Friday, December 06, 2024

Trump Needs Better Vetters

National Review: Trump Needs Better Vetters
Me: You think?
Trumpinista: No he doesn't! RINO! Swamp creature!

The New Republic: Trump Is Skipping Most Important Step in Cabinet Vetting Process
Me: It is pretty obvious.
Trumpinista: Fake News! USA! USA! USA!

Washington Times: Trump’s top Cabinet picks need vetting
Me: It would seem that way, wouldn't it?
Trumpinista: I trust Trump! Fake News! USA! USA! USA!

MSNBC: Matt Gaetz's withdrawal exposes Trump's vetting weaknesses
Me: Yeah, you're right.
Trumpinista: Drain the Swamp! Fake News! Woke Commie! USA! USA! USA!

Me: Duh.
Trumpinista:  He is entitled to get who he wants! Fake New! USA! USA! USA!

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Tuesday, December 03, 2024

Your Favorite Mexican Beer Could get More Expensive Under Trump Tariffs and American Barley Farmers Pay the Price

 The Washington Post, Dec. 3, 2024 - Your favorite Mexican beer may get more expensive, if President-
elect Donald Trump carries out his threat to impose tariffs on Mexico.

Trump said last week he would slap a 25 percent tariff on goods from Mexico and Canada if they didn’t stop the flow of migrants and the deadly opioid fentanyl over their borders.

... American consumers would be hurt, too, according to economists. Tariffs are basically a tax on foreign goods; importers probably would have to raise their prices to compensate.

Mexico makes all kinds of things the average American uses. It manufactures 88 percent of the pickups sold in America; a 25 percent tariff could add about $3,000 to the price tag of that new Ford or GM truck, ... Mexico supplies around half of America’s imported fruit and two-thirds of imported vegetables, in dollar terms — tomatoes, berries, bell peppers, cucumbers. ... Most of the imported beer that Americans swig is brewed in Mexico. 

About 18 percent of all the beer drunk in the United States is imported, according to the Beer Institute, which represents the American beer industry. Mexico supplies roughly 4 of every 5 gallons. Last year, a Mexican beer, Modelo Especial, became the top-selling brew in the United States, in dollar terms. ... 

Take that Mexican beer. It might be made with barley from Idaho, Montana or North Dakota. Mexico doesn’t produce enough of its own barley for its booming cerveza industry. American farmers have happily watched their total exports of malted barley (one of the main ingredients in beer) roughly triple since 2000, to 318,673 tons last year. A whopping 97 percent of that went to Mexico. If Mexican beer in the United States becomes pricier — and sells less — that could wind up hitting barley producers. (read it all)

Rod's Comment: Trumpinistas respond, "Real Americans don't drink Mexican beer."


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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly School Districts in Tennessee.

by Rod Williams, Dec. 3, 2024- Last week the Tennessee Department of Education released its 2024 District Accountability report on the quality of the Tennessee's public schools. This is an annual report required by federal and state law that puts each of Tennessee's 147 School districts into one of several categories. The categories are Exemplary, Advancing, Satisfactory, Marginal, and In Need of Improvement.

Under Tennessee’s accountability system, districts are expected to increase achievement levels for all students and demonstrate student growth across all student groups. Districts are assessed on their performance across six critical performance indicators measured through multiple pathways. The indicators include Grade Band Success Rates, rates at which students are Chronically Out of School, performance on the English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA), and Graduation rates. District accountability scores are calculated using a weighted average of the district’s scores across all indicators and student groups to determine a district’s designation.

The "in need of improvement" schools are those districts in which their overall score falls in the bottom five percent of all districts. These school districts are Decatur County Schools, Hancock County Schools, Hardeman County Schools, Humboldt City Schools, Johnson County Schools, Lawrence County Schools, Lewis County Schools, Perry County Schools, Sequatchie County Schools, and Tennessee Schools for the Deaf.

Knox County Schools and Hamilton County Schools are in the satisfactory category. Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and Metro Nashville Public Schools are in the advancing category. For a complete list of all school systems and what designation they receive, follow this link

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TN Dept of Ed Names the Best Tennessee School Districts

Press release, Nov. 21, 2024- Nashville, TN— Today, the Tennessee Department of Education announced school and district designations for the 2023-24 school year, including Reward Schools, Exemplary Districts, and In Need of Improvement districts. These designations are based on various performance indicators, including student achievement and growth. 

Across the state, 377 schools, spanning 97 districts, received the Reward School designation; 10 districts received the Exemplary District designation; and 10 districts received the In Need of Improvement designation. The complete list of district and school designations is available on the department‘s accountability webpage.

“I am thrilled to highlight the 2023-24 Reward Schools and Exemplary Districts for their dedication to fostering student learning and growth in their classrooms across the state,” said Lizzette Reynolds, Commissioner of Education. “This annual recognition is the result of our teachers, along with school and district leaders, who are committed to student success every day, and I commend each of you for your valiant efforts in supporting achievement for our Tennessee students.”

Each year, schools and districts are eligible for designations based on their overall performance across indicators that are essential to student success, including how they prepared students to be proficient (achievement), accelerated student learning (growth), encouraged students to attend school regularly (chronically out of school), prepared students for postsecondary success (graduation rate and Ready Graduate), and supported English learners acquiring language skills.

Schools are recognized as a Reward School when they demonstrate high levels of performance and/or improvement in performance by meeting objectives across performance indicators and student groups, and the Reward School distinction places significant emphasis on performance and improvement across all indicators from the prior school year. 

Districts are recognized as an Exemplary District when they receive an overall district performance score of 3.1 or higher on a 4.0-point scale across all performance indicators as referenced above. The following are the 10 designated Exemplary Districts:

Alcoa City Schools

Arlington Community Schools

Bells City Schools

Clinton City Schools

Collierville Schools

Dayton City School

Jackson County Schools

Lebanon Special School District

Milan Special School District

Van Buren County Schools

Reward Schools, Exemplary Districts, and In Need of Improvement districts were presented to the State Board of Education on November 22nd and approved. All designations can be found on the department’s accountability page.

For Tennessee Department of Education media inquiries, contact Edu.MediaInquiries@tn.gov. 

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Monday, December 02, 2024

The Hunter Biden Pardon Is a Strategic Mistake

by Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, Dec. 2, 2024- President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is a done deal. The president has not only obviated the existing cases against Hunter; the sweep of the pardon effectively immunizes his son against prosecution for all federal crimes he may have committed over the course of more than a decade. This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”

But it was also a tremendous strategic blunder, one that will haunt Democrats as they head into the first years of another Trump administration. 

... Joe Biden has now provided every Republican—and especially those running for Congress in 2026—with a ready-made heat shield against any criticism about Trump’s pardons, past or present. Biden has effectively neutralized pardons as a political issue, and even worse, he has inadvertently given power to Trump’s narrative about the unreliability of American institutions. (read more)

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Joe Biden's Pardon of Hunter, Surrenders the Moral High Ground, Justifies Trump's Pardon Abuse.

by Rod Williams, Dec. 2, 2024 - Yesterday, President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, after promising he wouldn't do so. This plays into the hands of the Trumpinistas who believe the Justice Department and the FBI targets conservatives and that it targeted Trump specifically. It justifies, in their mind, Trump using the Justice Department and the FBI to target Trump's critics. It obliterates the argument that the Justice Department is objective and impartial.

When Trump apologist would argue that the Justice Department unfairly targeted Trump, Trump critics would push back and say, well what about Hunter Biden? If the Justice Department was partial and just a tool of those in power, Trump critics would argue, then how do you explain the Justice Department pursuing charges against Hunter Biden? 

They had no good answer. Now, they do. They can argue that the prosecution of Hunter was all for show and that it was Biden's plan to pardon Hunter after the election all along. 

Also, when Trump pardons the J6 insurrectionist or other criminals and anyone criticizes Trump's use of the pardon, Trump supporters can respond with, what about Hunter? 

Biden has surrendered any moral high ground Trump critics may have held. This is another example of Biden putting his own interest above the interest of the country, just as he did when he refused to step down and he ran for a second term. 


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Monday, November 25, 2024

Comrade Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk

by Rod Williams, Nov. 25, 2024- Of all of the bad nominees for cabinet post in the new administration, none concerns me more than Tulsi Gabbard. 

Matt Gaetz was simply a jerk and an immoral scum bag and possible a rapist and unqualified, and probably would have politized the Justice Department. That's could have been bad. Anyway, he is gone. 

Hegpath is unqualified and has limited administrative experience. He could screw up America's military readiness by firing a bunch of generals who do not put loyalty to Trump over loyalty to the country. However, it takes a long time to change the culture of the military, and his damage, assuming he is confirmed, may be limited.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an anti-vaxxer nutjob who could endanger the nation's health, especially should we have a national health emergency. Even if we do not have a new national health emergency, having him in charge of health could reduce the number of people who get vaccinated and we could see a resurgence of diseases that were virtually eradicated and people could die, especially young children.  Still yet, his tenure as Secretary of Health has less potential to damage the country than that of Tulsi Gabbard.

Tulsi Gabbard has been nominated for Director of National Intelligence, a position that oversees eighteen national security agencies. including the CIA. She could betray her country and there is reason to think she would. If she did not betray our country, she could harm our country. If she is the Director of National Intelligence, other countries may decide it is a risk to share intelligence information with the United States. This could advantage our adversaries. It is hard to estimate the damage she could do to our country and the world.

Below are links and excerpts from several articles explaining why Tulsi Gabbard is a national security risk.

Tulsi Gabbard’s Nomination Is a National-Security Risk

By Tom Nichols, The Atlantic, Nov. 13, 2024- Gabbard is stunningly unqualified for almost any Cabinet post ... She has no qualifications as an intelligence professional—literally none....  She has no significant experience directing or managing much of anything. ...

Gabbard ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, attempting to position herself as something like a peace candidate. But she’s no peacemaker: She’s been an apologist for both the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Her politics, which are otherwise incoherent, tend to be sympathetic to these two strongmen, painting America as the problem and the dictators as misunderstood. ...  Her views can seem both extremely left and extremely right, which is probably why people such as Tucker Carlson—a conservative who has turned into … whatever pro-Russia right-wingers are called now—have taken a liking to the former Democrat ... 

In early 2017, while still a member of Congress, Gabbard met with Assad, saying that peace in Syria was only possible if the international community would have a conversation with him. “Let the Syrian people themselves determine their future, not the United States, not some foreign country,” Gabbard said, after chatting with a man who had stopped the Syrian people from determining their own future by using chemical weapons on them. Two years later, she added that Assad was “not the enemy of the United States, because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States,” and that her critics were merely “warmongers.”

... Gabbard has every right to her personal views, however inscrutable they may be. As a private citizen, she can apologize for Assad and Putin to her heart’s content. But as a security risk, Gabbard is a walking Christmas tree of warning lights. If she is nominated to be America’s top intelligence officer, that’s everyone’s business. (read more)

How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media

By Steven Lee Myers, Jim Rutenberg and Julian E. Barnes, The New York Times, Nov. 18, 2024- In 2017, when she was still a Democratic member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard traveled to Syria and met the country’s authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad. She also accused the United States of supporting terrorists there.

The day after Vladimir V. Putin began a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ms. Gabbard blamed the United States and NATO for provoking the war by ignoring Russia’s security concerns.

She has since suggested that the United States covertly worked with Ukraine on dangerous biological pathogens and was culpable for the bombing of the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in September 2022. European prosecutors and U.S. officials say that sabotage was carried out by Ukrainian operatives.

Ms. Gabbard’s comments have earned her sharp rebukes from officials across the political spectrum in Washington, who have accused her of parroting the anti-American propaganda of the country’s adversaries. Her remarks have also made her a darling of the Kremlin’s vast state media apparatus .... according to analysts and former officials, Ms. Gabbard seems to simply share the Kremlin’s geopolitical views, especially when it comes to the exercise of American military power.

In Russia, the reaction to her potential appointment has been gleeful, ... “The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. are trembling,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting, positively, that Ukrainians consider her “an agent of the Russian state.” Rossiya-1, a state television channel, called her a Russian “comrade” in Mr. Trump’s emerging cabinet.

... “This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border,” she wrote on Twitter, now known as X, when the war began in February 2022.

A month later, she posted a video on the platform saying the United States was operating 25 to 30 biological research labs in Ukraine. She accused the Biden administration of covering them up and said they could release dangerous pathogens, though she stopped short of claiming the labs were making biological weapons, as Russia has falsely claimed.

... Vladimir Solovyov, a popular talk show host, called her “our girlfriend” in a segment in 2022. The program included an interview Ms. Gabbard did with Tucker Carlson in which she claimed that Mr. Biden’s goal was to end Mr. Putin’s control of the Russian government, according to Julia Davis, the creator of the Russian Media Monitor, which tracks Kremlin propaganda.

.. In some cases, she echoed story lines that Russia’s propagandists created, which the Russians then recycled on their own media as evidence that the conspiracy theories they had manufactured were true. (read more of this insightful article)

Wall Street JournalTulsi Gabbard vs. Trump’s First Term

Independent, Nov. 21, 2024: Nikki Haley issues scathing takedown of ‘Russian sympathizer’ Tulsi Gabbard and ‘liberal’ RFK Jr

The Economist, Nov. 24, 3024- Donald Trump and Tulsi Gabbard are coming for the spooks. ... Ms Gabbard’s Russophile tendencies are particularly jarring. “Democrats”, she complained in her book, “don’t want a peaceful relationship with Russia at all…How would their friends in the military-industrial complex make trillions of dollars from the fear they fomented in America and Europe by stoking the fires of the new cold war?” Some in the intelligence world believe that European agencies might start holding back human-intelligence reports or “sanitising” them of information that would previously have been shared.

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Saturday, November 23, 2024

Biden has a small window to make big fixes to U.S. trade policy

The return of Donald Trump to the White House in 2025 will spark a significant shift in U.S. economic policy across numerous issue areas, but changes to U.S. trade and industrial policy might be more subtle than severe. We are still operating under many of the trade policies Trump set during his first term. After campaigning in 2020 against the broad-based and damaging tariffs Trump imposed, President Biden maintained and even expanded U.S. trade restrictions and other forms of economic nationalism.

The motivation for such consistency, however, was in large part political: It was an open secret in Washington that Biden’s advisors, needing “Rust Belt” votes to win reelection and facing a vocally protectionist opponent in Trump, viewed economic nationalism as the only viable approach. Now unburdened by such concerns and facing the reality of a failed political strategy, Biden has a short time to remedy past policy errors and improve the United States’ economic and geopolitical prospects before Trump takes office.

There are several significant moves he could make. The suggestions that follow are undoubtedly optimistic but are neither impossible nor futile. Some smart moves, such as nixing most U.S. tariffs, are off the table because they would require Congress. Other actions, such as initiating new free-trade-agreement talks, take time and could therefore be easily stopped by the incoming Trump administration before they got far. Biden could, on the other hand, take several other moves that would constitute a significant and more durable improvement in policy.

He should start with tariffs. Ideally, Biden would reembrace his 2020 campaign position on the economic and geopolitical harms of indiscriminate U.S. tariffs and terminate both the “national security” tariffs on global steel and aluminum imports and the “Section 301” tariffs on Chinese imports that began under Trump. Both measures were imposed on dubious grounds and have since inflicted serious pain for little gain. Because they were implemented unilaterally, moreover, Biden could nix them with the stroke of a pen.

Just as important, full termination would mean that reinstituting the tariffs next year — or adding even more on top of them as Trump has promised — would require the next administration to undertake lengthy bureaucratic investigations. In the meantime, freer trade would flow, and other tariffs and trade restrictions — such as the dozens of “trade remedy” measures on Chinese imports — would remain in force, mitigating claims that Biden was leaving the economy vulnerable to a flood of nefarious foreign goods.

Barring full termination of these tariff actions, Biden should eliminate those that have no plausible connection to our economic or national security. This includes tariffs on simple consumer goods from China — tiki torches, vacuum cleaners, baby blankets, etc. — as well as supposed national security tariffs on metals from close allies in Europe and Asia. Even on economic nationalists’ own terms, these measures make little sense, and quickly reimposing them next year, at a time when inflation still resonates with voters, might prove politically nettlesome. Tariffs imposed by the U.S. raise prices for American consumers — not usually a good look for politicians.

Beyond the tariffs, Biden might also consider terminating the global “safeguard” restrictions on imported solar panels, which are both costly and unnecessary. Thanks in part to these measures, solar panel prices are far higher here than abroad, thus harming U.S. solar installation companies and slowing the energy transition. Removing the safeguard would thus help advance Biden’s climate ambitions, while leaving Chinese solar cells and modules subject to several other, more targeted U.S. trade restrictions.

Next, Biden should encourage Congress to retake some of the constitutional authority over tariffs that the legislative branch delegated to the president during much of the 20th century, when everyone assumed that the president wouldn’t abuse such power — an assumption that the first Trump administration proved incorrect. Because it’s unclear whether federal courts would stop the global tariffs that Trump has promised this time around, the only sure way to eliminate this risk rests with Congress. Reform legislation has been offered in this regard, and encouraging and signing it would significantly lower the risk of damaging future Trump tariffs. It would also be a credit to Biden’s legacy, at little cost to him; he can make reforms now that would be binding on his successors, but his own presidency was not limited by them.

Finally, Biden should turn to investment and fast-track federal approval of a Japanese company’s proposed acquisition of U.S. Steel, which has been held up for months on obviously political grounds. As has been widely documented, U.S. Steel’s shareholders and management overwhelmingly approve of the offer from Nippon Steel, as do many American steelworkers. Industry experts also widely agree that Nippon’s acquisition — involving billions of dollars in new U.S. investments and creating a Western counterbalance to China’s steelmaking prowess — would benefit both the American steel industry and national security more broadly. Approving the deal, which Trump has vocally opposed but former Trump advisors have cheered, would also signal to the world that the U.S. government — or, at least, half of it — remains open for business and welcoming to beneficial foreign investment.

This wish list is, of course, idealistic. But it would represent a radical improvement in U.S. policy — one that Biden could achieve quickly, in some cases unilaterally. Such progress is all but guaranteed not to happen in 2025. And at this point, anyway, it’s not like the president has anything to lose.

Scott Lincicome is the vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. No changes were made to the original by the editor of this blog. 

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Friday, November 22, 2024

Social Security is just nine years away from insolvency. Congress should not vote to make the problem worse.

 

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Nov. 12, 2024- The House of Representatives will soon vote on the Social Security Fairness Act, legislation which would repeal Social Security’s Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO). The unpaid-for bill would add $196 billion to deficits over the next decade and hasten Social Security’s insolvency by roughly six months while adding to the size of the benefit cuts that will automatically take place under current law.   

 

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

How is speeding up the date of Social Security’s retirement fund’s insolvency, increasing the size of the automatic benefit cuts that will hit seniors, and adding $200 billion to the deficit a good plan for seniors or for the country? Yet that is exactly what the Social Security Fairness Act would do.  

 

Social Security is just nine years away from insolvency, and our seniors need a fix fast. Congress should not vote to make the problem worse.  

 

The WEP and GPO were created to prevent Social Security from overpaying certain beneficiaries who also collect state and local pensions, which they paid into instead of paying Social Security taxes during their employment for state and local governments. These provisions aren’t perfect, and there are lots of ideas to reform them. But repealing them altogether would move in exactly the wrong direction. 

 

They should call this bill the Social Security UnFairness Act; it creates a Windfall Expansion Provision for a small number of beneficiaries who would get to double-dip their retirement benefits. 

 

At a time when we’re already borrowing $2 trillion a year and retirees are already slated to see a 21 percent benefit cut – an average of $16,500 for a newly retiring couple in 2033 – in just nine years, why would we make it a 22 percent, $17,300 cut in eight and a half years instead?  

 

There is broad consensus among experts and lawmakers that reform, not repeal, of WEP and GPO would ensure fairness and could actually improve the program’s solvency.  

 

Every day we get closer and closer to Social Security insolvency, and we are no closer to solutions than we were years ago when we first knew we had a problem. For those who say they want to protect Social Security this bill goes in the absolute wrong direction. 

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Gross National Debt Reaches $36 Trillion

Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Nov. 22, 2024 -  The gross national debt of the United States reached $36 trillion yesterday, just over three months since the previous milestone was reached at the end of July, according to the U.S. Treasury. 

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: 

As if lawmakers needed any other reasons to take America’s fiscal health seriously, the gross national debt of the United States has now officially reached $36 trillion. We started 2024 by crossing the $34 trillion threshold, added another trillion during the summer, and now we’re heading into the holidays with yet another trillion. Government borrowing is becoming as certain as the changing of the seasons these days. 

It’s often said that the more times you say a word over and over, the more it starts to lose its meaning. With so many trillion-dollar debt milestones in recent years, it’s easy to forget that each of them has real-world consequences. 

But rising debt poses serious domestic and geopolitical risks: it slows our economy, threatens higher inflation and interest rates, and squeezes our budget through higher interest rates. And it hampers our ability to be flexible in responding to recessions and disasters at home and foreign crises abroad. 

And the future trajectory looks bleak as well. Even when using the more economically meaningful measure of debt held by the public – currently well over $28 trillion – debt is headed for an all-time record share of the economy in just two years. Interest payments are the fastest-growing part of the budget and will cost $13 trillion over the next decade alone.  

The incoming Trump Administration and Members of the 119th Congress face several fiscal hurdles from the moment they take office – starting with the reinstatement of the debt ceiling in January and a $1.7 trillion PAYGO scorecard waiting to greet them. The way they approach that and other crucial decisions ahead like the expiration of discretionary spending caps and the 2017 tax cuts, as well as how they choose to offset the costs of their new policies, will determine our fiscal health for a long time. We hope they choose the responsible path forward. 

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Wednesday, November 20, 2024

Lawsuit challenges race requirements on Tennessee's boards

By Kim Jarrett, The Center Square, Nov 12, 2024 - The Pacific Legal Foundation and physician organization Do No Harm are suing Tennessee over racial quotas required to serve on the state's boards and commissions.

The 13-page lawsuit filed in U.S District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee says laws that require the governor to appoint members based on race violate the 14th Amendment.

The lawsuit specifically aims at the state's Board of Medical Examiners and Board of Chiropractic Examiners. State law requires the governor to "strive to ensure the full twelve-member board is composed of at least . . . one (1) person who is an African-American" on the board, according to the lawsuit.

"It's unconstitutional in allowing for people to be picked or not based on just the color of their skin or their ethnicity, ignoring their individual merit," said Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Caleb Trotter in an interview with The Center Square. "That very notion of people being prefaced of others based on their race is an odious concept under the equal protection clause."

The organizations are also challenging a race requirement for the Tennessee Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners.

“State medical boards are given important responsibilities to oversee the quality of care in their state and the safety of patients,” said Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. “It is crucial that they be the most qualified physicians available. Like all aspects of health care, patient safety and patient concerns should be primary, not the skin color or the racial makeup of any oversight committee.”

Tennessee is not the only state that considers race or sex for board memberships, according to a 2023 study by the Pacific Legal Foundation. Race or sex is considered in 14 states for some boards.

The Pacific Legal Foundation won an Iowa lawsuit challenging a gender balance requirement for the State Judicial Nominating Commission. Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a bill in April banning the requirements.

The Iowa Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the League of Women Voters of Iowa and the Iowa Chapter of the Sierra Club were among the organizations opposing the bill.

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Report: Tennessee has as many as 64,000 unfilled jobs


By Kim Jarrett, The Center Square, Nov 11, 2024 – An economist for the University of Tennessee said the state is growing but the labor force participation rate has declined. 

Dr. Don Bruce, director of the university's Boyd Center for Economic Business and Research, told the State Funding Board at its November meeting that Tennessee employment is up by 195,000 since March 2020. The state's unemployment rate remains low at 3.2% compared to the national rate of 4.1%. But the labor force participation rate is still depressed at 59.4% in September, according to numbers he presented.
The national rate is 62.7%. 

"We think that has to do with in-migration of early retirees, it has a lot to do with people going to school, there's lots of stories behind this," Bruce said. "But I think what we've learned in the past few years is it's really hard to turn that trend around with policy." 

If every unemployed person went to work in Tennessee, the state would still have 64,000 unfilled jobs, he said. "Part of that is geographic, distribution of jobs versus distribution of available workers, it's also skill mismatch sometimes but the bottom line is we can stand to have a few thousand more workers in Tennessee to keep up with this really interesting and strong demand growth," Bruce said. 

The low labor force participation rate has affected wage growth. Tennessee remains below the national per capita income of $69,810 recorded in 2023 at $62,229. "The punchline here is Tennessee continues to make ground on the U.S." Bruce said. "We used to be 10 to 15 percentage points below the U.S. when it comes to any measure of cost of living or incomes. We are getting closer to that 10% range with our person income of $62,229 per capita."

Rod's Comment: If President Trumps carries out his plan for massive deportation, look for the number of unfilled jobs to drastically increase. 

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