The Right’s Economic Populism Is Stillborn

The dream may never die, but reality should dispel it

Damon Linker

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

First GOP bill: Make it easier for business owners to cheat on their taxes. Second bill: Large tax increase on the bottom seventy percent of the income distribution to cut taxes for the rich.

Sarah Ferris @sarahnferris

New: Rep. Buddy Carter confirms to me that his Fair Tax Act will get its first-ever floor vote as part of speaker talks. Bill abolishes IRS, eliminates tax code, replacing income taxes with consumption tax – rolling back pieces of GOP tax law It was a demand of the 20 holdouts

11:53 AM ∙ Jan 11, 2023

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Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

They also renamed the House Education & Labor Committee on the grounds on the grounds that the word “labor” is an offensive slur against America’s job creators.

12:11 PM ∙ Jan 11, 2023

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As I indicated at the top of my last post before Christmas, I will be writing just twice next week, for Wednesday and Friday.

The election of Donald Trump in 2016 created a serious problem for conservative intellectuals.

For decades, they had mostly been defending a lightly updated version of the “fusionism” first articulated in the early National Review by Frank Meyer. This ideological configuration advocated moral traditionalism on social issues and support for pro-business libertarianism when it came to taxes and regulations.

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