On May 9, 2020, the U.S. unemployment rate hit 14.9 percent, its worst rate since the Great Depression. This was not caused by the boom and bust cycle, credit inflation followed by deflation, or sunspots. It was caused by the “15 days to flatten the curve” pandemic lockdowns that most states had started in March or April of that year and had continued well past the promised end date.
For decades, some lawmakers have nominally agreed that taxpayers should be liberated from this unchosen obligation.
But nothing has changed.
Now, however, President Trump has issued an executive order to simply end “Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.”
“Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage. No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies. . . .”
I say we have a right that our tax dollars not be used at all to fund public broadcasting. And that, also contrary to the text of the order, the government is not “entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.”
It should have no authority to pay for any activities unrelated to the proper functions of government.
I will, however, accept the result of the executive order, defunding of public broadcasting. If we do get this result.
“The federal funding that supports Public Media,” PBS is alerting its viewers, “is at risk of being eliminated.”
But this public media is also — and famously — supported by pledge drives and other non-governmental funding sources.
Zero public funding doesn’t mean a world without Big Bird; an absence of subsidy does not mean an absence of the MacNeil Lehrer NewsHour — or its successor show, PBS News Hour. These and many other much-loved shows might well thrive solely on voluntary funding.
“Now is a critical time to act,” urges PBS.
Yes. Tell Congress to ratify the elimination of federal funding of public media now.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Anyone seeking public office was not worthy to hold it.
Joseph Heller, The Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man (2000).
On May 8, 1899, Austrian-English economist and philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek was born. He signed the bulk of his books written in the English language as “F.A. Hayek,” and is best known for The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, The Fatal Conceit, and many essays, several of them widely cited, including “Individualism, True and False” and “The Use of Knowledge in Society.”
A generation earlier, on the same date in 1873, English philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill died. Now best known for On Liberty (1859) and Utilitarianism (1861), he was and is considered one of the most important economists and philosophers of the Victorian age, with other classics including A System of Logic (1843) and Principles of Political Economy (1848). Mill’s letters to his wife, Harriet Hardy-Taylor, were edited into book form by Hayek.
On May 8, 1946, two Estonian school girls (Aili Jõgi and Ageeda Paavel) blew up the Soviet memorial which stood in front of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn.
This is the operative principle for today’s politicians.
The examples are so obvious:
There are Republican examples, too, but age, as The Wall Street Journal puts it, “is a bigger headache for Democrats than Republicans for one central reason: Democrats have a lot more old members.” While the median ages are nearly identical between the two parties, “of the 20 oldest House members elected in 2024, 16 were Democrats. In the Senate, where tensions over age are more subdued, nearly all of the oldest senators — 11 of the 14 who were older than 75 at the start of this Congress — were Democrats.”
This may strike a sense of dissonance, I know. The old cliché is that Republicans are tired old men and Democrats are wild young (and female) firebrands. But the true nature of the establishment doesn’t quite fit the old saws and preconceptions.
The Journal notes that 70 percent of Americans support an age limit on holding office.
Sure, as the next best thing to term limits! We know the crux of the problem is not age, it is the advantages of incumbency, and the length of time in power.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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It is the spirit of the age to believe that any fact, however suspect, is superior to any imaginative exercise, no matter how true.
Gore Vidal, “French Letters: Theories of the New Novel,” Reflections Upon a Sinking Ship (1969).
On May 7, 1992, the State of Michigan ratified a 203-year-old proposed amendment to the United States Constitution, thereby fulfilling the terms of amending the document, adding it as 27th Amendment.
The amendment had been written by James Madison. He had presented it as part of the original twelve amendments that became the ten making up the Bill of Rights.
It bars the U.S. Congress from giving itself a pay raise until after the next election, so that voters have a chance to decide whether those voting for the raise would remain in Congress to receive it.
The alleged reason for the censure? Her post mentioned the winner of a girls’ track championship who is publicly known to be the winner and publicly known to be male.
Censuring Libby for stating her views would be bad enough. But the legislature went beyond putting its disapproval (or the Democratic majority’s disapproval) on record.
Representative Libby isn’t being allowed to speak as a representative during session. And she’s not being allowed to vote until she apologizes.
For stating her views on a public question.
Nor was she even allowed to defend herself when the House voted along party lines 75-70 to censure her.
This qualifies as tyranny, another mile down the slippery slope of eroding — or dynamiting — democratic norms and practices. The tyranny is not that of an autocrat but of the majority. In this case, the tyranny of a majority of partisans in a legislature.
It is also an attack on free speech. As the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression observes, people elect representatives to “vote according to their conscience and express themselves freely on controversial topics.”
Rightly, Laurel Libby has refused to remove the Facebook post criticizing the policy of the Maine Principals’ Association. Wrongly, her constituents continue to be deprived of her voice and vote in the legislature.
She is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to redress this injustice. Let it act, and fast.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Generally the fraud starts out small, and they try to hide it. But then, year after year, if nobody stops the fraud, it gets more and more brazen, and every year it gets bigger, until they’re literally renting out stadiums.
Elon Musk, in conversation with Fox News host Jesse Watters, clarifying why DOGE altered Treasury’s payout system, requiring a receipt before payment is made. This discussion referred to a four billion dollar Department of Education fund. “Fraud at Scale,” May 1, 2025.
On May 6, 1862, American author, philosopher and abolitionist Henry David Thoreau died, after many years of tuberculosis.
Aware he was dying, Thoreau spoke his last words: “Now comes good sailing,” followed by two lone words, “moose” and “Indian.” Bronson Alcott planned the service and read selections from Thoreau’s works, and Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the eulogy spoken at his funeral.
His remains, as well as those of members of his immediate family, were eventually moved to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord, Massachusetts.
His most famous works are An Essay on Civil Disobedience (1849) and Walden (1854).