Happy Monday, whether you’re attending the Republican Convention, and Heritage’s Policy Fest, or not. In spite of how striking the political news are, there are things happening other than the Presidential campaign, and here are your policy links:

#Life – A number of religious right personalities have penned an open letter calling on RNC delegates to restore the Republican platform’s commitment to life. Link. Will this lead to a big fight at the convention?

#Demography – More Births, an X account that posts long and fascinating threads and articles on the inexplicable worldwide crash in birth rates–surely one of the most important, and least-talked-about policy issues today–has an eye-opening post on how UN demographic projections, which most observers rely on, have proven wrong in one consistent direction. “Please explain the physical law that makes a falling knife stop falling in mid-air.”

#TheEconomy – In June, employment for US small businesses with one to nine employees decreased by 60,200 jobs compared to May—continuing 2024’s downward trend, according to the Intuit QuickBooks Small Business Index. The economy seems to be improving, but its benefits are hardly widely shared, mostly going to large companies and immigrants.

#Partisanship – The President called on “lowering the temperature” in politics. We strongly endorse his message. However, Cleta Mitchell at The Federalist very correctly points out that “lowering the temperature” starts with ending the political prosecutions.

#TaxPolicy – TCJA significantly lowered the effective tax rates on business income, but the impact was not the same for C corporations and pass-through businesses. The Tax Foundation explains.

#TaxPolicy – New NBER paper: the bottom three income quintiles have received about 10% of all heat pump, solar, and EV tax credits, while the top quintile has received about 60%. The most extreme is the EVs tax credit, of which the top quintile has received more than 80%.

#TaxPolicy – The very sharp libertarian writer and policy analyst Véronique de Rugy writes with the case against what she calls “the faux populism of conservatives for higher corporate tax.”

#Reg – Policy analyst James Rogan has a good laundry list of supply-side reforms to help unleash American innovation.

#Reg – R Street’s Steven Greenhut with a good defense of Loper Bright against the argument that judges lack the technical expertise to make the decisions that regulators have hitherto made under Chevron. This argument has always struck us as an argument against judges and courts and law, period: every day judges preside over and decide lawsuits which involve complex technical matters that lawyers do not have specific expertise in, and somehow the Earth still seems to revolve on its axis.

#StudentLoans – Important piece in the National Review on “the new normal of student-loan freezes and interest forgiveness.”

#LGBTQ – New op-ed in the New York Times by Pamela Paul: “In U.S. Gender Medicine, Ideology Eclipses Science. It Hurts Kids.” What is significant is not so much the content, which is certainly not new–indeed it is drawn from the UK’s Cass Review, which was published in April–and should be uncontroversial, but the fact that the New York Times published it. Vibe shift?

#K12 – “California taxpayers spent $4 billion on 401,000 students no longer in the state’s public schools” Link. We wrote and deleted multiple comments, but we really think this one speaks for itself.

Chart of the Day

The UN projects that future birth rates will magically stabilize, with no explanation. India is just one example. More.

Meme of the Day

What could we do today except post this iconic, historic photo? We pray for the President and the victims at Saturday’s rally and their families.