Alert: Term-limited Gov. Ron DeSantis picks Republican state Sen. Jay Collins to be Florida's lieutenant governor ahead of 2026
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Los Angeles Times
13 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Tariff ‘Mission Accomplished' hype is just that
On May 1, 2003, George W. Bush announced, 'Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.' He was standing below a giant banner that read, 'Mission Accomplished.' At the risk of inviting charges of understatement, subsequent events didn't cooperate. But it took a while for that to be widely accepted. We're in a similar place when it comes to President Trump's experiment with a new global trading order. 'Tariffs are making our country Strong and Rich!!!' proclaims Trump, making him not only the first Republican president in living memory to brag about raising taxes on Americans, but also the first to insist that raising taxes on Americans makes us richer. MAGA's mission-accomplished groupthink relies primarily on three arguments. The first is that Trump has successfully concluded a slew of beneficial trade deals. The truth is that some of those deals are simply 'frameworks' that will take a long time to be ironed out. But Trump got the headlines he wanted. The second argument is a kind of populism-infused sleight of hand. The 'experts' — their scare quotes, not mine — are wrong once again. The White House social media account crows, 'In April, 'experts' called tariffs 'the biggest policy mistake in 95 years.' By July, they generated OVER $100 BILLION in revenue. Facts expose the haters: tariffs WORK. Trust in Trump.' But the high-fivers are leaving things out. The most-dire predictions of economic catastrophe were based on the scheme Trump announced on April 2, a.k.a. 'Liberation Day.' Trump quickly backed off that plan ('chickened out' in Wall Street parlance) in response to a bond and stock market implosion. Saying the experts were wrong under those circumstances is like saying experts opposed to defenestration were wrong when they successfully convinced a man not to jump out a window. The third argument, made by the White House and many others — that tariffs are working because they're raising money — is a response to a claim no one made. To my knowledge, no expert claimed tariffs wouldn't raise money. The estimates of these revenues from Trump world are stratospheric. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick expects somewhere between $700 billion and $1 trillion per year. Last month, the government collected $29 billion. It's likely this number will significantly increase as more tariffs come online and businesses run down the inventory they stockpiled earlier this year in anticipation of more tariffs to come. Normally, Republicans don't exult over massive revenues from tax hikes. But Trump's defenders get around this problem by insisting that money is 'pouring' and 'flowing' into America from someplace else. It's true that tariff revenue is pouring into the Treasury, but that money is coming out of American bank accounts, because American importers pay the tariff. Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cannot deny this when pressed. So yes, tariffs are 'working' the way they're supposed to; the problem is Trump thinks tariffs work differently than they do. It's possible some foreign exporters might lower prices to maintain market share, and some American businesses might absorb the costs — for now — to avoid sticker shock for inflation-beleaguered consumers, but what revenue is generated still comes from Americans. Ultimately it means higher prices paid here, reduced profits for businesses here or reduced U.S. trade overall. Sometimes, when pressed, defenders of the administration will concede the true source of the revenues, but then they say the pain is necessary to force manufacturers and other businesses to build and produce in the United States. It's backdoor industrial policy masquerading as trade policy. That, too, might 'work.' But all of this will take time, no matter what. And, if it works, that will have costs, too. Manufacturing in America is more expensive — that's why we manufacture so much stuff abroad in the first place. If this 'reshoring' happens, our goods will be more expensive, and less money will 'pour in' from tariffs. It's difficult to exaggerate how well-understood all of this was on the American right until very recently. But the need to grab any argument available to declare Trump's experiment a success has a lot of people not only abandoning their previous dogma but leaping to the conclusion that the dogma was wrong all along. Maybe it was, though I don't think so. The evidence so far suggests that problems are looming. The dollar is weakening. Prices continue to rise. The job market is reeling. The stock market (an unreliable metric, according to MAGA, when it plummeted after Liberation Day) is holding on, thanks to tech stocks. The truth is we won't have real evidence for a while. It's worth remembering that Americans don't live by headlines and press releases and they don't live in the macro economy either. Declaring 'Mission Accomplished' for the macro economy won't convince people they're better off in their own micro-economies when they're not. @JonahDispatch
Scientific American
13 minutes ago
- Scientific American
Trump Order Gives Political Appointees Vast Powers over Research Grants
US President Donald Trump issued an expansive executive order (EO) yesterday that would centralize power and upend the process that the US government has used for decades to award research grants. If implemented, political appointees — not career civil servants, including scientists — would have control over grants, from initial funding calls to final review. This is the Trump administration's latest move to assert control over US science. The EO, titled 'Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking', orders each US agency head to designate an appointee to develop a grant-review process that will 'advance the President's policy priorities'. Those processes must not fund grants that advance 'anti-American values' and instead prioritize funding for institutions committed to achieving Trump's plan for 'gold-standard science'. (That plan, issued in May, calls for the US government to promote 'transparent, rigorous, and impactful' science, but has been criticized for its potential to increase political interference in research.) Impacts might be felt immediately: the latest order directs US agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to halt new funding opportunities, which are calls for researchers to submit applications for grants on certain topics. They will be paused until agencies put their new review processes in place. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. Trump's EO comes after the US Senate — which, along with the House, ultimately controls US government spending — has, in recent weeks, mostly rejected his proposals to slash the federal budget for science, totalling nearly US$200 billion annually. The White House did not respond to questions from Nature about the EO. Negative reaction Trump, a Republican, has previously used EOs, which can direct government agencies but cannot alter existing laws, to effect policy change. In January, on his first day in office, he signed a slew of EOs with wide-ranging effects, from pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement to cutting the federal workforce, which had included nearly 300,000 scientists before he took office. Scientists and policy specialists have lambasted the latest EO on social media. 'This is a shocking executive order that undermines the very idea of open inquiry,' Casey Dreier, director of space policy for the Planetary Society, an advocacy group in Pasadena, California, posted to Bluesky. Also on Bluesky, Jeremy Berg, a former director of the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences, called it a 'power grab'. Speaking to Nature, he said: 'That power is something that has not been exercised at all in the past by political appointees.' In a statement, Zoe Lofgren, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from California, called the EO 'obscene'. It could lead to political appointees 'standing between you and a cutting-edge cancer-curing clinical trial', she said. The EO justifies the changes to the grant-awarding process by casting doubts on past choices: it accuses the US National Science Foundation (NSF) of awarding grants to educators with anti-American ideologies and to projects on diversity, equity and inclusion, which are disfavoured by the Trump team. It also points to senior researchers at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Stanford University in California who have resigned over accusations of data falsification. To 'strengthen oversight' of grants, the EO imposes several restrictions, including prohibiting grants that promote 'illegal immigration' and prohibiting grant recipients from promoting 'racial preferences' in their work or denying that sex is binary. In some cases, the restrictions seem to contradict Congressional mandates. For instance, the NSF has, for decades, been required by law to broaden participation in science of people from under-represented groups — an action that takes race into consideration. In addition to these broader restrictions, the EO directs grant approvals to prioritize certain research institutions, such as those that have 'demonstrated success' in implementing the gold-standard science plan and those with lower 'indirect costs'. As part of its campaign to downsize government spending and reduce the power of elite US universities, the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to cap these costs — used to pay for laboratory electricity and administrative staff, for instance. It has proposed a flat 15% rate for grants awarded by agencies such as the NSF and the US Department of Energy, but federal courts have so far blocked such policies. Some institutions with the highest indirect-cost rates are children's hospitals, Berg told Nature. 'Does that mean they're just not going to prioritize research at children's hospitals?' he asks. Out for review At the heart of the grant-awarding process is peer review. Project proposals have typically had to pass watchful panels of independent scientists who scored and approved funding. 'Nothing in this order shall be construed to discourage or prevent the use of peer review methods,' the EO notes, 'provided that peer review recommendations remain advisory' to the senior appointees. The EO worries many researchers, including Doug Natelson, a physicist at Rice University in Houston, Texas. 'This looks like an explicit attempt to destroy peer review for federal science grants,' he says. Programme officers at agencies, who have been stewards of the grant-review process, are similarly alarmed. 'The executive order is diminishing the role of programme officers and their autonomy to make judgments about the quality of the science,' says an NSF employee who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak with the press. 'That's disheartening, to say the least.'
New York Post
13 minutes ago
- New York Post
Democrat Sherrod Brown will attempt to win back his Senate seat in 2026: report
Democrat Sherrod Brown will attempt to win back his U.S. Senate seat in Ohio in next year's midterm elections, according to media reports, in a race that likely would pit him against Republican Senator John Husted as Democrats fight to win back control of the chamber. The media site reported that Brown will jump into the contest, citing unnamed Ohio labor leaders familiar with his thinking. Brown was not reachable for comment. 4 Democrat Sherrod Brown will attempt to win back his Senate seat in Ohio, reports say. The Washington Post via Getty Images 4 Sherrod Brown will challenge Senator Jon Husted who is one of Ohio's senators. CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Brown, 72, served for 18 years in the Senate before he lost to Republican Bernie Moreno last November in a 50.1%-46.5% vote. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, and Ohio could become the site of one of a half-dozen most competitive races in next year's elections. Husted was appointed in January to temporarily fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when he became vice president. The winner of the November 2026 special election would serve the remainder of Vance's Senate term, ending in January 2029. Brown anchored his long congressional career as a dogged fighter for blue-collar workers in Ohio, which has suffered job losses as steel, automotive and other jobs moved abroad. 4 Sherrod Brown served in the Senate for 18 years before he lost his seat. Getty Images 4 Republican Senator Jon Husted was appointed to fill the seat vacated by JD Vance when he became the vice president. Bloomberg via Getty Images Once a battlefield state, Ohio has leaned increasingly Republican over the past decade. Last November, Republican Donald Trump handily defeated Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris 55.2%-44% in Ohio, where he remains a potent political force. Both Brown and Husted would be favored to win their respective parties' primary races next year. After his defeat last November, Brown founded the Dignity of Work Institute, aimed at improving pay and benefits for working-class people.
