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Price controls will deny millions of credit cards

National Columnists

There's a famous scene in the movie "The Graduate" in which a young Dustin Hoffman receives this one-word bit of career advice from a businessman: "plastics." He wasn't talking about credit cards, but he might as well have been. Back in the 1960s only about half of Americans had credit cards. Today about 90% of us do. It's what I call the democratization of credit. This revolution in the way we pay for things benefits everyone: shoppers, retailers, online companies, banks, recordkeepers and so on. It's no exaggeration to say that credit cards are the grease that makes ...

Party may be over

National Columnists

There is lore about the 1862 meeting between Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," — the influential novel about slavery — and former President Abraham Lincoln. "So," President Lincoln is reported to have greeted her, "you're the woman who wrote the book that made this great war." History doesn't indicate whether Lincoln made these remarks out of admiration, irritation, regret or some combination thereof. It may be that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will come to mutter something comparable about the 20-year-old California woman, identified in court records as ...

Letter to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

As a retired banker, farmer, and state legislator, I have seen firsthand how financial policy shapes the strength of rural communities. Congress is now considering the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, which offers a necessary and responsible step forward. The Act establishes clear standards for stablecoins – digital assets already used by millions. It sets rules for reserves, disclosures, and oversight, and brings order to a sector that has operated without consistent guardrails. For states like North Dakota, where financial stability and predictability matter, this is long ...

Pope vs. president is fight everyone loses

National Columnists

President Trump and Pope Leo are in a war of words right now — when they should be allies, not enemies. Both want peace, but the president intends to get it by winning a war against Iran, while the pope thinks the war isn't worth fighting. "I don't want a Pope who thinks it's OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon," Trump said Sunday on his Truth social-media network, in a post blasting the pontiff as "weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy." With midterm elections just seven months away, Catholic voters suddenly find themselves in the crossfire between the ...

Funding defense spending is priority

National Columnists

Trump's new budget proposes a $1.5 trillion defense budget in fiscal year 2027, a staggering 40% year-over-year increase. At the same time, it outlines a 10% cut in so-called domestic discretionary programs (a category excluding entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security). Progressives consider this tantamount to a crime against humanity. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called the budget "rotten to the core." Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said its vision is "bleak and unacceptable." Her colleague from Oregon, Jeff Merkley, deemed the document "an out-of-touch ...

Rubio shows impressive skills as leader

National Columnists

"White House deploys Marco Rubio to clarify messaging about Iran conflict." So reads the headline on the front page of the Washington Examiner's website in the early hours of April 1, the third month of U.S. military operations against Iran, which have been taking place since Feb. 28. That prominence was overtaken as it was announced that President Donald Trump would address the nation on the war on Wednesday night. But it's still worth noting and could turn out to be more significant as the end of the second Trump term comes into view. Rubio's video making the case for the ...