Pun Salad

From our lousy local newspaper, Foster's Daily Democrat, came the opinions of "The Observer", one Ron McAllister. Apparently Ron gets his picture of rich people from… well, read for yourself: Scrooge McDuck would be a fan of One Big Beautiful Bill.

Yes, he draws important insights about rich Americans by … well, it's unclear whether he's recollecting old comic books, or watching Duck Tales reruns on the Disney Channel. Doesn't matter, I think. His opinions are literally cartoonish.

Ron's arguments, such as they are, heavily rely on insult-flinging, hand-waving, and resentment-mongering. A slice:

You wouldn't know from Ron's description that the OBBB's effect on "rich people" is to leave their marginal income tax rates where they've been since 2018; they were otherwise due to go from 37% back to where they were before that: 39.6%. So, roughly speaking: if Elon, Jeff, or Mark net an additional million bucks, Uncle Stupid would grab $396,000 of that instead of $370,000.

Does that make them "big winners"? Eh: the Tax Foundation estimates that the 2026 tax bill for the "upper 1%" might go down about 4%.

To translate that into a cartoon Ron might understand better: it wouldn't raise the moola level in the money bins of Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg by a noticeable amount.

(Not that I'm a Trump fan; I think there will be big economic woes in store for everyone, caused mostly by runaway deficit spending, but also by his stupid tariffs.)

Also of note:

• Unfortunately, students won't automatically get smarter. But Emma Camp describes other salutary effects: What happens if Trump and Congress abolish the Education Department? A slice:

  "Most of the discussion from the administration and in Congress is about moving Department of Education functions to other departments," says Neal McCluskey, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom. "If that is what is done, it will not change what the federal government does in education, only which agencies do those things."

  According to McCluskey, federal funding to K-12 schools and colleges would likely just move to another department, though he notes there are "proposals to consolidate, at least, programs and turn them into block grants to states, which would cut down on bureaucratic compliance costs." The federal student loan program "would likely go to the Treasury Department or possibly the Small Business Administration, both of which have experience with financial instruments, including loans," he adds.

  "Almost everything the Department of Education does is unconstitutional," McCluskey says. "The Constitution gives the federal government only specific, enumerated powers, and authority to govern in education is not among them. So almost all the spending and activities should go away."

  That (a) would be nice; and (b) won't happen. At least not soon.

• A reminder that the CDC wanted to kill you. (Well, statistically speaking.) Megan McArdle recalls How one meeting in 2020 and a GOP senator helped create RFK Jr.’s vaccine wreck. (WaPo gifted link)

  In more than 20 years of covering policy, I have witnessed some crazy stuff. But one episode towers above the rest in sheer lunacy: the November 2020 meeting of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Sounds boring? Usually, maybe.

  But that meeting was when the committee’s eminent experts, having considered a range of vaccine rollout strategies, selected the plan that was projected to kill the most people and had the least public support.

  In a survey conducted in August 2020, most Americans said that as soon as health-care workers were inoculated with the coronavirus vaccine, we should have started vaccinating the highest-risk groups in order of their vulnerability: seniors first, then immunocompromised people, then other essential workers. Instead of adopting this sensible plan, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee decided to inoculate non-medical essential workers ahead of seniors, even though its own modeling suggested this would increase deaths by up to 7 percent.

  Why did they do this? Social justice. The word “equity” came up over and over in the discussion — essential workers, you see, were more likely than seniors to come from “marginalized communities.” Only after a backlash did sanity prevail.

  Yes, that murderous advisory committee is the same one Junior recently fired everyone from. Not that his replacements are better; they're probably gonna be worse.

• 

  I reckon it's a tough road to travel. Daniel Akst reviews What Is It Like To Be an Addict? by Owen Flanagan, Amazon link at your right:

  Addiction is a problem that defenders of liberty need to face, for if citizens cannot control their appetites, the state may be inclined to take over the job for them. Freedom depends on self-command supported by a fragile web of norms and relationships that lets us keep our own lives in order and get along with one another. Addiction is the acute case of the appetites run amok, as they often do when unfettered by such constraints as wealth, religion, and community.

  Owen Flanagan's new book, What Is It Like To Be an Addict?, should be welcomed by anyone concerned with these issues. Despite its modest size, this is a work of large ambition and broad range informed not just by the author's long career as a prominent philosopher but by his many years as a desperately addicted abuser of alcohol and sedatives.

  […]

  Unsurprisingly given his experience, Flanagan stresses that we should pay close attention to what the addicted have to tell us. And among the most important things addicts say is that they are by no means blameless just because they supposedly have a disease. On the contrary, many feel shame (for being an addict) and guilt (for behaviors that are slowly destroying them and harming their loved ones).

  I recently read Freedom Regained by philosopher Julian Baggini that had an entire chapter revolving around how addiction is related to "free will". Baggini actually went out to talk with a few addicts. Eye-opening. It sounds as if Flanagan covers some of the same issues.