Pun Salad

Ed Morrisey thoughtfully explores The Myth of Daylight Saving Time? And note the Groundhog Day reference:

Ed has the relevant quotes from Trump's press conference. Trump bemoans the polling that shows that what to do is a "50-50 issue", and the implication is that he's unwilling to piss off either 50.

Ed makes a point I've made myself:

Unfortunately, Ed does not mention the crackpot reform I (and others) have advocated: Separation of time and state. If the government needs to know what time it is, use UTC. Everyone else can use … whatever they want! Efficient schedule arrangements would be quickly found between employers and employees, businesses and customers, schedule-makers and schedule-keepers, etc.

Also of note:

• My tip: Don't use Hunter Biden's tax preparation tips. But Dave Barry has other Tax-Preparation Tips.

  It's tax season once again, and if you're like many Americans, the question on your mind is: "What with everything going on in Washington, do I still have to pay taxes?"

  Sadly, yes. Things were looking good for a little while there, when the Department of Government Efficiency, as an efficiency measure, fired the entire staff of the Internal Revenue Service except for a woman named Denise who happened to be in the ladies' room when DOGE came through. Unfortunately they reversed course on that particular measure, so the IRS employees have been reinstated, along with — at least for now — the Coast Guard, the Centers for Disease Control and about a third of the 5,000 Yellowstone park bison.

  This means that you do, in fact, have to file a tax return. And if you're like many Americans, you wish somebody would drop an anvil on the Geico Gecko. So do I, but that is not my point. My point is that if you're like many Americans, you're afraid to prepare your own tax return, because you don't want to go to prison for violating the U.S. Tax Code, which at the moment is 6,781 pages long and is filled with sentences like this one (I am not making this sentence up):

  In general if the partnership (1) not later than 45 days after the date of the notice of final partnership adjustment, elects the application of this section with respect to an imputed underpayment, and (2) at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may provide, furnishes to each partner of the partnership for the reviewed year and to the Secretary a statement of the partner's share of any adjustment to a partnership-related item (as determined in the notice of final partnership adjustment), section 6225 shall not apply with respect to such underpayment (and no assessment of tax, levy, or proceeding in any court for the collection of such underpayment shall be made against such partnership) and each such partner shall take such adjustment into account as provided in subsection (b).

  My favorite thing about that sentence is that it starts with "In general." It's like the tax code is saying, "Don't hold me to this! I'm just spitballing here!"

  And, yes, that's just one sentence.

  (Dave's substack is one of the few to which I subscribe, and I recommend it to you.)

• Sean Stevens and Greg Lukianoff push back on recent criticism of the College Free Speech Rankings published yearly by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE): No More ‘Trust us, we’re the administrators!’.

  TIME magazine recently published a piece critical of the rankings and, sadly, demonstrating a profound misunderstanding of what they measure. Not only that, the piece also implies that Americans shouldn’t trust our judgment. Instead, we should give college and university presidents, chancellors, and senior administrators the benefit of the doubt, based on both the assumption that they know their campuses better than an off-campus organization like FIRE would, and that they would be honest and forthcoming about their free speech failings.

  Obviously, we disagree. After many years of failing to defend — and sometimes actively undermining — free speech on campus, college and university presidents, chancellors, and senior administrators have lost the benefit of the doubt. FIRE has been drawing attention to campus censorship for more than 25 years now, but it has accelerated almost every year for the last 11, and it’s become particularly bad in the last 5. And yet, this entire time — every single year — many administrators have claimed there’s nothing wrong on their campuses.

  The Time essay, linked above, is from two Yale-affiliated people, perhaps motivated and understandably butt-hurt by Yale's "slightly below average" ranking, putting it at #155 out of 251 schools. Hey, much better than Harvard (#251, with an "abysmal" speech climate).

  I think Sean and Greg out-argue the Yalies, but see what you think.

  And, for the record, the University Near Here fell to 59th place in the FIRE rankings.

• Mister, we could use a man like Ludwig von Mises again. Brian Doherty brings some sad news in April's print Reason: The American Right Is Abandoning Mises.

  Ludwig von Mises, a foundational figure of modern libertarianism, was also for decades a hero of the American right. In George H. Nash's magisterial 1976 history The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, the very first chapter stars the Austrian economist and his students and associates, saying that "it would be difficult to exaggerate the contributions of…Ludwig von Mises to the intellectual rehabilitation of individualism in America."

  But now…

  Mises was an ardent free-trader. President Donald Trump promotes autarky and calls himself "Tariff Man." Mises was a devoted anti-inflationist, a promoter of hard currencies that government could not create and manipulate at will. Though Trump has given lip service to private cryptocurrency as part of his larger antiestablishment coalition, he also demanded in his first term that the Federal Reserve expand the money supply to goose the economy and give him a short-term political benefit. In his 1944 book Omnipotent Government, Mises condemned forceful territorial expansion as one of the causes of Europe's terrible 20th century wars. Since the election, Trump has publicly mulled territorial seizures around the globe. Trump ardently supports a restrictionist immigration policy. Mises believed the free flow of people, goods, and capital were linchpins of the ideal international system. Trump favors industrial policy, in which government planners intervene to assist selected domestic industries. Mises understood that would lower, not raise, overall prosperity.

  Brian displays his usual encyclopedic familiarity with libertarian intellectual history in this article. It's an interesting story.

• Yet another thing that probably won't happen. The "Antiplanner" suggests Privatizing Amtrak and Cutting Transit.

  Every line item in the federal budget has at least one special interest group advocating for its growth and ready to cry bloody murder if anyone proposes to reduce it. So it is no surprise that Trains magazine is shocked that Elon Musk would propose to privatize Amtrak.

  “Amtrak’s business performance is strong,” Trains quotes an Amtrak spokesperson. “Ridership and revenue are at all-time highs.” But a “strong” performance didn’t prevent Amtrak from losing well over $2 billion on operating costs alone in 2024, and Amtrak’s all-time highs are still pretty low: in 2024, Amtrak carried the average American just 19.6 miles. Americans ride bicycles far more than they ride Amtrak, they fly more than 100 times as many miles, and they travel more than 700 times as many miles by car as they ride Amtrak.

  Amtrak, unfortunately, has a lot of 19th-century choo-choo sentiment behind it, and has the luxury of living off the taxpayer dime.

• And this looks like it might happen! The Josiah Bartlett Center points out a reform that should be a no-brainer for the LFOD state: Ending mandatory vehicle inspections would save Granite Staters tens of millions a year.

  New Hampshire is one of a dwindling number of states that requires an annual safety inspection, which makes New Hampshire’s law one of the most burdensome in the country.

  Lawmakers have tried for years to abolish the mandate, citing the cost burden on drivers and the shortage of evidence that inspections improve public safety. But in years past, auto dealers and independent mechanics have persuaded legislators to continue mandating what is a lucrative income stream for them.

  That could change this year. The House on Thursday approved by a wide margin (212-143) House Bill 649, which would lift the safety and emissions inspection mandates from state law.

  The article points out that New Jersey—the state where it's illegal to pump your own freaking gas—got rid of its mandated annual auto safety inspections back in 2010, with no ill effects (um, other than still being New Jersey.)