Yes, Don can flip Joe’s agenda, labor’s war on AI and other commentary
Energy watch: Yes, Don Can Flip Joe’s Agenda
“For four years, President Joe Biden has described climate change as an existential threat requiring a whole lot of government response and trillions of dollars in new spending to force America off fossil fuels,” scoffs RealClearInvestigations’ James Varney. President-elect Donald Trump, by contrast, “wants to realign U.S. energy policy toward cheap, abundant energy and away from expensive, emerging renewable sources” that often “rely on government subsidies.” True, “no president has a magic wand that can undo every policy enacted by his predecessor.” But the nation has reason to hope: Much of Biden’s $27 billion greenhouse-gas-reduction-fund grants, for example, have “been awarded to outfits with strong ties to the Democratic party.” “Money can be saved simply by not being spent.”
Eye on New York: Labor’s War on AI
Albany’s “Legislative Oversight of Automated Decision-Making in Government,” or “LOADinG,” Act wasn’t about “protecting New York from self-aware computers trying to wipe out humanity,” snarks the Empire Center’s Ken Girardin of legislation signed by Gov. Hochul restricting state agencies’ use of AI and computer-generated guidelines. It was a gift to “the unions, particularly the Public Employees Federation,” which admitted to lawmakers it was seeking “to protect workers from losing their jobs to AI systems.” Yet the bill’s “ ‘protections’ will bring slower-than-appropriate service delivery at higher-than-necessary costs, slamming the brakes on a multi-generation trend toward more efficiency, both across the economy and in state agencies themselves.” Government can greatly benefit from AI, but only if “public employee unions don’t keep sabotaging them.”
Liberal: A Fix for Dems’ Toxic Party Image
After the election, “non-delusional Democrats have concluded that their party brand is in the toilet,” observes The Liberal Patriot’s John Halpin. Among these realists are “centrists who say the party is too culturally elitist, too anti-capitalist, and too obsessed with identity politics and other extreme values.” It’s plagued with progressives who think the party is “too pro-corporate and too obsessed with white working-class voters.” To improve the party’s brand, Dems should try “fusionism,” blending “pro-growth and populist economics” with “traditionally liberal but pluralistic and more moderate cultural values.” This would require centrists and progressives to “forego the attempted takeover of the party for a while and try to create new mechanisms for cooperation and the development of a party brand that all sides can embrace.”
Ex-envoy: Reform UN’s Funding Formulas
To reform the United Nations, Donald Trump’s nominee for UN ambassador, Elise Stefanik, and his pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, “should announce that the U.S. no longer accepts the concept of assessed contributions” to the world body, argues John Bolton at The Wall Street Journal. “Mandatory ‘assessed’ contributions” are calculated by “opaque ‘capacity to pay’ formulas, which have historically made America the largest contributor.” The result: “A majority of member governments tells us what we owe, on pain of losing our vote in U.N. governing bodies if we don’t pay up.” Moving to “only voluntary contributions” based on “the performance of each U.N. agency and program” will mean “paying only for what we want and insisting that we get what we pay for.”
Conservative: Trump’s Promise of Hope
With Donald Trump “poised to reenter the White House” Jan. 20, “America stands on the threshold” of a “new era” of prosperity and peace, cheers Paul du Quenoy at Newsweek. Republicans control both the White House and Congress, so “Trump will have the power to maintain and expand” tax cuts, slash the budget, tame inflation, power “respectable growth” and protect jobs. Already there’s a “near-immediate willingness to talk peace” in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Mexico has hinted of working to control the border. Trump also seems “ready to end” DEI in government. “The fight will be hard, and resistance may be formidable.” But “the safe bet” is America will be “stronger, freer, wealthier, healthier, and happier.” That is, truly “great again.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
