Category: reason

Biden’s Infrastructure Plan Would Overturn ‘Right-To-Work’ Laws in 27 States


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Buried inside more than $2 trillion in proposed spending on everything from highways to child care, President Joe Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” would also force non-union workers to pay union dues even in states that have explicitly said that’s not mandatory.

Biden glossed over that detail in Wednesday’s speech outlining the particulars of his “American Jobs Plan.” He made just a single reference to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the House earlier this month, calling it a bill that would “help workers organize.”

In reality, the PRO Act strengthens unions by telling workers to pay up. Among other things, the bill would amend parts of the National Labor Relations Act to allow the federal government to stomp out the so-called “right-to-work” laws that forbid unions from forcing non-members to pay a share of union dues. If passed, the PRO Act would roll back the rights of individual workers, who would no longer get to choose whether they want to financially support a union.

Passage of the PRO Act is obviously a major political priority for labor unions—Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, recently described it as a “game-changer” in an interview with NPR—because it wold provide a new stream of revenue even as the overall number of unionized workers continues to decline.

But it is a strange way to pursue Biden’s ultimate goal improving America’s infrastructure as a form of economic stimulus.

“We view this measure as a significant threat to the viability of the commercial construction industry,” warns Stephen Sandherr, CEO of the Associated General Contractors of America, an industry group. He predicts that passage of the PRO Act would usher in more labor unrest, and observes that it is difficult to complete large-scale infrastructure projects when “work is idled, workers are unpaid, and projects go uncompleted.”

It’s also a move that seems to misread obvious economic signals. Not only has the number of states with right-to-work laws been growing, but those states have seen manufacturing employment grow more than twice as fast since 2010 when compared to states without right-to-work laws. If Biden is seeking an economic boost for the country, he’d push to let all workers enjoy the freedom to choose whether to support a union or keep more of their paychecks.

Beyond the right-to-work provision, the PRO Act is a grab bag of policies that would help tip the scales towards unions. It would force employers to turn over employees’ private information—including cellphone numbers, email addresses, and work schedules—to union organizers. It would accelerate the National Labor Relation Board’s official timetable for union organizing elections in non-union workplaces. And it would codify so-called “card check” elections, removing the protection of the secret ballot when a workplace votes to unionize.

The White House says Biden’s “American Jobs Plan” will give workers “a free and fair choice to join a union.” But in calling for the passage of the PRO Act, Biden is actually taking that choice away from many workers who currently enjoy it—and transfer money directly from workers’ paychecks to labor unions’ bottom lines.

“The PRO Act does strengthen unions, but it does so mainly by giving unions more power to force recalcitrant workers to fall in line,” says Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank. “The Biden administration wants to strip workers of their right for their own good.”

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Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmetic, and Zero About Jobs


topicslifestyle

Firefighter. Lion tamer. Nurse. Teacher. Cop.

Those are the careers most young people are familiar with. In a world where you can spend your life designing beer bottles, inspecting sewers, prepping cadavers, or programming robot dogs, you’d think we might spend a little more time introducing young people to the wide, wide world of work, instead of just leaving it all to Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs.

What we need is something beyond career day but a little less time-intensive than semesterlong internships. I propose Job Tourism, an idea I’m basically stealing from author David Epstein—and the U.S. Army.

In Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (Macmillan), Epstein talks about the advantages reaped by folks who switch careers, or at least seriously pursue other interests beyond the field they’re working in. In a chapter on job dissatisfaction, he homes in on the U.S. Army, which in the 1980s started hemorrhaging its best and brightest, including its West Point grads. Once these smart and driven folks had served the minimum time required, many of them were jumping ship (if I may mix my military metaphors). In desperation, the Army decided to try retention bonuses. In 2007–2008 it spent over half a billion dollars on these, offering lump sums to active duty officers commissioned between 1999 and 2005 if they’d stick around for three more years.

It didn’t work. The officers who were going to leave left anyway. The ones who were going to stay just pocketed the perk.

When money didn’t do the trick, the Army changed tactics. It started something called “talent-based branching.” Each participant was rotated through about half a dozen departments. “And then,” Epstein says, “they’d reflect on how it fit their interests and abilities,” as would the Army. “The retention with people who go through talent-based branching has been way better without the retention bonuses, because they end up with a better match quality.” Match quality, as you might guess, is the compatibility between the person and the job.

There were two revelations beyond this. First, Epstein says, “The cadets going through it were often really surprised by their own weaknesses. They thought they would be really good at things they weren’t good at.” That’s a helpful bit of self-knowledge. On the flip side, the cadets also discovered new fields and talents. Ninety percent of them ended up changing one of their top two career preferences. These young people had been pretty clueless not just about the jobs out there but about which jobs they were best suited for.

Now think of the other 99 percent of American teens and 20-somethings trying to find their way. “How we learn to do and be is by paying attention to our social world,” says social psychologist Debra Mashek, founder of Myco -Consulting. “It’s limiting the individual’s ability to fulfill their own purpose if they don’t have a sense of what’s out there, or what’s -possible.”

When I asked parents how their kids were getting exposed to potential careers, most said that sometime in middle or high school there was some sort of jobs day.

At her sons’ school, says Andrea Mays, a professor of economics at California State University, Long Beach, it’s Merchant Monday: Sixth-graders are assigned to one of the businesses on Main Street. One of her sons was placed in a Middle Eastern restaurant, where he got to pick mint leaves for the tea. The family still eats there 15 years later.

Lisa Avila, a Florida mom, still remembers the day a Navy pilot came to her high school to discuss his career: “He said women shouldn’t be in the Navy, much less be pilots.” She went on to join the Navy—and become a pilot.

Other parents mentioned school programs where community members teach electives such as cake decorating or forensic science. A few said their kids attend schools that offer training in specific trades. Many colleges encourage internships—a chance to try out a job over weeks or months. And some organizations are trying to widen the horizon. The Harraseeket Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit, gets community members to discuss their careers with young people and help them network.

Young people need more job sampling opportunities. While school is supposed to prepare them for the world, it mostly keeps them away from it.

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Reading, Writing, ‘Rithmetic, and Zero About Jobs


topicslifestyle

Firefighter. Lion tamer. Nurse. Teacher. Cop.

Those are the careers most young people are familiar with. In a world where you can spend your life designing beer bottles, inspecting sewers, prepping cadavers, or programming robot dogs, you’d think we might spend a little more time introducing young people to the wide, wide world of work, instead of just leaving it all to Mike Rowe and his Dirty Jobs.

What we need is something beyond career day but a little less time-intensive than semesterlong internships. I propose Job Tourism, an idea I’m basically stealing from author David Epstein—and the U.S. Army.

In Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (Macmillan), Epstein talks about the advantages reaped by folks who switch careers, or at least seriously pursue other interests beyond the field they’re working in. In a chapter on job dissatisfaction, he homes in on the U.S. Army, which in the 1980s started hemorrhaging its best and brightest, including its West Point grads. Once these smart and driven folks had served the minimum time required, many of them were jumping ship (if I may mix my military metaphors). In desperation, the Army decided to try retention bonuses. In 2007–2008 it spent over half a billion dollars on these, offering lump sums to active duty officers commissioned between 1999 and 2005 if they’d stick around for three more years.

It didn’t work. The officers who were going to leave left anyway. The ones who were going to stay just pocketed the perk.

When money didn’t do the trick, the Army changed tactics. It started something called “talent-based branching.” Each participant was rotated through about half a dozen departments. “And then,” Epstein says, “they’d reflect on how it fit their interests and abilities,” as would the Army. “The retention with people who go through talent-based branching has been way better without the retention bonuses, because they end up with a better match quality.” Match quality, as you might guess, is the compatibility between the person and the job.

There were two revelations beyond this. First, Epstein says, “The cadets going through it were often really surprised by their own weaknesses. They thought they would be really good at things they weren’t good at.” That’s a helpful bit of self-knowledge. On the flip side, the cadets also discovered new fields and talents. Ninety percent of them ended up changing one of their top two career preferences. These young people had been pretty clueless not just about the jobs out there but about which jobs they were best suited for.

Now think of the other 99 percent of American teens and 20-somethings trying to find their way. “How we learn to do and be is by paying attention to our social world,” says social psychologist Debra Mashek, founder of Myco -Consulting. “It’s limiting the individual’s ability to fulfill their own purpose if they don’t have a sense of what’s out there, or what’s -possible.”

When I asked parents how their kids were getting exposed to potential careers, most said that sometime in middle or high school there was some sort of jobs day.

At her sons’ school, says Andrea Mays, a professor of economics at California State University, Long Beach, it’s Merchant Monday: Sixth-graders are assigned to one of the businesses on Main Street. One of her sons was placed in a Middle Eastern restaurant, where he got to pick mint leaves for the tea. The family still eats there 15 years later.

Lisa Avila, a Florida mom, still remembers the day a Navy pilot came to her high school to discuss his career: “He said women shouldn’t be in the Navy, much less be pilots.” She went on to join the Navy—and become a pilot.

Other parents mentioned school programs where community members teach electives such as cake decorating or forensic science. A few said their kids attend schools that offer training in specific trades. Many colleges encourage internships—a chance to try out a job over weeks or months. And some organizations are trying to widen the horizon. The Harraseeket Foundation, a Virginia-based nonprofit, gets community members to discuss their careers with young people and help them network.

Young people need more job sampling opportunities. While school is supposed to prepare them for the world, it mostly keeps them away from it.

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Brickbat: Collective Guilt


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Male students at Bauer College, a public school in Australia that serves grades seven to 12, were required to stand during a recent assembly and apologize to female classmates “for the behaviors of their gender that have hurt or offended girls and women,” according to school President Jane Boyle, who says this took place at an assembly focusing on respect for women. Some parents say they are angry that their sons were forced to apologize for things they did not do. “In retrospect, while well-intended, we recognize that this part of the assembly was inappropriate,” said Boyle.

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Brickbat: Collective Guilt


pointingfingers_1161x653

Male students at Bauer College, a public school in Australia that serves grades seven to 12, were required to stand during a recent assembly and apologize to female classmates “for the behaviors of their gender that have hurt or offended girls and women,” according to school President Jane Boyle, who says this took place at an assembly focusing on respect for women. Some parents say they are angry that their sons were forced to apologize for things they did not do. “In retrospect, while well-intended, we recognize that this part of the assembly was inappropriate,” said Boyle.

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Biden Said His Tax Hikes Would Only Affect the Rich. He Can’t Keep That Promise.


covphotos122665

Politicians betray their campaign promises all the time. So, it’s no surprise to see President Joe Biden go back on his word that, in spite of his plan to significantly hike taxes to pay for a portion of a massive increase in spending, nobody earning less than $400,000 annually would suffer a tax increase. But this flip-flop is just the tip of the iceberg.

During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Biden declared that if someone makes less than $400,000, they wouldn’t face any tax hikes. His campaign website reinforced this promise: “Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Period.” The president recently reiterated his promise on “Good Morning America” when he said, “Anybody making more than $400,000 will see a small to a significant tax increase,” and “You make less than $400,000, you won’t see one single penny in additional federal tax.”

But then his press secretary, Jen Psaki, announced during a press conference that the threshold of $400,000 refers to family income. She contradicted herself a few days later, saying, “The president remains committed to his pledge from the campaign that nobody making under $400,000 a year will have their taxes increased.”

Either the administration still isn’t fully clear on where it stands, or some taxpayers may be in for a big surprise—or both.

Either way, the sad truth is that with this president’s insane propensity for unconstrained government spending, he shouldn’t make such a promise in the first place. He has already added $1.9 trillion to the enormously inflated federal credit card and is planning on throwing another almost $4 trillion on it in what he deems infrastructure spending. If he sticks to his campaign promises, Biden plans to splurge $11 trillion in additional spending over a decade. Meanwhile, his proposed tax hikes are estimated to reap $2.1 to $2.8 trillion. In other words, for every $5 or $6 in new spending, $1 will be paid for in new taxes, and the rest goes on the nation’s credit card.

I know that’s what politicians do, but that’s still not right. If he wants to raise spending to that level, everyone should pay some price for this growth in government, not simply those earning more than $400,000. That criticism applies to every president before him and will, I’m sure, to many after him.

It’s time for the Democrats who elect presidents that promise not to jack up taxes on anybody but the rich to come to terms with something: These politicians can’t continue to spend that much money without raising taxes on nearly everyone, and that includes some regressive taxes. I don’t like it, since I’d prefer the size and scope of government to be significantly smaller—but this reality is not optional.

Here’s another reason why Biden was never going to be able to keep his promise: He already announced his intention to increase the corporate income tax from the current 21 percent to 28 percent. The reality here is that the corporations that he says are going to send bigger checks to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the tax hike aren’t the ones who actually shoulder this heavier tax burden.

The best explanation I’ve seen on this comes from a 2004 quote by economist Stephen Entin, who wrote, “The economic burden of a tax frequently does not rest with the person or business who has the statutory liability for paying the tax to the government.” That’s because taxes are ultimately only paid by people.

In this case, the burden of Biden’s corporate tax-rate hike will inevitably fall on corporations’ workers and shareholders (which includes almost everyone with a retirement plan), many of whom earn much less than $400,000 a year. Workers might not personally be sending more or bigger checks to the IRS, but they will still suffer higher taxation in the form of lower wages, as well as higher prices for consumer goods and services.

Economists aren’t sure how much of the hike will fall on workers. Estimates range from 66 percent to 100 percent of the tax falling on workers in the form of lower wages. The bottom line is that nobody can determine who truly bears the burden of a tax just by looking at where or on whom it is formally imposed, despite what the tax is called. But one thing is sure: Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $400,000 is bunk.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

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Biden Said His Tax Hikes Would Only Affect the Rich. He Can’t Keep That Promise.


covphotos122665

Politicians betray their campaign promises all the time. So, it’s no surprise to see President Joe Biden go back on his word that, in spite of his plan to significantly hike taxes to pay for a portion of a massive increase in spending, nobody earning less than $400,000 annually would suffer a tax increase. But this flip-flop is just the tip of the iceberg.

During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Biden declared that if someone makes less than $400,000, they wouldn’t face any tax hikes. His campaign website reinforced this promise: “Joe Biden will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. Period.” The president recently reiterated his promise on “Good Morning America” when he said, “Anybody making more than $400,000 will see a small to a significant tax increase,” and “You make less than $400,000, you won’t see one single penny in additional federal tax.”

But then his press secretary, Jen Psaki, announced during a press conference that the threshold of $400,000 refers to family income. She contradicted herself a few days later, saying, “The president remains committed to his pledge from the campaign that nobody making under $400,000 a year will have their taxes increased.”

Either the administration still isn’t fully clear on where it stands, or some taxpayers may be in for a big surprise—or both.

Either way, the sad truth is that with this president’s insane propensity for unconstrained government spending, he shouldn’t make such a promise in the first place. He has already added $1.9 trillion to the enormously inflated federal credit card and is planning on throwing another almost $4 trillion on it in what he deems infrastructure spending. If he sticks to his campaign promises, Biden plans to splurge $11 trillion in additional spending over a decade. Meanwhile, his proposed tax hikes are estimated to reap $2.1 to $2.8 trillion. In other words, for every $5 or $6 in new spending, $1 will be paid for in new taxes, and the rest goes on the nation’s credit card.

I know that’s what politicians do, but that’s still not right. If he wants to raise spending to that level, everyone should pay some price for this growth in government, not simply those earning more than $400,000. That criticism applies to every president before him and will, I’m sure, to many after him.

It’s time for the Democrats who elect presidents that promise not to jack up taxes on anybody but the rich to come to terms with something: These politicians can’t continue to spend that much money without raising taxes on nearly everyone, and that includes some regressive taxes. I don’t like it, since I’d prefer the size and scope of government to be significantly smaller—but this reality is not optional.

Here’s another reason why Biden was never going to be able to keep his promise: He already announced his intention to increase the corporate income tax from the current 21 percent to 28 percent. The reality here is that the corporations that he says are going to send bigger checks to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) after the tax hike aren’t the ones who actually shoulder this heavier tax burden.

The best explanation I’ve seen on this comes from a 2004 quote by economist Stephen Entin, who wrote, “The economic burden of a tax frequently does not rest with the person or business who has the statutory liability for paying the tax to the government.” That’s because taxes are ultimately only paid by people.

In this case, the burden of Biden’s corporate tax-rate hike will inevitably fall on corporations’ workers and shareholders (which includes almost everyone with a retirement plan), many of whom earn much less than $400,000 a year. Workers might not personally be sending more or bigger checks to the IRS, but they will still suffer higher taxation in the form of lower wages, as well as higher prices for consumer goods and services.

Economists aren’t sure how much of the hike will fall on workers. Estimates range from 66 percent to 100 percent of the tax falling on workers in the form of lower wages. The bottom line is that nobody can determine who truly bears the burden of a tax just by looking at where or on whom it is formally imposed, despite what the tax is called. But one thing is sure: Biden’s promise not to raise taxes on individuals making less than $400,000 is bunk.

COPYRIGHT 2021 CREATORS.COM

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Biden Lets Trump Work Visa Ban Expire


visa ban

Yesterday, President Biden allowed Donald Trump’s ban on a wide range of temporary work visas for foreign workers to expire. He thereby ended a badly flawed policy enacted by the previous administration on the pretext that it was needed to benefit the US economy and curb the spread of Covid. In February, Biden revoked Trump’s accompanying policy barring nearly all entry by immigrants seeking permanent residency in the United States.

Between these two moves, Biden has ended a period when the US was more closed off to immigration than at any previous point in its history. In truth, Biden should have ended the work visa ban earlier, as he did with the immigration ban. As he himself pointed out during the presidential campaign, the visa band nothing to protect the US, and “also harms industries in the United States that utilize talent from around the world.”

But late is still a lot better than never. And I have to admit that Biden has ended both policies faster than I initially thought he would. I outlined the legal and policy flaws in the migration and visa bans in greater detail in a June 2020 article in The Atlantic.

The expiration of the work visa ban probably moots out ongoing litigation challenging its legality. In October, a federal district court ruled against the Trump administration on this issue, in part because the sweeping power claimed by Trump (and later continued for a time by Biden) violates nondelegation principles. The court issued a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the ban against the many employers who are members of the the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and other industry groups who were plaintiffs in the case.

The nondelegation issue raised in that case is an extremely important one, with applications to a wide range of other immigration and trade restrictions. See my discussion here, here, here, and here.

While Biden deserves credit for revoking the work visa restrictions and immigration bans, and for such measures as ending Trump’s “travel bans” against residents of numerous Muslim-majority nations, he has not yet ended all of the previous administration’s dubious immigration policies. Among other things, he is to blame for perpetuating its Title 42 expulsions of most migrants crossing the Mexican border, a policy which is to blame for much of the current crisis involving unaccompanied minors apprehended at the border (as the continued expulsion of family groups incentivizes families to send children to cross on their own).

Like the visa bans, the Title 42 expulsions are of dubious legality    and do not actually benefit public health. Indeed, they were enacted by the Trump White House  over the opposition of CDC scientists, who believed them to be unnecessary.

The Biden administration has taken a number of valuable steps to undo the harmful immigration policies of its predecessor. But there is plenty of room for further progress.

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