Florida Man
People love to hate on Florida.
Ron DeSantis: Good Riddance to the U.S. Education Department
Florida man takes victory lap, education policy edition.
‘Florida has led the nation in refocusing our education systems on educating our students for lifelong success by eliminating DEI, expanding educational options, and making data-driven investments that support positive student outcomes.
‘As a result of Florida’s state-led reforms and nation-leading approach to education, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Florida No. 1 in education among the 50 states for the past two years.’
Make the Education Department Work for Parents, Not Bureaucrats | Opinion
How do you prove that the bureaucrats have failed? Would they even accept the metrics if you tried?
‘As it turns out, the very people responsible for running the show weren't very good at their jobs. They prioritized activists, bureaucrats, and unions over the needs of students and children. Accordingly, the fact that the very people who presided over such spectacular failure have been removed from the equation (and that taxpayers won't be underwriting such a boondoggle) is a net positive for the country. For defenders of the status quo to argue otherwise raises an important question—whose team are they on, anyway?
‘Exit polling showed that parents with minor children swung hard for President Trump in November. His administration is now reorienting the country's educational system to serve their needs, rather than bureaucrats' needs. His policies are finally putting students first, equipping them with the tools necessary to be well-functioning, flourishing individuals—and not a moment too soon.’
14 priorities in slashing spending and regulation before ‘America 250’—#7 will shock you!
This is an important point. Much regulation happens in the in-between spaces of government contracting. Monopsony power, indeed.
This is just one of several key points including noting the abuse of crises to extend regulation.
‘Downscale federal contracting and procurement: As the world’s largest buyer, the federal government exploits its “monopsony” power to impose costly mandates and steer industries. Regulatory strings attached to procurement contracts enable federal overreach—severing these ties would weaken one of the administrative state’s most potent tools of control.’
How American Bureaucrats Became Public Enemy No. 1
Here’s the article’s logic:
1. In the wake of the Great Depression and the Second World War, intellectuals flooded into government because the problems the nation faced were so great, therefore all bureaucrats are intellectuals and members of the cognitive and social elite
2. Musk & Co are attacking the bureaucracy
3. Therefore, Musk & Co are anti-intellectual
I hate to break it to you, but the bureaucracy hasn’t attracted intellectuals in a long, long time.
Where do they go? They go to technology companies like Google or to startups where they can make buckets of cash. They teach in universities (hunkered down in a frightened silence as the DEI and antisemitic whirlwinds blow at terrifying speed). They’re at think tanks and non-profits and non-governmental organizations where they can make decent coin and have little oversight.
Public service? Not so much.
The article just skips over the past seventy years like nothing happened.
‘The Condon Affair, as it was known, has been largely forgotten. But it bears all the hallmarks of the worst of the Red Scare era: knee-jerk anti-intellectualism; a baseless conviction that an elite, anti-American conspiracy was pulling the strings in Washington; and a willingness to abuse the levers of political power with little foresight about the unintended consequences. As Donald Trump and Elon Musk attempt to dismantle the federal government in the name of rooting out the so-called deep state and the supposed horrors of “woke,” they are drawing on a line of thinking that has long animated the Republican hard right. It goes back to the founding of the modern federal bureaucracy in the 1930s. Far from being a new phenomenon, paranoid anti-elitism in America has a long and surprising pedigree.’
Trump Says He’s a Victim of Debanking
Capital One never thought Trump would be re-elected, I guess.
The irony is that debanking, intended to manage reputational risk, has generated far more of it than it was meant to defease.
‘As if Republicans weren’t already fired up about “debanking,” President Trump is now saying he was a victim of it.The Trump Organization sued Capital One this month, claiming the bank closed hundreds of its corporate accounts in 2021, without citing any explicit reason. According to the lawsuit, Capital One gave notice of its decision two months after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, the trough of Mr. Trump’s reputation.’
DOGE Is a Wakeup Call for Economists and Attorneys
Having ignored policy failure as inconvenient, are economists now less relevant?
‘The economics profession should reflect on the fact that DOGE is proceeding without the input of economists because economists have downplayed the persistence and extent of government policy failures. Minimizing governmental shortcomings weakens the profession’s policymaking relevance. The legal profession should reflect on the fact that lawyers lack the requisite economic training to grasp the potentially adverse implications and social desirability of DOGE policies and actions that lawyers are facilitating and defending.’
Climate change regulation that grows exponentially is a luxury we can no longer afford.
‘Among the topics to be reconsidered are EPA regulations designed to “encourage” the switch to electric vehicles. Other items on Zeldin’s agenda include scrapping the EPA’s Environmental Justice and DEI arms, and a technical sounding but important move — “overhauling” the calculation of the “Social Cost of Carbon.” This purports to be the cost of the damage caused by the release of each additional ton of CO2 into the atmosphere. It’s a number that has significant regulatory consequences such as in constructing cost/benefit analyses of new rules. And it has been a thumb on the scale to advance the green agenda. It was assessed at $43 under Barack Obama and at $3-$5 in the first Trump administration — and rose from $51 to $190 under Joe Biden.
‘This all points to a more rational, less economically harmful climate policy, but, as always, there’s going to be litigation. Here, the 2007 Supreme Court ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA is going to be a major obstacle. It held that greenhouse gas emissions were a “pollutant.” Once the Court came to that conclusion, the EPA was obliged to regulate such emissions — in what is a low bar — if they could “reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”’
UK regulators to face twice-yearly reviews as Reeves vows to slash red tape
The British know that regulatory free-rein is a luxury they can no longer afford. Reeves is a Chancellor who has a portrait of a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain on her wall.
Et tu, Brute?
‘Regulators will face twice-yearly performance reviews from ministers, aimed at forcing them to be more growth-friendly, as the chancellor warned that “too much bureaucracy” is holding back the economy.
‘Rachel Reeves met financial, environmental and health regulators in Downing Street on Monday and urged them to continue to streamline their approach, to make it more pro-business.’
4 ways your state can embrace DOGE principles
This is something that is not said frequently enough. Just eliminating out-of-date regulations on the books would be a huge boon.
‘Every state has tens of thousands of regulations on the books — many of which are outdated, unenforced, or irrelevant, given social and technological advancements.
‘Keeping these unnecessary rules in place gives aggressive bureaucrats opportunities to overextend their power and creates confusion for citizens and businesses. States should mandate regular reviews of existing regulations, repealing those that no longer serve a purpose to streamline compliance and foster a more dynamic economic environment.’