, while the Japanese economy grew by only 0.83%. For all but seven of those years, the Japanese worker’s productivity exceeded that of his American counterpart. The difference? The U.S. labor force increased by 0.91% annually, while the Japanese population contracted by 0.54% a year.

“Once we begin to contemplate the fiscal implications of a declining population, it becomes difficult to focus on anything else,” concluded Fernández-Villaverde.

Dire Consequences

The consequences of the West’s birthrate falling below replacement level will be profound, according to the studies. Fewer workers will create labor shortages, leading to lower innovation, a sluggish economy, and rising dependency. A less productive society will decimate the tax base, lowering the amount of revenue the government collects and, in the process, straining pension systems and welfare programs.

This is particularly true of government transfer payments such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In Austria, by 2042, “there will be only two working people for every pensioner, compared to today’s ratio of three to one,” noted Kugler.

An aging population exponentially increases a society’s health care costs. In Austria, those over the age of 60 make twice as many doctor visits as those under that age. “In Spain, in 2011, 80% of all pharmaceutical expenses were made by people aged 65 or more, who were 17% of the population then,” Kugler wrote.

Fewer babies being born also transforms societies in more profound ways beyond those that can be measured on a spreadsheet. One is growing social isolation and hopelessness. In 2023, then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued the first-ever report on America’s “epidemic of loneliness.” In the U.K., 7.1% of the population — or 3.83 million Britons — report experiencing “chronic loneliness.” Smaller families and a shrinking social circle, worsened by decreasing church attendance, breed depression.

Depopulation hits rural areas the hardest. A smaller national population increases urbanization, even as most Americans say they would rather live in a small town or rural area. Those in rural areas may see vital resources such as hospitals and grocery stores close.

A smaller population also has the potential to alter the global balance of power. Fewer people also impact the government’s ability to pay the national debt and maintain an adequate armed force deterrent. Overall noted Kugler, a smaller population in the West “could lead to a shift in geopolitical dynamics, as Europe’s demographic decline may reduce its strategic importance in global affairs.”

Increased Immigration Cannot Solve the Problem

The U.S. population has only grown due to immigration, which brings its own challenges to social cohesion. Yet increasing immigration levels cannot even solve the economic problems posed by a shrinking populace, because, wrote Fernández-Villaverde, most legal immigrants are a net economic drain. “[O]nly at the top 10th percentiles are [immigrants] net contributors” to the economy. “In other words, all immigrants that come to the US are below the 90th percentile and won’t help solve the fiscal woes created by low fertility.”

Furthermore, the children of immigrants pose similar issues. “European countries that have the detailed databases required to compute these numbers carefully have found that not even the second-generation (i.e., the sons of immigrants born in the country) is a net contributor to the welfare state,” he noted.

Perhaps with this in mind, President Donald Trump has proposed creating a $5 million “Gold Card” visa, granting those who purchase it legal residency and a path to U.S. citizenship.

All told, wrote Kugler, the West’s way of life cannot continue “without major adjustments.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Harris Campaign Leader Admits VP Plans to ‘Keep a Lot’ of Biden’s Economic Policies

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According to the co-chairman of the Harris-Walz campaign, incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris has a plan to fix the American economy — and that plan is almost identical to what she and President Joe Biden are already doing with their White House tenure. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.), one of the chairmen of Harris’s presidential campaign, addressed Americans’ financial worries in an interview on Tuesday, claiming that Harris has a plan to “open up the door to economic opportunity.”

CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Coons, “Do you think that the American public … deserve to know specific details about her economic plan?” In other words, “Should you know what your tax rate is going to be or at least what she believes your tax rate should be before you go to the polls? Should you know what the regulatory sort of regime in her perfected world would look like?”

Coons replied that Harris has “laid out a broad vision for what are her priorities” in terms of the economy. After suggesting that Americans “look at the chaos, the unpredictability, the sort of careening around the field of the former president,” the Delaware Democrat did admit that Harris intends “to keep a lot of the same policies and agendas” put in place by the Biden-Harris administration.

But those same economic policies and agendas have proven wildly unpopular. For years now, Americans have been worrying about skyrocketing inflation and sharply-increasing housing prices while going into debt just to fund day-to-day necessities like school supplies for children. Noting these concerns, CNBC’s Joe Kernen said, “Americans still don’t feel like it’s a great economy and they prefer Trump — maybe it’s narrowing a little, but they prefer Trump and the way he managed the economy more than the current administration.”

Coons responded, “Part of it is that Americans — when you ask the question, ‘Are you better off today than you were four years ago?’ — many Americans misremember just how bad the economy was four years ago and how strong our economic recovery from the pandemic has been.”

But Americans do remember being able to afford gas and groceries. Immediately following the presidential debate earlier this month between Harris and her rival, former President Donald Trump, undecided and Independent voters overwhelmingly aligned with Trump, largely citing the strength of the U.S. economy under his administration. One voter told The New York Times, “When Trump was in office — not going to lie — I was living way better. I’ve never been so down as in the past four years. It’s been so hard for me.”

In fact, according to voter analysis from Fox News, even Democrats preferred Trump’s vision and plan for the economy, jobs, and inflation over Harris’s. A CNN poll found that Trump maintains a 20-point lead over Harris on economic issues, which have been consistently ranked the most pressing concern for voters ahead of November. He also holds a 23-point lead over Harris on immigration, which voters rank as a close second for crucial issues.

A number of voters also expressed dissatisfaction with Harris’s failure to clarify her plan for the economy. Many said that the vice president was too vague and offered few details. Those complaints have persisted in the succeeding weeks, as Harris has failed to offer specifics in interviews. Even when asked point blank, Harris has opted to reminisce about her “middle class” childhood rather than detail her vision for the economy.

Coons was confronted on this point on Tuesday. Sorkin said that he could only name five specific policies Harris has mentioned over the past months and noted that most voters would prefer to hear of 10 or 15 proposals. Coons grinned and, instead of offering answers, simply asked, “And what do you know about Donald Trump’s tax and regulatory agenda?”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Kamala Harris Is Running a Giveaway Campaign’: Economist

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As presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Kamala Harris approach their first debate on Tuesday, their campaigns have unveiled economic policies that seem in some ways diametrically opposed — and only one could stimulate “robust economic growth,” a leading economist has warned.

Harris has proposed imposing price controls on food, undoing the Trump tax cuts of 2017 by raising the top tax rate to 39.6%, hiking corporate taxes and capital gains taxes to 28%, giving first-time homebuyers $25,000, and doubling down on Obamacare by raising taxpayer-funded subsidies for those who buy their plans from the exchange.

She also proposed one tax cut to benefit small businesses. “I want to see 25 million new small business applications by the end of my first term,” said Harris last week. “So, part of my plan is we will expand the tax deduction for startups to $50,000.”

In a speech at the Economic Club of New York last Thursday, former President Trump proposed unleashing the power of the free market by maintaining the 2017 tax cuts and further slashing the corporate tax from 21% to 15%, cutting red tape, protecting U.S. manufacturing by raising tariffs on imported goods, clawing back all unspent funds from the Biden-Harris administration’s Inflation Reduction Act, and making more jobs available to U.S. citizens by deporting illegal immigrants who lower wages and compete for jobs.

Both candidates agree on ending federal taxation on tips, a policy first proposed this presidential race by Trump and parroted by Harris.

“Kamala Harris is running a giveaway campaign,” Paul Mueller, a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) told “Washington Watch” guest host Joseph Backholm last Thursday. “Of course, the Biden administration has been trying to cancel various forms of student debt for years now. And her approach, I think, to stimulating the economy is more of what we’ve seen over the past four years, which is extensive government involvement, huge amounts of spending. It’s not really an organic growth within the economy.”

Artificial stimulus raises prices, a major problem over the course of the Biden-Harris administration. “When you subsidize people’s ability to buy things — whether that’s higher education or health care — and we give people money in the form of loans or grants or scholarships to do that, what it does is boosts demand. And so what we see over time in both of those areas is rising costs. The cost of higher education has grown much faster than everything else in the economy. The rate of increase for health care has increased very rapidly,” Mueller stated. “And so this $25,000 credit for first-time home buyers, while it sounds nice, it’s actually going to continue to put upward pressure on the price of housing overall.”

The entire amount of the subsidy is “actually going to be eaten up by rising prices,” Mueller noted.

Even a putatively pro-business tax policy like a small business tax credit could backfire. “There are a lot of small business owners who maybe will close down their existing business and start a new one just to get the tax credit,” Mueller warned.

On the other hand, “President Trump’s agenda” has the potential to spur “robust economic growth” in an organic way, said Mueller. “He has talked about wanting to roll back regulations.”

Mueller noted he opposed Trump’s tariff policy, “and, then, he hasn’t really addressed runaway government spending. And the more money that is spent by the federal government, the less money there is for people in the private sector to spend on their businesses, their houses, their projects.”

Backholm suggested the greatest vacuum in economic dialogue involves America’s $35 trillion national debt. “So far, we are not seeing a lot of politicians raise their hand and say, ‘I’m the guy that’s going to give you less so we can save the future.’ I think that might be what we need. We’re not getting that from anybody at this point.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.