Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — This coast sells rooms and plates. I know what a July without dishwashers looks like, and I know what a wink looks like, and they aren't the same kindness. We are not speculating about this. Three weeks ago there was a public statement about farm and hotel workers being hurt, … Continue reading Should mass-removal operations be paced to agricultural and hospitality labor demand, or does that pacing recreate the old wink under a new name?
politics
Have mid-year tariff actions produced more reshoring and bargaining leverage than they have raised input costs for builders, farms, and retailers?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — A tariff is a price and a letter. At mid-year we have more of the letter than we have of a finished plant. That isn't a reason to call the letter a failure. It's a reason not to call it a factory. Input costs are real. Builders are paying them in … Continue reading Have mid-year tariff actions produced more reshoring and bargaining leverage than they have raised input costs for builders, farms, and retailers?
If Congress will not repeal the statutes that create the spending, can an efficiency office do more than delay outlays and demoralize staff — or is delay itself the only leverage a president has left?
Gastonia, NC This question is about whether a president may lawfully delay spending, and there is a statute that answers it directly, and this Forum has now discussed the subject for six months without naming it once. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974. It was passed because Richard Nixon refused to spend money Congress had … Continue reading If Congress will not repeal the statutes that create the spending, can an efficiency office do more than delay outlays and demoralize staff — or is delay itself the only leverage a president has left?
Do cuts and pauses in foreign-aid and humanitarian vehicles prove that a lot of spending had no domestic constituency — or that efficiency campaigns always start with the least-lobbied accounts rather than the largest ones?
Myrtle Beach, SC Both halves are partly right and the arithmetic settles which one matters more, so let me do the arithmetic. Total US foreign assistance runs somewhere under seventy billion dollars a year. USAID's share was around forty billion. Federal outlays are roughly six and three-quarter trillion. So the entire foreign aid budget is … Continue reading Do cuts and pauses in foreign-aid and humanitarian vehicles prove that a lot of spending had no domestic constituency — or that efficiency campaigns always start with the least-lobbied accounts rather than the largest ones?
Is the increasing politicization of once-neutral institutions now a greater long-term risk than any single policy failure?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — Policy failures can be corrected by later elections. A shared factual and procedural baseline can't be restored the same way. I'd say the part that makes this question hard rather than easy in December. The coalition that has spent a decade making this argument is about to hold the executive branch. … Continue reading Is the increasing politicization of once-neutral institutions now a greater long-term risk than any single policy failure?
Is the current structure of the Electoral College still the best available mechanism for balancing national and federal interests in presidential selection?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — This question reads differently than it would have in October, and that's the useful thing about answering it now. The winner carried the popular vote. So the argument most people have actually been having for twenty-four years — that the mechanism produces winners the country didn't choose — didn't arise … Continue reading Is the current structure of the Electoral College still the best available mechanism for balancing national and federal interests in presidential selection?
Will the combination of elevated interest rates and high government debt eventually force a fiscal adjustment that neither party appears prepared to make?
Owatonna, MN Correspondent — Higher rates raise the cost of servicing the stock and high deficits keep adding to it. The number that ended the abstraction this year is that net interest exceeded defense spending. That's not a projection. It's the ledger, and it happened while both parties campaigned on programs that assume it away. … Continue reading Will the combination of elevated interest rates and high government debt eventually force a fiscal adjustment that neither party appears prepared to make?
Did the presidential election produce a lasting realignment of the major-party coalitions, or another high-turnout polarized contest?
Wheeling, WV Correspondent — We now have a result rather than a forecast, and the result is more interesting than either camp's account of it. Nearly every county in the country moved in the same direction. Not the swing states — every county, including places that were never contested and had no advertising and no … Continue reading Did the presidential election produce a lasting realignment of the major-party coalitions, or another high-turnout polarized contest?
Regardless of who wins, has the 2024 campaign exposed structural weaknesses in the primary system, debate format, campaign finance, or party institutions that should be reformed before 2028?
Prescott Valley, Arizona Correspondent — Yes, and this is the question I'd most like the winner to take seriously, precisely because nobody has any incentive to. The primary process again compressed serious scrutiny and rewarded early momentum. Debate formats struggled to hold order and substance. Campaign finance continues to route influence through outside groups while … Continue reading Regardless of who wins, has the 2024 campaign exposed structural weaknesses in the primary system, debate format, campaign finance, or party institutions that should be reformed before 2028?
Briefly, what are the three or four most consequential issues the winner must confront in the first year, and which candidate is better equipped to address them?
Clermont, Florida Correspondent — Restore operational control at the border and fix the asylum mismatch. Address cost-of-living pressure through energy production, housing supply, and spending discipline. Rebuild deterrence in the Middle East and hold a competitive stance toward China without new open-ended wars. Signal fiscal seriousness on the debt path. Trump's record and stated priorities … Continue reading Briefly, what are the three or four most consequential issues the winner must confront in the first year, and which candidate is better equipped to address them?
