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We must address the affordability issue

National Columnists

Affordability. It’s the word on everybody’s lips. Ever since self-described socialist Zohran Mamdani became the frontrunner in the New York City mayoral election by saying the word “affordability” with talismanic regularity, we have been told that the key to modern politics is that word’s repetition. Say “affordability,” and watch your polls rise. And yet the world becomes ever more unaffordable. Why? Because there is, in the end, only one way to make things more affordable: to reduce prices. And there are only two ways to reduce prices: to reduce demand, or to ...

Shutdown reinforces need for nest egg

Letters to the Editor

Kevin Nelson, Minot My grandfather was born in 1883 and homesteaded near Makoti in 1912. In that era, farmers saved seed from the crop in order to plant the next year’s crop. Grandpa said that he always saved an extra bin so he could plant again if he had a crop failure.This may not have been a common practice, but having a “nest egg” to cover unforeseen events is a good idea. We never know when something unforeseen, and expensive, may occur and having something set aside to avoid having to borrow, or do without, is a good idea. The concept of a nest egg seems to be ...

Both parties failed us on shutdown

National Columnists

The longest federal government shutdown is over. The question the pundits are now asking is: Who won and who lost? For starters I believe that both the GOP and Democrats have punked Americans. They used the American people much like pimps use women or like Jeffrey Epstein and his associates abused underage women, all for their own personal satisfaction. Our founding fathers, trust me, never in their wildest imagination, thought that elected officials from across the country would repeatedly “use” the American people for their political gamesmanship. Our politicians in Washington ...

Ending shutdown prevented negative outcomes

National Columnists

In 1940, Winston Churchill ordered the evacuation of 338,000 troops facing annihilation on the beaches of Dunkirk. Churchill called the successful operation “a miracle of deliverance.” Historians portray it as a perfect example of victory in defeat. Democrats raging at eight members of their caucus for ending the government shutdown might take a few lessons from the master of morale and strategy. What some hotheads framed as “capitulation” is, in the long run, the wisest plan. Right after Dunkirk, Churchill famously said, “Wars are not won by evacuations.” That is so, ...

When compromise dies, democracy follows

National Columnists

In a recent interview, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared in unequivocal terms that President Donald Trump was “the worst thing on the face of the Earth.” You heard that right. Not a threat to democracy, not a danger to civility, the worst thing on the face of the Earth. It was a statement so hyperbolic that it felt less like political commentary and more like a sermon from a zealot who has mistaken politics for theology. Such rhetoric isn’t harmless. It corrodes the political imagination of a people already steeped in outrage. It plants in the public mind a simple but ...

Deal increases access to obesity drugs

National Columnists

Americans are going to get a little healthier. President Trump cut deals with the drugmakers Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to increase access to obesity drugs in a major benefit to American public health. The agreements are a win-win-win — good for consumers, good for the companies and good for Trump. One of the most irrational superstitions of our time is that Big Pharma, which has long been routinely delivering near-miraculous therapeutics to extend and improve our lives, is a public enemy. Its latest breakthrough is a class of so-called GLP-1 drugs that make it easier to lose ...