Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Best 4/1 prank I’ve seen today:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/04/01/new-research-finds-that-solar-eclipses-are-harder-to-see-due-to-global-warming/

This mirrors my experience while contending with cancer and lesser boo boos:

The War on Drugs Is Also a War on Pain Patients

Cato @ Liberty / by Jeffrey A. Singer / Apr 1, 2024 at 10:37 AM

Jeffrey A. Singer

Doctor's Exam with Prescription
In a March 22 opinion column in the New York Times entitled “The DEA Needs to Stay Out of Medicine,” Vanderbilt University Medical Center associate professor of anesthesiology and pain management Shravani Durbhakula, MD, documents powerfully how patients suffering from severe pain—many of them terminal cancer patients—have become collateral casualties in the government’s war on drugs.

Decrying the Drug Enforcement Administration’s progressive tightening of opioid manufacturing quotas, Dr. Durbhakula writes:

In theory, fewer opioids sold means fewer inappropriate scripts filled, which should curb the diversion of prescription opioids for illicit purposes and decrease overdose deaths — right?

I can tell you from the front lines that that’s not quite right. Prescription opioids once drove the opioid crisis. But in recent years opioid prescriptions have significantly fallen, while overdose deaths have been at a record high. America’s new wave of fatalities is largely a result of the illicit market, specifically illicit fentanyl. And as production cuts contribute to the reduction of the already strained supply of legal, regulated prescription opioids, drug shortages stand to affect the more than 50 million people suffering from chronic pain in more ways than at the pharmacy counter.

Dr. Durbhakula provides stories of patients having to travel long distances to see their doctors in person due to DEA requirements about opioid prescriptions. However, despite their efforts, they find that many of the pharmacies do not have the opioids they require because of quotas. She writes:

Health care professionals and pharmacies in this country are chained by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Our patients’ stress is the result not of an orchestrated set of practice guidelines or a comprehensive clinical policy but rather of one government agency’s crude, broad‐​stroke technique to mitigate a public health crisis through manufacturing limits — the gradual and repeated rationing of how much opioids can be produced by legitimate entities.

In the essay, Dr.Durbhakula does not question or challenge the false narrative that the overdose crisis originated with doctors “overprescribing” opioids to their pain patients.

Unfortunately, Dr. Durbhakula’s proposed policy recommendations would do little to advance patient and physician autonomy. She would merely transfer control over doctors treating pain from the cops to federal health bureaucracies and let those agencies set opioid production quotas. For instance, she claims, “It’s incumbent on us [doctors] to hand the reins of authority over to public health institutions better suited to the task.”

No. The “reins of authority” belong in the hands of patients and doctors.

Dr. Durbhakula suggests that “instead of defining medical aptness, the DEA should pass the baton to our nation’s public health agencies” and proposes that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration “collaborate” to “place controls on individual prescribing and respond to inappropriate prescribing.” She elides the fact that these public health agencies will “respond” to doctors or patients who don’t comply with their regulations by calling the cops.

To be sure, Dr. Durbhakula has good intentions. But replacing actual cops—the DEA—with federal health agencies that can order those cops to arrest non‐​compliant doctors and patients is like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. True, her proposed new pain management overlords would have greater medical expertise, but they would still reign over doctors and patients and assault their autonomy. And, as we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, they will not be immune to political pressures and groupthink.

While her policy prescriptions may be flawed, Dr. Durbhakula deserves praise for having the courage to point out that the war on drugs is also a war on pain patients. Alas, courageous doctors are in short supply these days. Most doctors keep their heads down and follow the cops’ instructions.

After I read her essay, I wrote the following (unpublished) letter to the editor of the New York Times:

Dear Editor—

Kudos to Dr. Durhakula for speaking out against the Drug Enforcement Administration’s intruding on doctors’ pain treatment (“The DEA Needs to Stay Out of Medicine,” March 22, 2024). As my colleague and I explained in our 2022 Cato Institute white paper, “Cops Practicing Medicine,” for more than 100 years, law enforcement has been increasingly surveilling and regulating pain management.

The DEA maintains a schedule of substances it controls, and it categorizes them based on what the agency determines to be their safety and addictive potential. The DEA even presumes to know how many and what kind of controlled substances—from stimulants like Adderall to narcotics like oxycodone—the entire US population will need in future years, setting quotas on how many each pharmaceutical manufacturer may annually produce.

The DEA restricts pain management based on the flawed assumption that what they consider to be “overtreatment” caused the overdose crisis. However, as my colleagues and I showed, there is no correlation between the opioid prescription rate and the rate of non‐​medical opioid use or opioid addiction. And, of course, as fear of DEA reprisal has caused the prescription rate to drop precipitously in the last dozen years, overdose deaths have soared as the black market provided non‐​medical users of “diverted” prescription pain pills first with more dangerous heroin and later with fentanyl.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health found that overdose fatalities have been rising exponentially since at least the late 1970s, with different drugs predominating during various periods. Complex sociocultural, psychosocial, and socioeconomic forces are at the root of the overdose crisis, requiring serious investigation. Yet policymakers have chosen the lazy answer by blaming the overdose crisis on doctors treating pain.

When cops practice medicine, overdoses increase, drug cartels get richer, and patients suffer.

Sincerely,

Jeffrey A. Singer, MD, FACS

Senior Fellow, Cato Institute

When cops practice medicine, overdoses increase, drug cartels get richer, and patients suffer.

https://www.cato.org/blog/war-drugs-also-war-pain-patients

Matt Taibbi was asked “why doesn’t he pay much attention to the sins (or threats) from “the right”?”

He gave a great answer:

Why I don’t spend a lot of time on the Republicans:

1) There is a enormous army of MSM reporters already going after them from every angle, with most major news organizations little more than proxies for the DNC, to the point where stations hire Biden spokespeople as anchors;

2) The Republicans have very little institutional power nationally. It’s not their point of view prevailing in schools, on campuses, in newsrooms (where over 90% of working reporters vote blue), and especially in the intelligence and military apparatus, which has openly aligned itself with Democrats. Even if Donald Trump were a “threat to Democracy” he lacks the institutional pull to do much damage, which can’t be said of Democrats;

3) The Democrats’ ambitions are significantly more dangerous than those of the Republicans. From digital surveillance to censorship to making Intel and enforcement agencies central players in domestic governance — all plans being executed globally as well as in our one country — they are thinking on a much bigger and more dangerous scale than Republicans. I lived in third world countries and the endless criminal indictments of people like Trump and ongoing lawfare efforts to prevent even third party challenges are classic authoritarian symptoms. The Republicans aren’t near this kind of capability;

4) Last and most important, the Democrats are being organized around a more potent but also much dumber, more cultlike ideology. People like Yuval Harari and his Transhumanist “divinity” concept scare me a lot more than the Rs, and I was once undercover in an apocalyptic church in Texas. Ask your average Russian or Cuban what overempowered pseudo-intellectuals are capable of.

I have a pretty good record of picking dangerous phenomena ahead of time. I feel confident on this one, and that’s before we get to the demographic/class shifts in the parties.

Full piece here:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/03/matt-taibbi-was-asked-why-doesnt-he-pay-much-attention-to-the-sins-or-threats-from-the-right/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=matt-taibbi-was-asked-why-doesnt-he-pay-much-attention-to-the-sins-or-threats-from-the-right

Learn how to blow up pipelines as part of your studies at Harvard:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/04/harvard-facing-accusations-of-promoting-eco-terrorism-for-screening-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-film/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=harvard-facing-accusations-of-promoting-eco-terrorism-for-screening-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline-film

AP actively supports the Hamas narrative while turning a blind eye to events occurring literally outside their front door in Gaza:

Hamas-shielding AP went too far
By seeking a journalism prize for its propaganda, AP showed it is irredeemably evil
APR 01, 2024

Never write angry, but this injustice is so outrageous, I might be tempted to think that self-righteous anger is a good thing in this case. But self-righteous anger belongs to God alone for He knows far more than we ever will.

So I will stick to my lane and try to deal in a calm manner with the unadulterated evil of the Associated Press. Under leadership no longer moored to facts or objectivity, it has become a worldwide propagandist for Hamas and other Islamic terrorists. Commies, too.

AP just won an award for its pro-terrorist coverage of the Palestinian attack on Israel. People call it Hamas but it is just like blaming only the Nazis for World War II because the vast majority of Germans — like the Palestinians now — were all in favor of destroying Jews and anyone else who got in their way.

For years, AP’s bureau in Gaza City provided cover for the military intelligence of Hamas. As long as AP was in there, Israel could not bomb the place.

This was an open secret. Matti Friedman wrote of it in The Atlantic in 2014:

When Hamas’s leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby—and the AP wouldn’t report it, not even in AP articles about Israeli claims that Hamas was launching rockets from residential areas. (This happened.) Hamas fighters would burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff—and the AP wouldn’t report it. (This also happened.) Cameramen waiting outside Shifa Hospital in Gaza City would film the arrival of civilian casualties and then, at a signal from an official, turn off their cameras when wounded and dead fighters came in, helping Hamas maintain the illusion that only civilians were dying. (This too happened; the information comes from multiple sources with firsthand knowledge of these incidents.)

So Hamas as launching rockets protected from exposure by AP for years. Finally, Israel had enough in 2021 and called up AP and gave its staff an hour to vamoose before the IDF destroyed the building. The AP played dumb. Its president and CEO at the time, Gary Pruitt, “We have had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building. This is something we actively check to the best of our ability. We would never knowingly put our journalists at risk.”

No indication?

The Atlantic article was every indication that Pruitt or anyone else in management needed. The magazine laid out how AP and the rest of the news organizations do the bidding of Hamas. AP hired Hamas-approved local writers and photojournalists and failed to disclose this to readers and the news groups that paid AP for stories and photos.

If AP was not doing that — as Pruitt implied — then AP management had a duty to fight this defamation.

But it was not defamation. It was the truth — the very kryptonite of the modern news organization. And so Pruitt and the rest of the people who are supposed to make sure AP’s sticks to journalism ignored the story. They hoped it would go away.

And it did go away until October 7, 2023, when Palestinians broke the 15th ceasefire between Israel and its various attackers over the past nearly eight decades. The Palestinians raped, tortured and murdered 1,400 Jews, torturing their bodies afterward. It was a sneak attack that AP knew about in advance because when the attackers attacked, AP was there to record the savagery.

Or so a lawsuit claims.

The New York Post reported in February, “Several survivors of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel have accused the Associated Press in a new lawsuit of aiding and abetting the terrorist organization by using freelance photojournalists believed to be embedded with the violent militants.

“The plaintiffs — Israeli-Americans and Americans who attended the Nova music festival raided by Hamas as well as loved ones of victims — are suing the news outlet for damages under the Antiterrorism Act, according to the federal complaint filed in the Southern District of Florida Wednesday night.

“They are being represented by lawyers working with the nonprofit National Jewish Advocacy Center who accuse the major media company of ‘materially supporting terrorism’ by paying alleged Hamas-associated photojournalists for images captured during and immediately after the Oct. 7 invasion.”

The lawsuit says, “There is no doubt that AP’s photographers participated in the October 7th massacre, and that AP knew, or at the very least should have known, through simple due diligence, that the people they were paying were longstanding Hamas affiliates and full participants in the terrorist attack that they were also documenting.”

The Post said, “the majority of the complaint focuses on one photojournalist, Hassan Eslaiah — who has been accused of being a Hamas associate even before the terrorist groups’ bloody invasion of Israel.”

He’s the one being smooched by the Hamas commander in the photo.

Now if I faced such serious allegations, I would refrain from drawing attention to it, but AP believes it is untouchable. AP submitted the work of Eslaiah and 5 other tag-along terrorists for a journalism award. It is called spiking the ball.

AP tells readers these are just freelance photographers, but when it comes to promoting an award, they are members of Team AP.

The Organizer reported, “Freelance photojournalist Ali Mahmud, who contributed to the Associated Press and accompanied the Hamas terrorists during the October 7, 2024 attack in Israel has won the Team Picture Story of the Year awarded by Donald Reynolds Journalism Institute in the United States for the photograph of Shani Louk who was paraded naked by the Hamas terrorists before killing her.”

It’s like giving Hitler an award for the lampshade he made.

Make no mistake, this is just as evil. Those photos are trophies displayed by these terrorists on AP’s payroll. The story was polite — “Ali Mahmud is one of the journalists that travelled with terrorists into Israel and extensively covered the attack” — but these are military photographers in the Palestinian army.

My how times have changed. 14 years ago, Hearst Newspapers forced Helen Thomas to resign after she said Israelis should go back to Europe. Now such sentiment wins you an award, especially if you help terrorize Israelis.

Journalists generally are an untrustworthy group of gougers, as Breitbart reminded readers over the weekend.

It reported, “Journalists in the White House press corps covering President Joe Biden’s administration habitually steal insignia items from Air Force One, four people told West Wing Playbook.

“The looting reportedly grew to such a degree under Biden’s tenure that the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, NBC correspondent Kelly O’Donnell, issued a terse reminder that stealing from Air Force One is not allowed, several individuals who saw the off-the-record email confirmed to Playbook.”

The thieves took:

Wine glasses
Tumblers
Gold-rimmed plates
Embroidered pillowcases
Of course they have no ethics, which is why no one should be surprised that Hamas terrorists would win a journalism award.

AP is not good at its propaganda because the majority of Americans still support Israel over the barbarians who include AP journalists.

It has not been easy for Israel. Obama and the rest of the American left (as well as the useless dolts at the UN) have played a big roll in deflecting attention from what Hamas did into lies about hospitals being bombed. Gaza City seems to have the world’s highest hospitals per capita level in the world.

That’s because Gaza City is one big human shield for an underground military base.

And AP’s office may have moved but it is still an intricate part of that shield. It is hypocritical of AP to complain about Trump’s treatment of the press while voluntarily serving as a PR team for terrorists. Is it money from a payoff or just deep-seated anti-Semitism?

https://donsurber.substack.com/p/hamas-shielding-ap-went-too-far?r=1qo1e&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes: Palastinian work force (apporox 18,000 work permits issued) will be replaced by workers from India and Sri Lanka:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/04/indians-set-to-replace-palestinian-workers-from-gaza-west-bank-in-israeli-jobs-after-october-7-massacre/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=indians-set-to-replace-palestinian-workers-from-gaza-west-bank-in-israeli-jobs-after-october-7-massacre

… and other horrors:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytyms4cNSbo&t=373s

Trust in government is low in China, too:

Foreign investors aren’t the only ones bailing on China
The Hill News / by Nicholas Sargen / Mar 29, 2024 at 8:39 AM

One of the top priorities of China’s policymakers has been to stabilize the country’s equity and property markets. China’s stock market has trailed the S&P 500 index substantially since 2017, and the gap has increased in the past few years as the property bubble burst. 

China had the worst return among markets in the MSCI World index last year, and the loss in value of both mainland and Hong Kong-listed stocks from the peak in 2021 now exceeds $6 trillion according to Fortune.

In response, China’s government has adopted a series of measures to bolster the markets and stem foreign capital flight. Yet, domestic investors are also losing confidence in economic policies, as problems in the property sector are spreading, a record number of young people are unemployed and the country is flirting with deflation.

Earlier this month investors were focused on the National People’s Congress in Beijing, where China’s leaders unveiled plans about the country’s medium-term economic objectives. In the keynote speech, Premier Li Qiang reaffirmed the government’s target growth rate of 5 percent but offered no assessment of how it would be achieved. Scott Campbell of Time contends that policymakers appear to have their “head in the sand.” 

Some investors were disappointed that the government did not announce plans to increase spending to bolster the economy and property market. However, with China’s overall debt to GDP at a record 288 percent last year, additional debt-financed spending would only exacerbate the problem of economic inefficiency. 

Rather, the key issue confronting China is the need to tackle its massive excess savings. To do so, the government should re-embark on economic reforms incentivizing households to increase consumption, which is less than 40 percent of GDP.

This goal has topped the list of the country’s policy priorities since 2007, a year before Western economies were reeling from the 2008 global financial crisis. Subsequently, China’s five-year plan covering 2011-15 called for transitioning the economy from export and investment-led growth to greater reliance on domestic consumption. This goal was reiterated in the latest government plan that covers the period from 2022 to 2035.

Thus far, however, there is little to show for it, and the problem of excess saving is becoming intractable.

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times points out that China generated 28 percent of global savings in 2023 according to the IMF. This tally is only a little less than the 33 percent share of the U.S. and European Union combined. 

He points out two important implications. First, if China were an open market economy, its capital markets would be the largest in the world. Second, how these savings are managed would be the most important determinant of global interest rates and the global balance of payments.

If the share of domestic consumption to GDP fails to increase and the budget imbalance is unchanged, the gap between domestic savings and investment would be channeled either as increased capital flight from China or increased exports from China to the rest of the world. With China’s government aiming to expand production of electronic vehicles, the risk of a renewed trade conflict between China and the U.S. and EU is likely to increase in the next year or two, as I have warned previously.

Another risk is that troubles in the property sector will continue to weigh on consumer confidence. 

A New York Federal Reserve report points to a recent survey conducted by the People’s Bank of China that documents growing concerns among property owners in the country. The survey shows that 15 percent of households have suffered declines in income since the pandemic struck, and some 43 percent of respondents were insecure about their jobs. Accordingly, 60 percent of households surveyed told the People’s Bank of China they must prioritize saving over consumption.

During the 10 years before COVID, household borrowing averaged over 25 percent annually to finance real estate purchases according to the New York Federal Reserve. Property was the most important store of value for households, accounting for roughly two-thirds of household assets, while over 80 percent owned residences. 

Subsequently, as their balance sheets suffered amid the collapse of economic activity that ensued, households responded by paying down mortgage debt and increasing long-term bank deposits to earn interest income. Yet, as the Bank of China eases monetary policy to combat the risk of deflation, their incentives to continue doing so may lessen over time. 

So, what can the Chinese government do to rebuild consumer confidence?

My assessment is it will not be easy for two reasons. First, whenever confidence is shattered it inevitably takes considerable time to rebuild public trust. Second, the government has repeatedly failed to adopt policies to transform China’s development model away from export and investment-led growth to rely more on domestic consumption. Moreover, it shows no inclination to do so now, as it has placed political priorities ahead of economic goals. 

Finally, I do not foresee China’s property bubble playing out as it did in Japan in the 1990s or the U.S. 15 years ago, because China’s government controls the banking system. Rather, it will likely be a slow, steady grind that will weigh on the country’s growth prospects for years to come.   

In these circumstances, the government’s attempts to bolster China’s stock and property market face a steep uphill battle. 

Nicholas Sargen, Ph.D., is an economic consultant for Fort Washington Investment Advisors and is affiliated with the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.  He has authored three books including “Global Shocks: An Investment Guide for Turbulent Markets.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4561718-foreign-investors-arent-the-only-ones-bailing-on-china/

Returned ballots are harvested, perhaps via postal workers, completed for the preferred (Dem) candidate, and then remained as valid, among other tidbits found here:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/leading-milwaukee-democrat-kimberly-zapata-found-guilty-all/

Another one from SingularityHub that’s interesting on its face, but scary in its implications:

Human Artificial Chromosomes Could Ferry Tons More DNA Cargo Into Cells

Novel method creates stable HACs

•Singularity Hub / by Shelly Fan / Mar 26, 2024 at 4:50 PM

The human genetic blueprint is deceptively simple. Our genes are tightly wound into 46 X-shaped structures called chromosomes. Crafted by evolution, they carry DNA and replicate when cells divide, ensuring the stability of our genome over generations.

In 1997, a study torpedoed evolution’s playbook. For the first time, a team created an artificial human chromosome using genetic engineering. When delivered into a human cell in a petri dish, the artificial chromosome behaved much like its natural counterparts. It replicated as cells divided, leading to human cells with 47 chromosomes.

Rest assured, the goal wasn’t to artificially evolve our species. Rather, artificial chromosomes can be used to carry large chunks of human genetic material or gene editing tools into cells. Compared to current delivery systems—virus carriers or nanoparticles—artificial chromosomes can incorporate far more synthetic DNA.

In theory, they could be designed to ferry therapeutic genes into people with genetic disorders or add protective ones against cancer.

Yet despite over two decades of research, the technology has yet to enter the mainstream. One challenge is that the short DNA segments linking up to form the chromosomes stick together once inside cells, making it difficult to predict how the genes will behave.

This month, a new study from the University of Pennsylvania changed the 25-year-old recipe and built a new generation of artificial chromosomes. Compared to their predecessors, the new chromosomes are easier to engineer and use longer DNA segments that don’t clump once inside cells. They’re also a large carrier, which in theory could shuttle genetic material roughly the size of the largest yeast chromosome into human cells.

“Essentially, we did a complete overhaul of the old approach to HAC [human artificial chromosome] design and delivery,” study author Dr. Ben Black said in a press release.

“The work is likely to reinvigorate efforts to engineer artificial chromosomes in both animals and plants,” wrote the University of Georgia’s Dr. R. Kelly Dawe, who was not involved in the study.

Shape of You

Since 1997, artificial genomes have become an established  biotechnology. They’ve been used to rewrite DNA in bacteria, yeast, and plants, resulting in cells that can synthesize life-saving medications or eat plastic. They could also help scientists better understand the functions of the mysterious DNA sequences littered throughout our genome.

The technology also brought about the first synthetic organisms. In late 2023, scientists revealed yeast cells with half their genes replaced by artificial DNA—the team hopes to eventually customize every single chromosome. Earlier this year, another study reworked parts of a plant’s chromosome, further pushing the boundaries of synthetic organisms.

And by tinkering with the structures of chromosomes—for example, chopping off suspected useless regions—we can better understand how they normally function, potentially leading to treatments for diseases.

The goal of building human artificial chromosomes isn’t to engineer synthetic human cells. Rather, the work is meant to advance gene therapy. Current methods for carrying therapeutic genes or gene editing tools into cells rely on viruses or nanoparticles. But these carriers have limited cargo capacity.

If current delivery vehicles are like sailboats, artificial human chromosomes are like cargo ships, with the capacity to carry a far larger and wider range of genes.

The problem? They’re hard to build. Unlike bacteria or yeast chromosomes, which are circular in shape, our chromosomes are like an “X.” At the center of each is a protein hub called the centromere that allows the chromosome to separate and replicate when a cell divides.

In a way, the centromere is like a button that keeps fraying pieces of fabric—the arms of the chromosome—intact. Earlier efforts to build human artificial chromosomes focused on these structures, extracting DNA letters that could express proteins inside human cells to anchor the chromosomes. However, these DNA sequences rapidly grabbed onto themselves like double-sided tape, ending in balls that made it difficult for cells to access the added genes.

One reason could be that the synthetic DNA sequences were too short, making the mini-chromosome components unreliable. The new study tested the idea by engineering a far larger human chromosome assembly than before.

Eight Is the Lucky Number

Rather than an X-shaped chromosome, the team designed their human artificial chromosome as a circle, which is compatible with replication in yeast. The circle packed a hefty 760,000 DNA letter pairs—roughly 1/200 the size of an entire human chromosome.

Inside the circle were genetic instructions to make a sturdier centromere—the “button” that keeps the chromosome structure intact and can make it replicate. Once expressed inside a yeast cell, the button recruited the yeast’s molecular machinery to build a healthy human artificial chromosome.

In its initial circular form in yeast cells, the synthetic human chromosome could then be directly passed into human cells through a process called cell fusion. Scientists removed the “wrappers” around yeast cells with chemical treatments, allowing the cells’ components—including the artificial chromosome—to merge directly into human cells inside petri dishes.

Like benevolent extraterrestrials, the added synthetic chromosomes happily integrated into their human host cells. Rather than clumping into noxious debris, the circles doubled into a figure-eight shape, with the centromere holding the circles together. The artificial chromosomes happily co-existed with native X-shaped ones, without changing their normal functions.

For gene therapy, it’s essential that any added genes remain inside the body even as cells divide. This perk is especially important for fast-dividing cells like cancer, which can rapidly adapt to therapies. If a synthetic chromosome is packed with known cancer-suppressing genes, it could keep cancers and other diseases in check throughout generations of cells.

The artificial human chromosomes passed the test. They recruited proteins from the human host cells to help them spread as the cells divided, thus conserving the artificial genes over generations.

A Revival

Much has changed since the first human artificial chromosomes.

Gene editing tools, such as CRISPR, have made it easier to rewrite our genetic blueprint. Delivery mechanisms that target specific organs or tissues are on the rise. But synthetic chromosomes may be regaining some of the spotlight.

Unlike viral carriers, the most often used delivery vehicle for gene therapies or gene editors, artificial chromosomes can’t tunnel into our genome and disrupt normal gene expression—making them potentially far safer.

The technology has vulnerabilities though. The engineered chromosomes are still often lost when cells divide. Synthetic genes placed near the centromere—the “button” of the chromosome—may also disrupt the artificial chromosome’s ability to replicate and separate when cells divide.

But to Dawe, the study has larger implications than human cells alone. The principles of re-engineering centromeres shown in this study could be used for yeast and potentially be “applicable across kingdoms” of living organisms.

The method could help scientists better model human diseases or produce drugs and vaccines. More broadly, “It may soon be possible to include artificial chromosomes as a part of an expanding toolkit to address global challenges related to health care, livestock, and the production of food and fiber,” he wrote.

Image Credit: Warren Umoh / Unsplash

https://singularityhub.com/2024/03/26/human-artificial-chromosomes-could-ferry-tons-more-dna-cargo-into-cells/

I wonder if the recipient will prove to be an apt truffle hunter once he recovers?

Man Gets Pig Kidney Transplant
NeuroLogica Blog / by Steven Novella / Mar 25, 2024 at 8:00 AM
On March 16 surgeons transplanted a kidney taken from a pig into a human recipient, Rick Slayman. So far the transplant is a success, but of course the real test will be how well the kidney functions and for how long. This is the first time such a transplant has been done into a living donor – previous experimental pig transplants were done on brain dead patients.

This approach to essentially “growing organs” for transplant into humans, in my opinion, has the most potential. There are currently over 100 thousand people on the US transplant waiting list, and many of them will die while waiting. There are not enough organs to go around. If we could somehow manufacture organs, especially ones that have a low risk of immune rejection, that would be a huge medical breakthrough. Currently there are several options.

One is to essentially construct a new organ. Attempts are already underway to 3D print organs from stem cells, which can be taken from the intended recipient. This requires a “scaffold” which is connective tissue taken from an organ where the cells have been stripped off. So you still need, for example, a donor heart. You then strip that heart of cells, 3D print new heart cells onto what’s left to create a new heart. This is tricky technology, and I am not confident it will even work.

Another option is to grow the organs ex-vivo – grow them in a tank of some kind from stem cells taken from the intended recipient. The advantage here is that the organ can potentially be a perfect new organ, entirely human, and with the genetics of the recipient, so no issues with rejection. The main limitation is that it takes time. Considering, however, that people often spend years on the transplant wait list, this could still be an option for some. The problem here is that we don’t currently have the technology to do this.

Similar to this approach is to grow a human organ inside an animal – essentially using the animal as the “tank” in which to grow the organ. The host animal can then provide nutrition and oxygen, and a suitable environment. This would require that the animal will not reject the organ, which would mean treating with drugs or engineering animals hosts that are humanized or whose immune systems cannot mount a rejection.

The most futuristic and also ethically complex approach would be to clone an entire person in order to use them as an organ donor. This would not have to be like “The Island” movie in which the cloned future donors were living people kept in a controlled environment, unaware of their ultimate fate. Anencephalic humans (without brains) could be cloned and grown, and just kept as meat bags. There are two big disadvantages here. The first is that the clones would likely need to be kept alive for years before the organs would be mature enough to be used. How would that work? Would a recipient need to wait 10 years before they could get their donor organ, or would there be clone banks where clones were kept in case they were needed in the future? These seem like cost-prohibitive options, except for the super wealthy.

One potential solution would be to genetically engineer universal donors, whose organs could potentially be transplanted into any human recipient. Or perhaps there would need to be a finite number of donors, say for each blood type. When someone needs an organ they get the next one off the rack. Still, this seems like an expensive option.

The other main limitation of the clone approach is the ethical considerations. I doubt keeping banks of living donor clones will be morally acceptable to society, at least not anytime soon.

This leaves us with what I think is by far the best option – genetically engineering animals to be human organ donors. Pigs are good candidates because the size and shape of their organs are a good match. We just need to engineer them so their immune systems use human proteins instead of pig proteins. We can remove any of the proteins that are most likely to trigger rejection. This also means giving the pigs a human immune system. The pigs are therefore both humanized and altered so as not to trigger rejection. Slayman will still need to take anti-rejection drugs, but it is easy to imagine that as this technology incrementally improves eventually we will get to a population of pigs optimized for human organ donation. The advantages of this approach over all other approaches are simply massive, which leads me to predict that this approach is the one that will win out for the foreseeable future.

One potential ethical objection is from raising domestic animals for the purpose of being slaughtered, which some animal rights activists object to. But of course, we already do this for food. At least for now, this is ethically acceptable to most people. Slaughtering a pig not just for food but to save the lives of potentially 5-7 people is not a hard sell ethically. This approach could also be a huge money saver for the healthcare system.

I am therefore very happy to see this technology proceed, and I wish the best for Slayman, both for him personally and for the potential of this technology to save many lives.

The post Man Gets Pig Kidney Transplant first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

https://theness.com/neurologicablog/man-gets-pig-kidney-transplant/

This is quite a tale of state overreach and the resulting horror. I’ll be surprised if Oregon doesn’t end up losing a lawsuit over illegal takings:

https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2024/03/24/oregon-shutting-down-gardens-farming-to-save-something/

Curious that I haven’t encountered a US source reporting on this. Imagine if a non-green energy facility was destroyed by something as trifling as hail:

https://joannenova.com.au/2024/03/2500-football-fields-of-new-solar-panels-destroyed-by-hail-in-texas-this-week/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=2500-football-fields-of-new-solar-panels-destroyed-by-hail-in-texas-this-week

I was not aware of this series of related China v. Australia incidents:

Shh! Nobody mention why China launched that trade war on Australia…

China, Lion statue

By Jo Nova

That which must not be spoken
Every news outlet today is saying how good it is that “relations” with China have thawed, like it was just a bad patch of weather, and now the clouds have cleared they’ve allowed us to sell them wine again. But there is a kind of collective amnesia about why relations froze in the first place.

Just to recap, through incompetence or “otherwise” naughty-citizen China leaked a likely lab experiment, lied about it, and destroyed the evidence. They stopped it spreading at home but sent it on planes to infect the rest of the world. Then when Scott Morrison, Australian Prime Minister, dared ask for an investigation in April 2020, within a week China threatened boycotts, and followed up with severe anti-dumping duties on Australian barley. After which the CCP discovered “inconsistencies in labelling” on Australian beef imports, and added bans or tariffs on Australian wine, wheat, wool, sugar, copper, lobsters, timber and grapes. Then they told their importers not to bring in Australian coal, cotton or LNG either. The only industry they didn’t attack was iron ore, probably because they couldn’t get it anywhere else. In toto, the punishment destroyed about $20 billion dollars in trade, and everyone, even CNN, knew this was political retribution and a message to the world.

As Jeffrey Wilson, Foreign Policy, described it in November 2021

“… its massive onslaught against Australia was like nothing before. Whereas China usually sanctions minor products as a warning shot—Norwegian salmon, Taiwanese pineapples—Australia was the first country to be subjected to an economywide assault.”

But perhaps the communist party had nothing to hide?

Not to put a fine point on it, but on January 14th, 2020, China told the world they had “found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission “. A Chinese CDC expert said “If no new patients appear in the next week, it might be over.” They didn’t mention that things were already so bad in Wuhan in December 2019, that even doctors one thousand kilometers away in Taiwan suspected it was spreading human to human. Taiwan demanded answers from the WHO on December 31. The next day, the CCP destroyed all the virus samples, information about them, and related papers.  But perhaps it was just an innocent bat-pangolin thing, yeah?

So after four years of pain in order to stand bravely against the bully, what concessions, exactly, did our current leadership win? There’s no investigation, no answers, no apology, no nothing and no reason to think it won’t happen again.

In fact to smooth the wheels, Australia dropped the WTO cases against China for their bad behaviour with barley and wine. But the negotiation geniuses didn’t insist that China drop its WTO case against us (which was instigated two days after the Australian cases). And so it comes to pass that this week China won the WTO steel case against us.

https://joannenova.com.au/2024/03/shh-nobody-mention-why-china-launched-that-trade-war-on-australia/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=shh-nobody-mention-why-china-launched-that-trade-war-on-australia

Check out this lede from a story on Trump in The Hill:

“Country musician Lee Greenwood is defending the “God Bless the USA” Bibles he's selling in partnership with former President Trump, who is set to go on trial next month over hush money payments made to an adult film star.“

Jeepers, Hill, you figure you might want to mention that the gent making the “hush money” claim is a convicted perjurer? Or explain why a “news” story opts to embrace editorial irony by segueing from bibles to porn? Nah, that would remove the ad hominem power of the lede….

I’ve been viewing various woebegone “loss of trust in institutions” pieces of late. The fact those moaning the loudest seem oblivious to this sort of hatchet job speaks volumes.

A survivor remembers the Cambodian civil war and its grim impacts:

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2024/03/28/exclusive-recollections-of-a-survivor-of-genocidal-khmer-rouge-n4927735

Ye gods, what were these people thinking? Dealing with youth protection concerns are part of my day job; I’m unable to grasp this level of negligence allowed at a CHILDREN’S NETWORK:

https://nypost.com/2024/03/28/media/nickelodeon-hired-or-worked-with-child-molesters-pedophiles/

Oddly given their reputation the WSJ editorial board comes out in favor or renewing broad surveillance tools:

WSJ Ed Board Knifes Fourth Amendment, Betrays Journal's Reporters and Readers

Cato @ Liberty / by Patrick G. Eddington / Mar 27, 2024 at 12:19 PM

Patrick G. Eddington

Financial Surveillance
I’ve been in Washington over 30 years, but sometimes even I can be stunned by the short memories and shortsightedness of members of the Fourth Estate. Today’s example is the editorial board of the venerable (and usually pretty sane) Wall Street Journal.

The ostensible topic of their latest pronouncement (paywall) was the recent terrorist attack in Moscow, which appears to have been the work of violent Salafist terrorists. After offering some fairly standard pre‐​Trump era Establishment fare on the need for still more US military action in the Islamic world, the WSJ ed board ended its piece by stating,

The ISIS comeback also argues for the House to overcome its disagreements and reauthorize Section 702 authority to surveil foreign communications even if it accidentally catches some Americans in the sweep. The House Intelligence bill contains enough safeguards without adding bureaucratic and political obstacles to rapid surveillance of real threats. Americans don’t want another attack on U.S. soil like last week’s horror show in Moscow.

Item 1: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702 telecommunications intercept program does not “accidentally” sweep up the communications of US persons with no connection to criminal activity. The very structure and operational characteristics of both the 702 program and the global telecommunications system guarantee that the emails, text messages, and the like of innocent Americans are inevitably captured and stored in a vast database for years. It is a database that agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have repeatedly been found to have used to conduct warrantless digital fishing expeditions on Americans not wanted for any crime.

That means that the communications of Journal reporters (especially those traveling to or reporting from overseas) are very likely getting swept up via the 702 program. The same thing is almost certainly happening to the digital letters to the editor or op‐​eds submitted to the Journal by Americans overseas or who visit the Journal’s website to read its news coverage, etc. All of that, and literally millions of communications of other Americans are available for perusal by FBI agents with access to the 702 database. To be a cheerleader for a surveillance program that’s likely collecting the communications of its reporters and readers is probably not what those reporters or readers view as a legitimate government function or use of their taxpayer dollars.

Item 2: Multiple bills have been introduced to impose an actual warrant requirement for any federal law enforcement access to that stored data, but the most recent one introduced is a bipartisan Senate bill that, while not going as far as many privacy and civil liberties advocates would like, would be a vast improvement over where we are now with the 702 program. The House Intelligence Committee bill championed by the WSJ ed board would, if enacted, largely be another classic example of the old Capitol Hill game of “Let’s not but say we did” when it comes to surveillance reform. The Journal ed board seems not to recognize that the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have long been “organizationally captured” by the various intelligence and law enforcement entities they were created to oversee in 1978. Both committees are cheerleaders for mass surveillance, not our protectors from it.

Item 3: The Journal ed board is engaged in a form of magical thinking with respect to mass surveillance. No mass surveillance program has ever stopped a terrorist attack on America. That was the case with the 702 program’s progenitor, the infamous STELLAR WIND program. It was also the case with the PATRIOT Act’s Section 215 telephone metadata mass surveillance program. And while the FBI and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) continue to make incredible claims about the program’s effectiveness, the actual FBI internal audits of the 702 program have never been released. Cato is trying to remedy that information deficit via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit currently before D.C. Circuit Judge Tanya Chutkan.

The WSJ ed board could’ve enlightened its readers with all of these publicly available, sourced facts. Instead, it chose to fearmonger in favor of a program that is not and never has been Fourth Amendment compliant in the way the Founders intended, a program that almost certainly sweeps up the communications of its own reporters, editors, and readers. How the mighty have fallen.

For those still in the People’s Republic of California, particularly its northern climes, pay heed. It’s worth noting these gents decided not to go armed to avoid being hassled by game wardens and such. One hopes CA’s onerous gun rules and regs weren’t what caused these gents to go into the woods unprepared:

https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/news/fatal-mountain-lion-attack-california/

I’m at a loss on where to best post this and am indeed tempted to start a “Stuff BBG Don’t Know Where to Put” thread, but will call this thread as close as I can get:

https://gearjunkie.com/technology/invisibility-shield-2-kickstarter

Back in my misspent youth this puppy would have come in handy when dodging the local constabulary….

Second post:

Imagine going back in time, a decade or so, and telling anti-fascists that one day they’ll be doing the bidding of fascists. Imagine telling anti-racists that they would soon become propagandists for racists. Imagine telling those woke campus feminists, the sort who thought that being propositioned at the student bar was ‘rape culture’, that in the not-too-distant future they’d be making excuses for literal rape. They’d have thought you mad. And yet it’s happened. Many of yesteryear’s self-righteous haters of bigotry have morphed into the Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas – one of the most bigoted movements on Earth.

– Brendan O’Neill

WSJ FTA: Obama, Clinton, & Biden will be appearing at a fundraiser. Guess some coattails need to be clung to:

Democrats Still Stuck With Biden
Voters don’t think much of the president but also remain wary of the obvious replacement.

The bad news for the White House is that according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, Joe Biden remains just as unpopular as he was before giving his State of the Union  address. The worse news for Democrats is that there’s not much they can do about it.

This column will offer the usual caveat that polling is not an exact science if it’s even a science. But assume a wide margin for error and this electorate is still very unhappy with the incumbent. This week the Economist/YouGov poll finds that 58% of registered voters don’t want Mr. Biden to run again this fall, compared to just 31% who do.

Even among Democrats the percentage who want Mr. Biden running again is just 50%—though he has recently locked up the nomination to represent their party this fall.

A full 63% of registered voters regard him as a weak leader, compared to the 37% who view him as a strong one.

In another reading that can’t be good for Mr. Biden, when asked if they “feel that things in this country these days” are “under control” or “out of control,” only 15% of registered voters say “under control” while 70% say they feel that things in this country are “out of control.” Looks like an overwhelming endorsement of the thesis advanced by this column’s most celebrated alumnus: Mr. Biden has failed to fulfill the central premise and promise of his 2020 campaign—a return to normal politics.

Meanwhile there’s more discouraging news for the donkeys in the latest Harvard/Harris survey, which finds that most voters doubt Joe Biden’s mental fitness to serve another term as president and believe he’s showing that he’s too old for the job. But they also aren’t eager to embrace the obvious alternative. Harvard/Harris asked the following question:

If Joe Biden decided to drop out at the Democratic convention in August, do you view Kamala Harris as the default replacement or would you want an open contest at the convention among the delegates?
Only 37% of respondents say the vice president should be the default selection while 63% would want an open contest. Republicans overwhelmingly favor an open contest, so perhaps they’re just rooting for uncontrolled division in the rival party. But 70% of independents also favor an open contest.

As for the Democrats, 60% think Ms. Harris should be next in line while 40% would want the contest thrown open. This is a tough reading for any Democratic insiders trying to conceive of a way to finesse Mr. Biden into retirement this summer. The 60% base of party support shows how difficult it would be to jettison Ms. Harris. But the 40% who want an open competition are numerous enough to spark a vigorous summer debate, especially as Democrats contemplate how little appetite there is for a Harris candidacy outside their party.

So the Democrats remain stuck with a presidential nominee whose own Justice Department’s special counsel decided was too forgetful to prosecute despite voluminous evidence of willful law-breaking. So much for a return to normalcy!

Of course across all parties there’s also the question of how much U.S. voters really want normal politicians. The large majority who would prefer an open competition to choose a Biden successor instead of accepting the sitting vice president suggests that there’s still a significant anti-establishment streak among U.S. voters.

Chris Megerian’s report for the Associated Press underlines how different Mr. Biden’s relationship to his party is compared to Donald Trump’s relationship with his:

When President Joe Biden needs advice, there are two people he can turn to who know what it’s like to sit in his chair. Sometimes he will invite Barack Obama over to the White House for a meal or he will get on the phone with Bill Clinton.

…On Thursday, their partnership will be on display in what has been described as a one-of-a-kind fundraising extravaganza in New York City to help Biden build on his already significant cash advantage…
“There is everything to be gained by Joe Biden standing next to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama,” said Leon Panetta, who worked in the administrations of both former presidents. “That picture is worth a hell of a lot in politics today.”

To some it’s a picture of the ultimate establishment politician, and soon we’ll all find out what it’s worth. The AP report continues:

The display of solidarity is a sharp contrast to Donald Trump’s isolation from other Republican leaders.

Now Imagine How Unpopular Biden Will Be in 2054

Perhaps those of us in the media business spend too much time examining and reporting on polling results, which are merely imperfect and ephemeral expressions of opinion. But rest assured that Joe Biden is not one of those unpopular presidents who will become more admired in the fullness of time.  A rare president who does not even pretend to care about runaway federal spending, Mr. Biden took office facing a mammoth fiscal problem and has worked diligently to ensure that his successors will have to tackle something far worse. The Congressional Budget Office recently updated its long-term budget forecast:

The deficit increases significantly in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years… Debt held by the public, boosted by the large deficits, reaches its highest level ever in 2029 (measured as a percentage of GDP) and then continues to grow, reaching 166 percent of GDP in 2054 and remaining on track to increase thereafter. That mounting debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook; it could also cause lawmakers to feel more constrained in their policy choices.
You can say that again. And they won’t look back with fondness at the responsible official who felt so weirdly unconstrained by any notion of fiscal soundness.

James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”

Follow James Freeman on Twitter.

https://apple.news/AflMsTZ8FSEqxDzNjFuMhjg

Shipwreckedcrew

@shipwreckedcrew

Amazing how the septuagenarians and octogenarians in the Democrat party are willing to break faith on a decades-long commitment to the security of Israel because a bunch of know-nothing college kids and chuckleheaded academics have joined with a small foreign contingent in the party -- many of whom can't even vote -- to mau-mau them into obedience.

Piece explores Israel's unprecedented efforts to minimize civilian casualties:

https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286

Local government pensions were a major recipient, w/ those commitments correlating w/ strong government union presence:

Fiscal Federalism Turned Upside-Down

The Beacon / by Peter C. Earle and Thomas Savidge / Mar 26, 2024 at 5:32 PM

A recent study from the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) found that many states misused federal aid related to the pandemic. Instead of using funds for projects related to healthcare, education, and infrastructure, state politicians used the lion’s share of federal funding for the general fund and public pensions.

Aside from the blatant misuse of federal dollars, this study highlights another important issue: state and local government dependence on funding from the federal government. The more states are dependent on DC, the more control DC has over state and local fiscal affairs. When DC inevitably cuts funding to the states, fiscal crises are bound to occur.

AEI’s study found that state government revenues and spending “increased by around 70 cents per incremental windfall dollar of committed federal funds by 2022.” States where public employees had the most influence over pension fund boards saw the largest increases in pension contributions with those federal dollars.

While this misuse of funds is no surprise to many of the critics of federal pandemic aid, it should be shocking to the average American. Despite the US Treasury explicitly banning the use of federal funds for pensions and tax cuts, it still occurred. Evidence from the research shows “no observed increases in liquid cash positions and essentially full spending of received aid.”

In this case, states must obligate federal money from the American Rescue Plan (ARPA) by December 31, 2024. They then have until December 31, 2026, to spend it or give it back to the federal government. Incentives matter, and in a case of “use it or lose it,” states will find ways for the money to be spent. The latest data show that the average state gets 38 percent ($21.6 billion) of its revenue from federal funds, the largest single category. Expenditures funded by general fund revenue make up the second largest category of expenditures ($20.9 billion). Other funds include revenue sources that are restricted by law for specific functions or activities (gas taxes for a transportation fund, tuition and fees for higher education, or provider taxes for Medicaid) make up the third largest category ($13.5 billion). Bonds make up the smallest category of expenditures ($1 billion), although bond types included in the calculations vary by state.

State Budget Expenditures (Capital Inclusive) by Source, 2022 (50 State Average)



(Source: Authors’ Calculations, National Association of State Budget Officers State Expenditure Report Historical Data)

Unfortunately, this is not a new development. Since 1991 (the earliest data available), federal funds have steadily increased as a share of total expenditures at the state level. The chart below shows that the largest increases in federal funds to the states occurred immediately following recessions. Out of fear of losing revenue, state officials seek aid from the federal government, which is more than happy to oblige.

It is a manifestation of the Public Choice concept “the ratchet effect,” where federal spending spikes immediately after a recession or emergency, then lowers when the crisis subsides, but never down to pre-crisis levels.

State Budget Expenditures (Capital Inclusive) by Source as a Percentage of Total Expenditures, 1991-2023



(*2023 totals are projected
Note: Shaded areas indicate periods of recession
Source: Authors’ Calculations, National Association of Ste Budget Officers State Expenditure Report 2023 and Historical Data)

The National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO) also projects that 2023 data will show that general fund expenditures will exceed federal fund expenditures for the first time since 2020, yet it is not expected to return to 2019 levels. With federal money from ARPA still left to spend, federal funds will likely still make up at least a third of the average state budget.

Like so much else in government spending, the trend is unsustainable. The most recent Financial Report of the United States Government concludes by saying that “[t]he projections in this Financial Report indicate that if policy remains unchanged, the debt-to-GDP ratio will steadily increase throughout the projection period and beyond, which implies current policy under this report’s assumptions is not sustainable and must ultimately change” (emphasis added).

That untenability, furthermore, has not gone unnoticed. In August 2023 Fitch Ratings downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA+, the second following the August 2011 lowering by Standard and Poor. In November 2023, Moody’s Investment Service changed the US credit outlook to negative. Lower credit ratings threaten higher interest costs on an already massive amount of government debt. These rising costs and debt will force lawmakers in Washington to make some difficult cuts to spending. When the time comes to make painful cuts, politicians in DC will cut funding to the states, expect state leaders to deal with the funding issues, and let them take the blame for the inevitable tax hikes and spending cuts.

Most US states ended FY 2021, 2022, and 2023 with budget surpluses. Many states took the opportunity to focus on tax relief, switching from graduated income taxes to flat income taxes. While the flat tax revolution helped many Americans keep more of their hard-earned money, the gains will be for naught if states do not properly control spending.

The best way for states to rein in spending is by enacting constitutional rules at the state level such as the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights (TABOR) in Colorado. TABOR limits the growth of government to the maximum growth of population plus inflation, requires any taxes collected in excess of that limit to be refunded to taxpayers with interest, and requires voter approval before new taxes. This rule also applies to local governments, so the state cannot grow government by way of unfunded mandates on local governments. TABOR, however, does not apply to federal funds given to Colorado.

Another example is provided by Utah, which established the Financial Ready Utah program in the wake of the Great Recession. This package of bills requires state agencies to have emergency plans in place for anywhere between a 5-percent to 25-percent reduction in funding and requires state agencies to seek legislative approval before applying for federal funds.

State-level constitutional limits on taxes and spending provide greater protection from reckless government spending than relying on the “right” candidates to win elections or the “right” bureaucrats to be appointed. When government actors are bound by strong institutional constraints regarding political instincts and incentives toward reckless spending, already-overtaxed citizens needn’t rely on wishful thinking.

This article was originally posted on AIER.org. You can read the original here.

The post Fiscal Federalism Turned Upside-Down appeared first on The Beacon.

https://blog.independent.org/2024/03/25/amendment-california-constitution-housing-affordability-crisis/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amendment-california-constitution-housing-affordability-crisis