Maybe Members of Congress Should Be Summoned to Testify on Their Performance
On Wednesday, the chief executives of major airlines will be summoned to Capitol Hill to testify on their performance.
—Washington Post, December 14, 2021

Waiving the City’s Own Bureaucratic Barriers
Faced with rising overdoses driven by the opioid epidemic, San Francisco Mayor London Breed declared a state of emergency in the city’s Tenderloin neighborhood Friday.

The declaration is part of the mayor’s Tenderloin Emergency Intervention Plan and will allow the city to waive certain laws and remove bureaucratic barriers in order to increase the resources available to quickly address the crisis, her office said.…

The state of emergency will allow the city to speed up implementation of emergency programs such as waiving contract procurement rules and zoning and planning codes in order to quickly open a site where people with substance abuse issues can get treatment.
—Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2021

The Ups and Downs of Central Planning
When China put in place its one-child policy four decades ago, policy makers said they would simply switch gears if births dropped too much. That has turned out to be not so easy.…

With the number of births declining year after year, China is now racing in the opposite direction, closing abortion clinics and expanding services to help couples conceive.
—Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2022

United Subsidies of America
The U.S. is planning to hand out $10 billion to help upstart companies gain access to capital.
—Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2022

Congress created a nearly $30 billion fund last year to help struggling restaurants, but the money ran out within weeks of its launch. Lobbyists for the industry, including the National Restaurant Association, pressed lawmakers to replenish the fund.
—Wall Street Journal, January 8, 2022

No, No Economist Would Say That
To understand economics, you must understand where wealth comes from. If you talk to an economist, the economist might say, “Wealth comes from printing money.”
—Michio Kaku in World Economic Forum, January 14, 2022

You Were Surprised by That?
The Early 202: It’s been almost three years since you landed at Squire Patton Boggs. What’s surprised you most about becoming a lobbyist?

Joseph Crowley: I think what’s surprised me the most is that there’s a whole other world out there beyond Congress and elective office. I had served in elective office for 32 years. So it’s been refreshing in many respects—the opportunity to meet other people and to be engaged on issues of substance that matter to me still.
—Former representative Joseph Crowley in the Washington Post, January 21, 2022

Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud
State Sen. Rick Girdler [R‑KY] … did respond to the Commonwealth Journal regarding [his introduction of a bill to reduce accountability on local governments’ use of tax subsidies for development].

Most notably, he said, the bill wasn’t his doing: it came from the Kentucky League of Cities, who simply needed a legislator’s name attached to it to help make it into law.
—Commonwealth Journal (Somerset, Kentucky), January 27, 2022

Looks like National Conservatism Is Winning in China
U.S. semiconductor giant Intel Corp. apologized following a social-media backlash over a letter it sent suppliers asking them to avoid sourcing from the Chinese region of Xinjiang, where the Chinese government has conducted a campaign of forcible assimilation against religious minorities.…

Karry Wang, a singer with the popular Chinese boy band TFBoys, said Wednesday that he would step down as brand ambassador for Intel over the matter.

“National interests trumps everything,” the celebrity’s management office said in comments posted on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform.
—Wall Street Journal, December 23, 2021

Did Test Scores Increase 58 Percent?
In the last seven years under Mayor de Blasio, the [New York City Department of Education] annual budget has ballooned from $20 billion to a whopping $31.6 billion.
—New York Post, December 27, 2021