Libertarian: Beware Digital-Dollar Drive
The collapse of FTX “could lead to onerous federal regulations and the establishment of a federal ‘digital dollar,’ ” warns Kristin Tate at The Hill. After all, “the Federal Reserve and many in Congress have been salivating for such changes for years. This could be a fig leaf to justify it.” It would likely “coincide with a gradual abolishment of physical cash,” giving the feds “the ability to instantly track, catalog and scrutinize every person’s transactions” — “a dystopian nightmare.” Yet “the vulture-like actions by those in power to take advantage of the [FTX] disaster are both predictable and intentional.”
Ed watch: The Death of NYC Public Schools?
Most of New York City’s “merit-based schools,” notes Vince Bielski at RealClearInvestigations, have been switched permanently “to a lottery for admissions.” But “research cuts both ways on the academic impact of mixed-ability classrooms,” where “some middle school students may be at least three years behind their grade level and others three years ahead.” “In 2022, the city’s schools were down to about 900,000 students, a remarkable 10% drop from two years earlier.” Yes, “it’s too early to know how many students might leave.” But the switch to lottery admissions may drive families to “opt for private education” or “uproot their lives for the suburbs.” And because “state funding is based on head count,” nothing “is more dangerous to the city’s schools than the loss of students.”
From the right: Fix States’ Ballot Confusion
State lawmakers “have an opportunity — some might say a duty — to improve their voting laws,” urge The Wall Street Journal’s editors. In Pennsylvania last November, “16,100 mail ballots were rejected because the voter wrote an incorrect date, or because the date, signature or secrecy envelope was missing” and the courts never resolved whether they should’ve been counted. Yet “ambiguity about ballot validity is poison to public confidence in elections.” The legislature could clear that up and also count mail-in ballots before Election Day, “a common practice in other states.” Wisconsin and other states have work to do, too. “The past two years have underlined the importance of election integrity and public confidence in the ballot box”; now’s the time “to fix obvious holes.”
Conservative: Dems’ Election-Denying Leader
If you’d listened to Democrats rail about “democracy and ‘election denial’ over the past two years,” you’d think they’d “select a leader whose highest value is safeguarding democratic outcomes,” contends National Review’s Dan McLaughlin. Instead, House Democrats just chose Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to lead them, though he’s one of the “most persistent deniers of the legitimacy of elections” whose results he dislikes. He called the 2016 election “illegitimate,” insisted President Donald Trump shouldn’t get to pick Supreme Court justices and claimed Trump and Russia were trying to steal the 2020 race. Democrats “learned nothing from 2020 or January 6”: They play “with lit matches” while lecturing us “on the dangers of fire” — and will “feign surprise when sooner or later they burn the house down.”
Gadfly: Trump-Taxes Hysteria
As the nation’s capital shut down for the holidays, “Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, in their final days of power, released copies of former President Donald Trump’s tax returns from 2015 through 2020,” sneers the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. Democrats had fought for years to get the info, backed by the media in “an extended campaign of heavy breathing about what deep, dark secrets might be in the returns,” with the likes of Sen. Chuck Schumer suggesting that “Putin has something over President Trump, something personal, and it might be financial,” so “we need to see the tax returns.” Yet, notes York, now the returns are public, with no “big reveal” showing a secret relationship between Trump and Putin or Russia. After “all the fevered speculation,” Trump’s accusers only have two words: “Never mind.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board