In this news:
We live in a divided country. One half of the voters pay income taxes. The other half don’t.
Which may explain why government waste is not really an 80–20 issue.
Over the past half-century, every time we cut tax rates at the top, we lopped off millions of taxpayers at the bottom. Every time, that lower-the-ceiling, raise-the-floor approach seemed to be a reasonable tradeoff. It wasn’t. Every citizen should have skin in the game.
It may not have been a deal that everybody said was fantastic, or that very smart people thought was the best deal in the history of the world, but it was pretty damn good. Last week, Steve Witkoff swapped an American schoolteacher named Marc Fogel for a Russian crypto scamster named Alexander Vinnik. Pretty damn good, Steve.
Here’s a question for the hyperventilating media. Was it more craven for Trump to call off the DOJ from prosecuting Mayor Eric Adams for crimes everybody knew he had committed than it was for Biden to pardon his siblings for crimes only he knew they had committed?
In possibly unrelated news, an acquaintance knowledgeable in Delaware real estate valuations tells me that Joe Biden, with his big house in the toniest area of Wilmington and his oceanfront vacation home in a primo section of Rehoboth Beach, is showing at least $10 million in visible assets. Very unusual for a man who spent his career in public service.
Brent Bozell III has just been nominated by the president to oversee global media for the U.S. government. WFB would have approved. (WFB had 49 nephews and nieces on the Buckley side of his marriage. Brent was one of his favorites.)
Michael Madigan, political boss of bosses and speaker of the Illinois state house for 36 (non-consecutive) years, has just been convicted of multiple crimes against the people he was elected to serve. No, that’s not a headline from the previous century. Justice delayed is not always justice denied.
If you’re reading these words, the chances are good that you’re a philosopher-king or -queen. But for the activists among you — please focus. For any of Trump’s good works to stand, the GOP must bulk up its House caucus next year. The GOP must win almost all of the 18 seats rated as toss-ups. The election is 20 months away.
According to a friend who gets paid well to calibrate such things, the Republican Senate majority looks safe at this point in the cycle. GOP Governor Brian Kemp, if he runs, might pick up the Ossoff seat in Georgia. (I saw Kemp last week and he was giving off a distinctively candidate vibe.) The Democrats will have open seats to defend in Michigan and Minnesota. And this just in: Susan Collins seems determined to run next year as Susan Collins. Always a risky strategy.
The gubernatorial field here in Florida is taking shape. The early favorite on the GOP side is Byron Donalds, the Fox News–friendly congressman from Naples. He is trial-running around the state this winter. First Lady Casey DeSantis might get in by summer. And in a tight, multi-candidate primary, it is feared (and/or loathed) that Matt Gaetz might jump in even later. A Trump endorsement in this race would probably be dispositive.
The Florida Democrats have no plans, just prayers. The hunt is on for a mediagenic self-funder. Anybody? Anybody?
I am not the only member of the financial community who has exhaled after four long years of breath-holding. We had been hoping that the Biden financial team, captained by the superannuated academic Janet Yellen and staffed by the Wall Street–hating Wall Streeter Gary Gensler, would never have to deal with a financial crisis. Can you imagine the transcript of the meeting — recorded in Rehoboth, possibly, but cleaned up back at the office — at which Yellen had presented the options for decision by Biden? It would likely have been a case of the visually impaired leading the mentally befogged. Financial crises are never a picnic, but with the change of administration, we can get a few hours of sleep knowing that Scott Bessent and Kevin Hassett would be in the room when the stuff hits the fan.
I have spent several decades helping affluent Americans to set up and manage their private foundations. The principal challenge has been that all of the prevailing winds — cultural, political, regulatory, even generational — tend to blow a new and unrooted institution off-course. Which is another way of saying that the intentions of the donor, if unreinforced, tend to give way over time to the very different preferences of the foundation management class. It’s an old story, a sad story, but an item of heartening news has just arrived. Over the coming months, the Searle Freedom Trust will spend out the last of its assets and close its doors — exactly as its donor, the late Daniel Searle of the Searle pharmaceutical fortune, had requested a quarter of a century ago. The architect of this signal victory for donor intent is Kim Dennis, to whom Dan Searle handed the keys to his foundation all those years ago. Kim Dennis — not just Dan Searle’s hero, but ours, as well.
I will continue my work in the foundation world. It’s a high-leverage, long-tail kind of business. But I will not be accepting a recent offer to write a book on my experience in the field. Too many things to do, too little time to do them. So I bequeath herewith to any would-be author of such a work the title I had squirrelled away for myself: If You Think Making Money Is Hard, Try Giving It Away.
