Democratic legal challenges undermine US credibility, taxes increase for all Americans – commentary

Conservative: Dem Lawfare Erodes US Credibility

“None” of the civil and criminal cases against Donald Trump has “ever had merit,” huffs Victor Davis Hanson at American Greatness. All were meant “to injure his re-election candidacy,” given lefties’ distrust of the public in a Trump-Biden race. It’s a “continuation of the extra-legal efforts of the last eight years to destroy” Trump. The cases involve constitutional “violations,” a “suspension of statutes of limitations,” “the invention of crimes,” “asymmetrical” justice (hounding Trump when “left-wing politicians” got “exemptions” for far worse violations of the law) and outright “bias” (when candidates vow to indict Trump even before probing him). Soon, “hundreds” of local prosecutors will feel they have “license” to target political foes. Meanwhile, America has lost “a great deal of credibility” abroad.

Libertarian: Everyone’s Taxes Headed Up

“Most Americans face tax hikes starting in 2026” since “2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) expires at the end of 2025,” warns Reason’s J. D. Tuccille. “Team Biden and fans of high taxes fibbed about the law leading up to the 2020 presidential election,” claiming it only benefited the rich, but “there’s widespread agreement” that it “cut taxes for most Americans.” “Extending the TCJA” would be “a matter of tweaking the current system around the edges to maintain relief for individuals and a faster-growing economy.” Better: “ fundamental changes, including entirely dumping the income tax system in favor of a consumption tax.” “But such fundamental reform is a lot to ask of a political class that . . . wants tax hikes so there’s even more of our money to spend.”

Border watch: Billion-Dollar ‘Charity’ Rake-Off

The border crisis has made nonprofits “rich off government contracts,” reports Madeleine Rowley at The Free Press. Three of the biggest nonprofits “that run shelters in the border states” for the feds “have seen their combined revenue grow from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022.” And “the CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation.” Worse, “critics say these enormous federal grants far exceed the current need” and that the fed agency running the show is “fraught with problems and suffers from a general lack of oversight.” Says one former Homeland Security big: “We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.”

From the right: Joe’s ‘George Costanza’ Moment

“Like George Costanza in a classic ‘Seinfeld’ episode,” opines The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley, “President Biden bemoans that every decision he’s made has been wrong but has only himself to blame.” Both men “create more trouble for themselves as each poor decision leads to another,” Exhibit A being “the pandemic handouts that Democrats hoped would win them votes” but instead brought “inflation and the highest interest rates in a generation.” And his climate policies “have proved similarly ineffective at energizing young voters, while alienating working-class Americans,” an example being “a de facto electric-vehicle mandate that is deeply unpopular, especially in Michigan.” Biden’s “flagging support among working-class voters, particularly in Michigan, has heightened the imperative to keep progressives under his collapsing tent.” And his bid to draw in progressives by sanctioning Israel displays a “weakness that will embolden America’s enemies.”

Urban beat: Unleash Private Housing

The nation’s growing housing crisis “has led to calls for more government-led, taxpayer-paid building projects,” yet “these efforts are unlikely” to actually ease “housing woes,” laments City Journal’s Steven Malanga. “Reforms that let builders build more” would do more than “unwieldy government housing projects” with long histories of “grand promises, underperformance, and fraud.” Cities “where construction has ramped up, moreover, are seeing prices fall — a reminder of how supply and demand works.” The key: revising “zoning and permitting process to fast-track projects and allow bigger, denser building.” Without “a major shift in thinking,” we’ll only see “billions more dollars squandered — and a housing crisis still unsolved.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board