Month: December 2024

Stained glass window at the Regensburg Cathedral in southern Germany.

It is now three months since we should have passed a budget, and naturally we're still nowhere close. So it's time for yet another Continuing Resolution, which keeps the lights on and maybe a wee bit more. According to various reports, here are the extras we can expect in the upcoming CR:

• $10 billion in additional aid to farmers.
• $2 billion to fix Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor (because everyone loves retiring Sen. Ben Cardin).
• PBMs will be required to pass through all pharma rebates.
• RFK Stadium will be transferred to DC so they can try to bring the Redskins Commanders back to town.
• Sale of 15% ethanol will be allowed year-round.
• An increase to the Medicare physician fee schedule of 2.5% for one year, bonuses to alternative payment models, and a reauthorization of the SUPPORT Act for dealing with the opioid crisis.
• Hurricane relief.

But no permitting relief! Sorry, YIMBYs.

This CR will carry us through March, which is half the fiscal year. Will that be enough? Or will we extend it again and again, finally managing to get through an entire year without a budget? Personally, I think Congress should just throw in the towel on FY25, extend the CR through September 30, and get cranking immediately on the FY26 budget. It's so crazy it might work.

The ordinary poverty line is based on a set amount of money that's the same nationwide. It's currently $15,060 for a single person and $31,200 for a family of four.

The Supplemental Poverty Measure accounts for both benefits and expenses, so it can vary in different places. Economist Jed Kolko recently analyzed Census data to extract the metro areas with the highest actual rates of poverty:

Average income is certainly higher in Los Angeles than in McAllen, TX, but it costs a lot more to live in LA. When you account for this, there are more people living in poverty in Los Angeles: 20.9% compared to the national average of 12.9% in 2023.

This year Harvard Law School admitted only 19 new Black students:

This is a 65% drop from their average Black enrollment rate over the previous 55 years. The impact of the Supreme Court's ban on university affirmative action action last year has obviously been substantial.

For no good reason I've become sort of fascinated by the daily Economic Uncertainty Index. I'm sure this will pass. But until it does, here's the latest:

The index has been above 75 every single day since November 2nd. The only other time that's happened in the past decade was during the first few months of the pandemic.

The numbers aren't so high that they suggest a panic or anything, but there's clearly a sort of persistent low-level uneasiness that's been gnawing at investors ever since Donald Trump won the election.

Today's adventure in idiocy:

Q: Can you comment on the drones that are flying around with New Jersey ports? It seems like the American people have a big—

Donald Trump: The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went, and for some reason they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows and our president knows, and for some reason they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy because if it was the enemy, they'd blast it out. Even if they were late, they'd blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason they don't want to tell the people and they should because the people are really… I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster, want to know the truth.... They're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I've decided to cancel my trip.

Trump is canceling his trip to Jersey because he's afraid of the drones! What a moron.

Women's singles at the French Open. It translates a little awkwardly to an English speaker, no?

A wee bit of fact checking from the New York Times today:

Mr. Trump also said that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will cut $2 trillion out of the $6.8 trillion annual federal budget and “it’ll have no impact on people.” In fact, if you rule out cuts to Social Security, Medicare and defense, as Mr. Trump has, cutting $2 trillion would require shutting down almost the entire federal government.

Meh. "No impact" vs. "shut down almost the entire federal government." Come on. This is just more anti-Trump nitpicking from the liberal press.

This is really remarkable:

This isn't about the COVID vaccine. It's about childhood vaccines in general: measles, polio, pertussis, hepatitis, RSV, etc. After a yearslong jihad sparked by COVID conspiracy mongering, only 26% of Republicans still think childhood vaccines are important.

26%! It's like half the country has gone back to living in the Dark Ages.

Another incumbent party bites the dust, this time in Germany. Worst. Year. Ever.¹

¹For incumbents.