Breaking News

Opinion

Illusion of strength: America's fragile economy

National Columnists

There is a difference between confidence and comfort, between projecting strength and actually possessing it. In today's American economy, that difference is becoming harder to ignore. President Donald Trump speaks often of resilience, growth and dominance. The language is bold, the tone unwavering. But beneath that optimism lies a more fragile reality, one that millions of Americans feel every day, even if it is not always acknowledged from the podium. An economy is not measured by its headlines. It is measured by its households. And across this country, the warning ...

US immigration laws need rewriting

National Columnists

More than half of immigrant households in the U.S. use welfare, costing taxpayers billions and making the programs less sustainable for Americans in need. Blame birthright citizenship for a big part of the cost, but don't count on the Supreme Court to fix it. Republicans in Congress need to act, and they should do it quickly while they're still in the majority. Federal law bars legal immigrants from taking welfare benefits until they've been in the country five years, and bars illegal immigrants from benefits completely. But both groups manage to circumvent that law and ...

There's no Amazon Prime overnight delivery for war

National Columnists

There's something deeply and spectacularly unserious about the way modern commentators talk about war. Anyone who has scrolled through online platforms following the outbreak of war with Iran will find the same childish questions of why the war isn't over yet, as if military conflict is supposed to function like an Amazon Prime delivery — putting in an order from your couch and waking up to find it gift-wrapped on your doorstep the following day. Sorry, but this is all a fundamental misunderstanding of reality. War is not a precision-guided overnight event, and it's ...

What do Artemis II and socialism have in common?

National Columnists

Watching the enthusiasm, especially among people younger than me, over the Artemis II mission around the moon, recalled that the last men to land on the lunar surface did so in December 1972. Two generations have been born since then and for them the excitement of a powerful rocket and the danger involved in such a mission is something new. This is about to come true with socialism as it is being imposed in New York City by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, its longtime American "prophet," Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and others in and out of Congress. Many younger people who voted for Mamdani ...

Tax cuts benefit middle class

National Columnists

The goal of the Trump tax cut was simple: Strengthen the economy with lower tax rates, and let working and retired Americans keep more of what they earn. The early evidence confirms this is exactly what has happened. Initial IRS data show that almost half of filers have already taken advantage of the bill's middle-income tax provisions. Income taxes have become such an ingrained part of American life that many workers barely notice how much is snatched from their paychecks: payroll taxes, federal income taxes, state income taxes, etc. We see the net amount and forget that the ...