A USEFUL ADDITION TO TRUMP’S TAX REFORM PLAN: A Modest Proposal to Reduce “Inequality:”

A surtax on large private college endowments—say on all endowments that are more than something like $1 million per student. This would hit the ivy league schools that these days are raking in nearly $1 billion a year in contributions according to the latest reports. (I recall an old line from Conan O’Brien—a Harvard grad—about Harvard’s donor pitch: “We’re Harvard. We don’t need your money. We just want it.”) Or instead of a surtax directly on endowments, reduce the tax deductibility of donations to college endowments above a certain level.

And if Republicans really want to start riots in faculty clubs, they should pass Obama’s community college plan with one proviso: that all community college credits be fully transferrable to any four-year college that accepts any federal funding (which is every institution of higher learning except Hillsdale and one or two others). Watch the four-year colleges sputter with indignation.

Seems fair.

WELL, LIKE BANKING IN THE 1930S IT’S A FAILING INDUSTRY: Should Trump Declare A “University Holiday”?

Everyone will recall that Franklin Roosevelt’s first act as president in 1933 was to close the nation’s banks to prevent a full-scale panic and a collapse of the banking system. It was called a “bank holiday,” probably because the legal basis was more than a bit shaky: it was based on the “Trading with the Enemy Act” of 1917. Recognizing that this legal basis was ridiculous, FDR prevailed on Congress to pass a statute just five days later to make the move legal retroactively.

I wonder whether President Trump ought to consider closing some of the nation’s universities on the simple ground that they’ve become a public nuisance, are in danger of collapsing entirely, or perhaps are becoming a clear and present danger to public safety. This would hoist the universities by their own “safe space” petard. I can think of any number of legal pretexts that are more plausible than FDR’s bank holiday. At the very least, the Trump Administration ought to suspend student loan eligibility for every student majoring in any of the politicized “studies” programs (women’s and gender studies, etc) on the simple grounds of consumer fraud—this isn’t education, and it is not providing students with any skills for the workplace. Why not? It’s essentially the same legal basis by which the Obama Administration went after for-profit vocational colleges. (Of course, the Obama Administration was motivated to attack for-profit colleges precisely because they weren’t reliable nodes of ideological instruction. . .)

It is getting hard to keep up with the latest epic failures of universities to stand up for the civilized values and serious education for which they supposedly exist. Scott writes below about the case of the total meltdown at Evergreen State College in Washington. I’ll add to Scott’s account the statement of Evergreen’s president, George Bridges, that is beyond parody.

We could use some adult supervision. Perhaps Betsy DeVos and the Education Department will start withholding funding for schools that don’t protect student and faculty rights.

SPACE: Trump’s Least Controversial Frontier. Obama’s policy of benign neglect was very successful. I think Trump should continue it.

THE HILL: Trump: Dems have become ‘party of obstruction.’

TRUE: Adriana Cohen: President gets last laugh for stiffing White House correspondents’ soiree. “Why should the president attend a high-profile media event aimed at giving gravitas and ratings to a hyper-partisan industry that has covered his campaign, transition and first 100 days with an unprecedented level of blatant hostility? That’s like handing the keys to your car to someone who has repeatedly slashed your tires.”

JOEL KOTKIN: The Arrogance of Blue America: If you want to see the worst impacts of blue policies, go to those red regions—like upstate New York or inland California—in states they control.

Ironically, many of the most exploited people reside in blue states and cities. Both segregation and impoverishment has worsened during the decades-long urban “comeback,” as even longtime urban enthusiast Richard Florida now notes. Chicago, with its soaring crime rates and middle class out-migration, amidst a wave of elite corporate relocations, epitomizes the increasingly unequal tenor of blue societies.

In contrast the most egalitarian places, like Utah, tend to be largely Trump-friendly. Among the 10 states (and D.C.) with the most income inequality, seven supported Clinton in 2016, while seven of the 10 most equal states supported Trump.

If you want to see worst impacts of blue policies, go to those red regions—like upstate New York—controlled by the blue bourgeoise. Backwaters like these tend to be treated at best as a recreational colony that otherwise can depopulate, deindustrialize, and in general fall apart. In California, much of the poorer interior is being left to rot by policies imposed by a Bay Area regime hostile to suburban development, industrial growth, and large scale agriculture. Policies that boost energy prices 50 percent above neighboring states are more deeply felt in regions that compete with Texas or Arizona and are also far more dependent on air conditioning than affluent, temperate San Francisco or Malibu. Six of the 10 highest unemployment rates among the country’s metropolitan areas are in the state’s interior.

I think that this is the result of Baker v. Carr and Reynolds v. Sims and that Congress can remedy it by civil rights legislation under its Guaranty Clause powers.

POLITICO: Biden keeps 2020 options open.

Flashback: Biden Swims Naked, Upsetting Female Secret Service Agents:

Agents say that, whether at the vice president’s residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude,” Kessler writes in the book – due for release Aug. 5.

“Female Secret Service agents find that offensive,” he writes.

“Biden likes to be revered as everyday Joe,” an unnamed agent told Kessler. “But the reality is no agents want to go on his detail because Biden makes agents’ lives so tough.”

Plus: Washington Post: What Are We Going To Do About Creepy Uncle Joe Biden?

And: ‘Creepy Veep’ Joe Biden ‘nuzzles’ wife of colleague and claims he is friends with lots of Somali cab drivers.

Also: Joe Biden’s Woman-Touching Habit.

Related: Talking Points Memo: Why Does Creepy Uncle Joe Biden Get A Pass From Liberals?

Plus:

YOU KNOW YOU’RE DOING THAT WRONG, RIGHT? Someone Is Going Around Shaving Other People’s Cats in Virginia.

OBAMACARE HAS ACHIEVED ITS PURPOSE:The health care industry is bound to collapse soon, experts say.

IN THE EMAIL FROM CEDAR SANDERSON: Tanager’s Fledglings (The Tanager Book 1).

FROM KIM DU TOIT, PRAISE FOR AN ARCHETYPE OF MANHOOD: Dinner Guest Extraordinaire.

MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT. IF THEY WEREN’T THERE WOULD BE NO POINT TO GAY RIGHTS OR TO ANYONE BEING GAY: We are different long before we are born.  The hormone baths in the womb create different brains, different muscles, different bone. Not superior, not inferior, but different. Transitioning doesn’t change all that.  Transitioning in the current state of the art is at best cosmetic.  There are some people whom the cosmetic helps, psychologically, but to pretend cosmetic, superficial change goes all the way down is “politically correct”, a term invented by Mao Zedong to signify something patently false that ideology dictated be “true.” In other words it is believing ideology over our lying eyes. New Zealand Transgender Weightlifter Shatters Records.

WITH SO MANY COLLAPSES, I EXPECTED MORE RUBBLE AROUND HERE:President Trump Declares Loyalty Day: Collapse of Democracy Imminent.

BECAUSE CE N’EST PAS LEUR METIER? Why Gwyneth Paltrow and Other Celebrities Shouldn’t Be Your Source for Science. They’re hired to speak lines someone else writes and to do it with conviction.  This might qualify them for politics, but not for science.

REMEMBER THE FATHER OF THIS COUNTRY WAS A FARMER:From Farm to Space: A Lost Cultural Myth.

PERSONAL AMBITION IS NOT A MANDATE; GREED IS NOT A VOCATION: Hillary’s presidential bid was doomed from the beginning.