Kristi Noem has only herself to blame, what the drug dealers ignore and other comments

From right: The EZ Way to Lower Home Prices

“The who’s who of the right groups” last week asked Speaker Mike Johnson to set up a House vote on the More Homes on the Market Act “which will increase exemptions from the capital gains tax for people who sell their primary residences” – “an idea to make housing affordable that 64 Democrats also agreed to,” explained the Washington Times editors.

The problem: Homeowners whose “displaced children” can’t “downgrade to decent housing” without incurring “the wrath of the taxpayer,” so they “remain where they are, leaving new families with few options when purchasing a reasonably priced home.”

IRS rules impose tax penalties on estates whose value rises above $250,000, “or $500,000 when filing jointly”; the bill would double those limits — recognizing that decades of inflation alone would account for those “benefits.”

Conservative: Which Legal Drugs Ignore

The strategy to “legalize drugs and tax addicts” assumes that “demand from addicted users” is “highly unreliable” — that is, “reducing supply by force” only “makes drug traffickers rich,” notes Charles Fain Lehman of the City Journal.

But that ignores the ban’s impact on “suppressing consumption and the harms that accompany it.”

Namely: “The actual act of prohibiting drugs” brings about a “significant reduction in consumption,” while the law and tax model “relies on the assumption that policymakers will impose appropriate taxes on society.”

Experience shows that excise taxes are limited by “corporate lobbying” and the persistence of “gray markets” that provide a “limited portion” of supply.

Ultimately, “enforcing the law” coupled with “maintaining prohibition” does little harm.

Political Desk: Noem Has Only Themselves To Blame

“Finally,” exulted Jim Geraghty of National Review, President Trump has released “one of the biggest bills” on his team: Kristi Noem at the Department of Homeland Security.

He was “making an unpopular record” nationally, and his response to the Minnesota shooting proved that he was among the “worst” of his choices.

But what “got Noem fired” was Trump’s anger over his $220 million DHS ad campaign, which featured him “prominently,” and his claim that he approved it.

“If that ad campaign were a television series, it would be among the most expensive series of all time.” It is reported that he mismanaged the construction of the border wall.

The truth is, “no one has done more to damage Kristi Noem’s career and reputation than Kristi Noem.”

China beat: Beijing Admits Its Economic Problems

“Economic reality is coming to all of us eventually,” even the Chinese Communist Party, responding to the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, noting that PRC officials recently lowered their economic growth target for next year to 4.5%-5%, “the lowest level since 1991.”

“It’s an admission that even President Xi Jinping doesn’t think he can pretend that growth will accelerate.”

Xi could have created “new forms of productive private investment that can increase productivity” and domestic demand, but instead he is trying to “consolidate” the party’s control over the economy.

“China’s economy can still grow despite these policy failures,” but “its increasingly political control model leads to slower growth and fewer benefits for the working class.”

Clearly “it is not the juggernaut of Communist mythology that America should emulate.”

War watch: How Xi might make a comeback

The US is advancing on Venezuela and Iran is hurting China, including cutting off “nations that provide about 17% of imported oil at deeply subsidized prices,” so watch out for Xi Jinping “to try to upset the American apple cart in the coming days if it looks like the Iranian regime is about to collapse,” warns Henry Olsen in the Washington Examiner.

“China will not intervene militarily,” but Xi may push forward with UN resolutions to “give many countries an easy way to protest war.”

Riskier moves: “accelerate its US Treasury sales [bonds],” which could raise US interest rates, or “take the biggest risk of all: move on to Taiwan while America is committed elsewhere.”

– Compiled by the Post Editorial Board