If you're like us, you have been following the CR business in the House, and wondering: "What is going on?"

The official plan put forward by Speaker Mike Johnson, of a 6-month CR with the SAVE Act attached, seemed like a non-starter. As important as the SAVE Act is, it is also controversial, and it was clear that conservatives in Congress would not have the stomach for a government shutdown in September of an election year. So, predictably, the bill failed to pass the House, with 14 Republicans joining almost all Democrats in opposition.

So now the passage is set for a clean CR, lasting until December, without any controversial riders.

What's the problem there?

A source finally helped us make sense of this whole issue, and figure out why the Republican leadership is so dead-set on a December-deadline CR. There are two big reasons.

The first is that it would mean the next budget deadline would be in the lame duck, when Congressional officials can really have fun with the spending.

The second is that by passing a budget in December, the Republican leadership would remove a key source of leverage from President Donald Trump, should he be elected, over Congressional Republicans, by taking spending decisions in 2025 out of his hands.

So, as so often, the real motivation is to screw Trump.

Well played. Well played.

Policy News You Need To Know

#FamilyPolicy #BigTech — The Institute for Family Studies keeps coming up with great new initiatives. Today they are announcing their new Family First Technology Initiative, with the goal of addressing the impacts of modern technology on families and children. Building on several years of research into the effects of smartphones, social media, and online pornography on mental health and relationships, the initiative aims to produce original reports, develop model policies, and evaluate new technologies like artificial intelligence from a family-centric perspective. In a nice framing, the fine folks at IFS believe that families are in a "David vs Goliath" struggle with Big Tech, and they want to help. We look forward to covering their work.

#FamilyPolicy — Speaking of families, columnist Tim Carney makes a very astute observation. As blue states keep having fewer and fewer children, and red states keep having (hopefully… relatively…) children, our politics could come to revolve around a culture war of the fertile against the childfree. "We’re not there yet … but every day, there are hints that we are heading in this direction," he writes.

#BigTech #Antitrust — A familiar argument against antitrust enforcement, particularly in technology, is that it is in essence fruitless because nothing undermines an existing monopoly like a new technology. "77% of 1,088 subscribers surveyed by tech newsletter The Information said they are using ChatGPT / conversational AI instead of Google for some queries." (Via) Your correspondent is not surprised since he has replaced Google with Perplexity as his default search engine. It really is a much better experience and it's not hard to predict that this will grow and grow. So it's pretty ironic that, as Tech Freedom's Berin Szóka points out, this technology shift is happening right after the first antitrust case against Google has been won…

#GlobalMacroeconomics — Brad Setser is one of the smartest observers of international economics around. He recently published a fascinating thread on the US balance of payments, pointing out that the US current account deficit is not shrinking, it is in fact increasing. What does this mean? Let's try to paraphrase in layman's terms: The US current account deficit is the difference between what the US spends abroad and what it earns from abroad, and it is growing, approaching 4% of GDP. This growth is primarily driven by the non-oil part of the economy, which means it's not just about oil imports. Historically, the US has historically earned more on its foreign investments than it paid on foreign-owned US assets. However, this advantage is disappearing. Basically, Setser is pointing out that the US is spending more abroad than it's earning, and that this trend is accelerating. While foreign investors are still willing to finance this deficit by buying US assets, this may not be able to go on forever.

#Immigration — From the Washington Examiner editorial board: "Never before has the foreign-born population been higher than it is now, never before has the foreign-born population been growing as fast as it is now, and never before has the percentage of foreign-born population lacking permanent legal status been as high as it is today."

#DEI — New documents obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show that the US Air Force had a "goal" to reduce the "white male population" in its officer ranks. Disgraceful. More here.

#Procurement — More and more DEI in the Pentagon. It's not like we're lacking for competence, right. Oops. Bloomberg reports (via Elbridge Colby) that the Navy's sub-building program is massively behind schedule and over budget. The program “has slipped two to three years” behind schedule “and is experiencing extraordinary cost growth,” according to the report. "Overall, delivery dates for Virginia-class subs are running an estimated 24 to 36 months past the contracted dates...The Virginia-class delays could undermine the AUKUS partnership involving the US, Australia and the UK if they aren’t reversed soon."

#Procurement — Speaking of procurement… FCC commissionner Brendan Carr is very good at social media. He has been xeeting up a storm these past few weeks and our bookmarks are full of his posts as a reminder to analyze and cover them in depth. Here's the latest one: "In 2021, Vice President Harris agreed to lead the Administration’s $42B plan to expand Internet to millions of Americans. 1,039 days later… Not one person has been connected to the Internet. None." It's true, and it's an outrage for anyone who cares about good government, which should be everyone.

#Energy #AI — From Bloomberg: Microsoft needs so much energy to power its AI that it is restarting the Three Mile Island nuclear plant. "Based," as the kids say.

Friday Essays

The Psmiths are a Pseudonymous (get it?) couple who have taken up as a hobby to read books and review them on their Substack, which has become read by some very intelligent and influential people, because it's very good. We highly recommend it. We particularly liked this review, which discusses a little-known phenomenon in early American history, which is that almost all the Founding Fathers believed by the end of their lives that their "great experiment" had failed and that America was doomed. Fascinating stuff. More here.

We would be remiss if we did not link to this wonderful profile from the FT Weekend, discussing Prince Charles Henri de Lobkowicz's bid as pretender to the throne of France.

A lot of smart people we know and trust have been sending us this essay by Johann Kurtz arguing that the true cause of the fertility collapse is one of status. Being a Mom has become low-status, and so few people do it. It's worth looking into.

The excellent Jim Pethokoukis has an essay on the terrifying ideology of "degrowth," and specifically debunking what's known as the "Easter Island ecocide myth."

Are you a nerd? We mean a huge, huge nerd? Congratulations. Then you will enjoy this essay from Tablet magazine on right-Hegelians versus left-Hegelians. Of course, Alexandre Kojève and Leo Strauss are mentioned.

In The Dispatch, Jay Cost has a fine essay pointing out that, in the original Constitution, the three branches are not "co-equal", but Congress is supposed to be the leading branch.