The Congressional Budget Office has released its 2018 report on the Long-Term Budget Outlook for the U.S. Government. In it, CBO analysts make surprisingly blunt assessments of the government’s worsening fiscal condition, which they confirm is primarily driven by excessive growth in government’s projected spending.

How blunt are they? They’ve directly inserted that message into several of the report’s graphics, starting with the cover page:

Today in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees the U.S. Supreme Court held that government employees who decline to join unions may not be compelled to pay dues and fees against their will to cover matters such as collective bargaining. Here is how this landmark opinion begins:

Illinois state worker Mark Janus was not a member of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees but the powerful AFSCME had been grabbing $550 a year from Janus’ paycheck and, he contended, using it to support political candidates and causes with which he disagreed. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that AFSCME can’t do that anymore. 

“This procedure violates the First Amendment and cannot continue,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Neither an agency fee nor any other payment to the union may be deducted from a nonmember’s wages, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.”  In the minority dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote, “the First Amendment was meant for better things. It was meant not to undermine but to protect democratic governance—including over the role of public-sector unions.”

In a New York Times op-ed, Bryan W. Van Norden argues that the ignorant do not have a right to an audience. Van Norden says “The invincibly ignorant and the intellectual huckster have every right to express their opinions, but their right to free speech is not the right to an audience.”

Two of the “ignorant and intellectual hucksters” Van Norden calls out are Charles Murray and President Trump. I note this to suggest that Van Norden may lean to the left, politically, but I’m setting this observation aside as a curiosity to look at where his arguments ultimately lead.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in South Dakota v. Wayfair that the Mount Rushmore State can compel out-of-state sellers to remit any sales taxes paid by South Dakota consumers. The broader implication is that when people buy from online retailers, those retailers are obligated to remit sales tax to the purchaser’s state if the purchaser’s state law requires it.

That decision is faulty for (at least) three reasons.

I had the distinct privilege of delivering the eulogy (with my brother Gary) at the memorial service for my late father, Paul Richard Theroux, on Saturday, June 23, 2018, at Sylvan Abbey Funeral Home, in Clearwater, FL. Here is an edited version of my presentation:

The Christian Sabbath is Sunday, the traditional first day of the week, and this past Sunday was Father’s Day. Hence, I am even more delighted and grateful to all of you for gathering with us here today to remember and honor my beloved father, Paul Richard Theroux, who passed away at the age of 94 on July 17, 2017, outliving two wives and six siblings.

Dad was born on December 15, 1922, in Ithaca, NY, the third of seven children of my grandparents, Frank and Louise Theroux, both of whom were born in Valparaiso, IN, and married after my grandfather was discharged from the Army after World War I in 1918. My father and all of his siblings graduated from Michigan State University, where my grandfather was a professor of civil engineering and Dad majored in chemical engineering. Incidentally, Dad and his brothers and a sister became the largest single family ever to all earn degrees from the school.

Back in 2011, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Cecilia Muñoz, formerly vice president of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), told PBS “even if the immigration law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children.” So the separation policy was intentional, and it turned out to be very profitable for the politically connected. 

As Fox News reports “Texas-based Southwest Key Programs has taken in roughly $1 billion in federal contracts since the Obama administration and is expected to receive about $500 million this year to house and provide services for immigrant children.” Southwest Key holds a total of “more than 5,000 immigrant children, about 10 percent of whom are said to have been separated from their families since May when the new policy was announced. Its shelters for immigrants minors are in Texas, Arizona, and California.”

By and large, Americans support spending more money on public education and schools.

That general rule of thumb comes, however, with a caveat. Americans expect that when they give public schools more money, this will help to fund the education of their children and to support programs that promote their children’s development, such as athletics or the arts.

What they don’t expect is for the money they give to be siphoned off in ways that will either never show up in a classroom or that will never benefit their children.

A recent episode of CNN’s Boss Files podcast featured Heather Bresch, CEO of Mylan and the first woman to run a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company. The podcast focused primarily on her journey to success. However, roughly 40 minutes in, Bresch was questioned about her pricing strategy for EpiPen, the epinephrine auto-injector for treating emergency allergic reactions.

Mylan acquired the right to sell EpiPen in 2007 and, under Bresch’s leadership, EpiPen prices were raised nearly 400 percent in late 2015. In mid-2016, Mylan released a generic EpiPen, which sold for about $300 for a 2-pack (50 percent less expensive than the name-brand version). When questioned about Mylan’s pricing and promotion strategy, Bresch explained that patients “needed a solution and wanted a solution” and that her generic device provided both.

On May 31, 2018, the total public debt outstanding of the U.S. government stood at $21.145 trillion dollars. Of that amount, $1.211 trillion was borrowed so that Uncle Sam could be in the business of making student loans.

Over $1 trillion of that subtotal was borrowed after President Obama took over the student loan industry on March 30, 2010.

As trends go, the chart of the history of the U.S. government’s borrowing to fund student loans looks like an ugly hockey stick, the kind that can have negative implications for the population, particularly those Americans who have a crippling level of student loan debt.