In 2023, over 100 leading economists from around the world, including progressive darling Thomas Piketty, signed a letter warning that “far-right” Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei’s policies, which were “rooted in laissez-faire economics,” would cause “devastation,” spike inflation, expand poverty, and worsen unemployment. Celebrated economists never penned any open letters warning that the preceding Peronists’ or Kirchnerists’ perverse blend of fascism, socialism, and unionism would drive Argentina—once one of the world’s wealthiest nations—into destitution, unemployment, soaring inflation, and bankruptcy. But that’s how it always goes. Political scientist Ian Bremmer warned, “Economic collapse is coming imminently.” Felix Salmon, then chief financial correspondent at Axios (now at Bloomberg), argued that Milei’s “wrecking ball” policies would plunge Argentina into “a deep recession.” When the U.S. provided Argentina with a $20 billion currency swap line last year, former New York Times columnist and Milei critic Paul Krugman argued that there’s “no plausible scenario in which even $20 billion in U.S. loans will save Javier Milei’s failing economic strategy.” Argentina only tapped around $2.5 billion of that funding and then fully repaid the loan in January of this year with interest, far ahead of schedule. Well, Argentina’s 2025 gross domestic product also blew past expectations, growing 4.4%, the highest in years. The International Monetary Fund expects the GDP will grow at similar rates in 2026 and 2027. When Milei’s socialist predecessor Alberto Fernandez reopened the economy after COVID-19 and saw the entirely predictable rise in GDP, popular Nobel laureate economist and Hugo Chavez fan Joseph Stiglitz called it an “economic miracle.” Over the next year, inflation rose to 97%, while poverty spiked, real wages fell, and GDP stagnated. Since Milei’s party won power in 2023, inflation has dropped over 200%, plunging to the lowest level in eight years. Though this is likely the fastest any nation experiencing hyperinflation has improved its position in modern history, Stiglitz still warns that Milei is leading Argentina into “crisis.” Yet it had a fiscal surplus for the second consecutive year in 2025, marking the first time since 2008 that it accomplished the feat, and the poverty rate dropped significantly in 2025, reaching its lowest level since 2018. The crisis Milei took on was stark: In the first half of 2024, around 52.9% of the population was living in poverty, with 18% in extreme poverty. Poverty fell 14 percentage points, to 38%, last year. It is at 31% now. Milei did all this the old-fashioned way. He removed price controls, got rid of tariffs and opened trade, privatized a slew of government-run agencies, cut red tape, weakened union monopolies, made major cuts in spending, and eliminated an array of needless state jobs. In other words, all the usual stuff that free marketers preach will work—and experts warn us will bring on Armageddon. True capitalism has never been tried. But even partial capitalism works every time. And we never run out of examples. After gaining independence and moving away from a planned economy in the 1990s, Estonia was one of the first former communist nations to embrace free-market solutions. It soon became one of the most successful, tech-driven economies in Europe. The Poles moved slower, but they also shed socialism for capitalistic reforms, abandoning price controls and scaling back state power. Now they’re one of the few former communist nations economically on par with the West. In the 1980s Ireland was the poorest nation in Western Europe. After its stagnant economy adopted a slew of laissez-faire reforms, deregulations, and lower taxes, Ireland not only grew to have a higher GDP per capita than Britain but became the third-wealthiest nation in the world. Singapore, once destitute, transformed into a free-market economy and now edges out Ireland on the world’s-richest list. South Korea, also once one of the poorest nations, undertook economic liberalization efforts in the 1980s and accelerated them in the 1990s, shedding its top-down government-controlled protectionist economy for a market system. Now it’s one the world’s most dynamic economies. For its first decades of existence, Israel was a one-party quasi-socialist state with a union-run economy that was constantly teetering on the edge of economic crisis. It wasn’t until the 1990s, after an extensive deregulation of Israel’s economy, that the nation experienced an explosion of productivity and quality of life. Israel’s per-capita GDP now outperforms most European nations, while its tech sector outperforms most of the world. Yet no matter how many times the technocrats or socialists or progressives are proven (sometimes catastrophically) wrong, they are never treated as the radicals. No matter how often free-market reforms work to better the lives of millions, they will never be credited. COPYRIGHT 2026 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Argentina Is Booming—Capitalism Remains Undefeated appeared first on The Daily Signal.

On July 4, American taxpayers are set to resume funding one of the nation’s largest providers of so-called gender-affirming care for children, which also just happens to be the nation’s largest provider of abortion. If that’s not a killjoy for America’s 250th birthday, I don’t know what is. Last year, President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act defunded Big Abortion providers like Planned Parenthood of almost $800 million in taxpayer-funded Medicaid reimbursements, dealing a significant blow to the nation’s largest abortion franchise.   In July 2025 alone, Planned Parenthood shuttered 25 clinics across the country, and the total number of closures has reached 47. Planned Parenthood cannot seem to survive on its own without a $792.2 million crutch from hard-working Americans who, by and large, do not want to be complicit in its practices. While the one-year defunding of Big Abortion businesses in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” demonstrated one of the largest legislative wins in pro-life history, the defunding is set to expire on July 4, 2026. Come America’s 250th, taxpayers will be footing the bill for the nation’s largest abortion franchise once again.   Little do many realize, however, that funding Planned Parenthood also means propping up one of the nation’s leading providers of so-called gender-affirming care: cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and referrals for mastectomies and other sex-rejecting procedures. In a 2025 study analyzing Planned Parenthood’s insurance claims, the American Principles Project found that 80% of Planned Parenthood clinics provide so-called gender-affirming care, while 70% provide abortions. That’s right—more Planned Parenthood clinics provide “gender-affirming care” services than provide abortions.  In a similar expose, The Free Press published that from 2017-2023, Planned Parenthood filed 12,000 gender related insurance claims for children aged 12-17, and that 1 in 6 children and young adults who took cross-sex hormones received them via Planned Parenthood. Concerned Women for America, drawing from Planned Parenthood’s annual reporting, also reported on a 1,514% increase in total “transgender services” 2021-2022, from 15,902 services to 256,550 services. Planned Parenthood is not ashamed of its preeminence in so-called gender-affirming care nationwide—the franchise brags about being the “second largest provider of hormone therapy.” Even as the cultural tide turns on the ills of chemical and surgical mutilation, the corporation’s business model is ever-increasingly centered on “transing” vulnerable children and adults.  In a 180-degree turn from the Biden administration, Trump has made historic strides in ending the chemical and surgical mutilation of children. In a single year, around 40 pediatric “gender-affirming care” clinics have closed nationwide, citing the president’s executive order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation” as their cause for closure. The White House has also executed a historic clampdown on fraud, waste, and the abuse of government resources—namely, hard-earned American taxpayer dollars. The impending Independence Day refund will hand back upwards of $800 million in taxpayers’ money to a corporation that demonstrably exists to kill babies and sexually mutilate children—on the 250th birthday of our nation, no less. American taxpayers should not be forced to float an ideology-driven gender-affirming care business, especially not in the wake of over a year of resounding successes against those very abuses. The American taxpayer dollar is to be stewarded, not wasted on testosterone for teenage girls. The good news is that the July 4 refund is avoidable—Congress and the White House should do everything within their power to draw up a reconciliation bill that includes a provision to permanently defund Big Abortion providers. Planned Parenthood should not be empowered by hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to dole out puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-rejecting procedure referrals to American youths. Any corporation neck deep in child mutilation—Planned Parenthood chief among them—should not receive a single cent from American taxpayers. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.  The post Will Taxpayers Foot the Bill for Abortion and ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ in 2026?  appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The field of economics fully developed scientifically in the 20th century. The names John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman, and Friedrich Hayek come to mind. However, one additional man became the one most referenced in the last part of the 20th century and continues as such today. That man is Arthur Laffer. The Joint Committee on Taxation of the U.S. Congress recently released a report telling us Laffer is even more accurate than previously thought. Laffer became famous upon his recognition as adviser to President Ronald Reagan before and after the 1980 election. Laffer has a top-notch pedigree, including degrees from Yale and a Ph.D. in economics from Stanford. He then spent time at the University of Chicago. He was a colleague of Friedman, among others, while at Chicago. Most people associate Laffer with Reagan, but he became notable in 1974 when presenting his thoughts to Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld as part of the Ford administration. It was then that he drew his famous thought on a napkin to illustrate his beliefs about government’s raising tax rates. The bell curve drawing was named the “Laffer curve” by Jude Wanniski, who was sitting in on the meeting. The legend was thus born, and the Laffer curve has become one of the most discussed economic ideas related to government levels of taxation. Ronald Reagan used it as his basis for the Reagan tax cuts in 1981 and 1986. The simple idea of the proposal is that higher tax rates are ineffective in creating revenue. Lowering marginal tax rates increases government revenues. If tax rates are raised, revenues will decrease. I have had vivid debates with people on the left about this economic concept. They instinctively think the idea is counterintuitive. As is often the case, these folks have ideas of how government works in theory, but when reality is different they choose to ignore reality. I encourage them to look at the four major periods where rates were cut during the Kennedy, Reagan, Bush, and Trump administrations. Review the records of federal government revenues after the tax rates are adjusted down, and anyone can see that revenues escalate significantly during all four periods. The political left wants to spend oodles on government programs that largely waste money. If reduced tax rates produced more revenue, they should get behind the idea. Empirical evidence does count for something. If a policy produces more tax revenue, can someone characterize it as a “tax cut”? It is a rate adjustment, not a tax cut. A recent study from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, authored by Rachel Moore, Brandon Pecoraro, and David Splinter, examined previous studies of the Laffer curve. It found that Laffer’s theory was even better than was previously suggested by those studies. Many previous studies used tax bases either too broad or too narrow, and the new study draws attention to those flaws. “Prior studies, however, largely overlook the Laffer curve’s shape, rely on simplified tax functions, and often omit shifting across business types and tax interactions,” the authors write. “We show that modeling distinct tax bases more accurately and incorporating these interactions lowers the revenue-maximizing top tax rate and the associated revenue gains, yielding ‘flat’ Laffer curves.” When I asked Laffer about the new paper, he stated, “This paper is a huge step in the right direction, and the research is very impressive. But, in the long-term context of settling the academic debate, there is much further to go.” “It’s long been true that the U.S. government could collect all of the revenue it currently collects with two flat rate taxes of approximately 12% each: one on unadjusted gross personal income and the other on value added at the corporate level—no deductions, no credits,” he continued. “Any tax rates beyond this level are, based on research, in the prohibitive range of the so-called Laffer curve.”  “When looking at the world, incentive rates should always be used when deriving behavioral issues, not tax rates per se. The question always to ask is: Where is the tradeoff between giving money to people who don’t work and cutting tax rates on people who do work?” Simply put, the prior studies of the Laffer curve used imprecise tax assumptions. Using more accurate current tax information produces even surer results that benefits decrease when income tax rates are raised. Increased tax rates are less beneficial for creation of tax revenues than previously thought. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post The Laffer Curve Is Even Better Than We Thought appeared first on The Daily Signal.

President Donald Trump has said he wants Congress to send a reconciliation package funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement to his desk by June 1, spurring a debate among Republicans about whether to expand the package to include other policy priorities. The Senate’s process of reconciliation allows for the chamber to pass budget legislation with a simple majority vote, with limits on what can be included. Although Republican leadership has decided on a narrow bill to fund border security efforts, House conservatives fear the reconciliation package is their last chance to secure policy wins ahead of the midterm elections without needing Democrat support.  Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said that the second bill must be as “narrow” as possible in order to meet Trump’s deadline. “They’re gonna have to limit the scope,” said Rachel Bovard, Conservative Partnership Institute vice president, “because, if they open it up, it’ll become a Christmas tree.” Leadership’s approach is likely to run into trouble with the conservative Freedom Caucus, which has several priorities for the second reconciliation bill: completely fund the Department of Homeland Security, defund Planned Parenthood, pass the SAVE America Act, and reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.  Speaker Mike Johnson has discussed the possibility of a third reconciliation package after that to accomplish other priorities.  Some conservatives say a third reconciliation bill could succeed if funding of the Iran operation is withheld until then, making its passage essentially mandatory. However, most of the caucus lacks confidence the Senate will succeed in passing a third bill with the other priorities included. “This is the last train leaving the station,” Bovard said of the second reconciliation bill. We cannot leave ICE and CBP hanging with nothing but hopes and prayers that reconciliation 2.0 comes together.That’s why we must use reconciliation to fully fund ALL of the Department of Homeland Security!We can tightly control this process with strict instructions to the…— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) April 7, 2026 “I really need it all to be together,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., told The Daily Signal of an expanded package. “You can’t depend on the Senate on issues like declining Planned Parenthood and other pieces. I think it has to all be together.”  Unless the president asks for something different, Stutzman said Congress should follow the same map as the first successful reconciliation package, the One, Big Beautiful Bill.  The One Big, Beautiful Bill restricted Medicaid reimbursements for Planned Parenthood for one year, but that provision expires on July 4, 2026. A major priority for the pro-life movement is extending that policy so the abortion giant doesn’t get a renewed cash flow on America’s 250th birthday.  “The strategy of a second, big, beautiful bill is the way that I would see it getting across the finish line,” Stutzman said, “because I just don’t trust the Senate to keep the priorities in a third bill that would go over there.” Bovard said Freedom Caucus members don’t have much incentive to support a narrow reconciliation bill without their desired provisions on voter ID, reforms to FISA, or defunding Planned Parenthood. However, she sees the potential for a deal with limited FISA reform being added into reconciliation 2.0.  “But right now, there’s nothing to come to the field for,” she said.  Stutzman fears the Senate’s failure to expand the reconciliation package could cost Republicans the midterms.  “My biggest fear is that the Senate is going to cost us the election in 2026 if they don’t pass some of this policy that our base is expecting us to pass,” he said. “Our voters are already deflated because they feel like we’re not doing what we said we were going to do all because of a filibuster rule.” The post ‘Last Train Leaving the Station’: GOP Push for Narrow Border Bill Sparks Backlash Over Missing Pieces appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Sen. Rick Scott is urging the White House to end the Optional Practical Training work permit program, which incentivizes employers to give jobs to foreign students. “The OPT program should not exist; it is a purely regulatory creation with no statutory basis,” the Florida Republican wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Signal. The Optional Practical Training (OTP) program, created in 1992, allows foreign students to remain in the United States to work for nearly four years after graduation. Scott says this takes jobs away from U.S.-born college graduates. Employers receive a tax break for hiring foreign graduates under the program, giving foreigners an advantage over U.S. citizens, Scott argues. 260410 Letter to Trump OPTDownload “The jobless rate for recent graduates with computer engineering degrees is nearly double the general unemployment rate,” the letter says, “and the unemployment rate for recent computer science graduates is over 50% higher than the general jobless rate.” More than half a million student visa holders currently have OPT work permits, the letter says. Scott argues this creates a national security risk by bolstering China. “Many OPT recipients from Communist China have jobs in universities and Big Tech firms, giving them access to sensitive technological information and intellectual property,” Scott wrote. “We cannot continue opening the door to an enemy nation that will happily use our own research against us.” The Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman warned in a 2020 report that the OPT and STEM OPT programs “have remained a source of concern in recent years due to their vulnerability to fraud and indicators that they are being leveraged by foreign governments as a means of conducting espionage or illicit technology transfer in the STEM areas.” More than 33,000 Chinese nationals hold special STEM work permits under the program that allow them to stay in the U.S. Scott cited reports that the Trump administration planned to end the program. The Department of Homeland Security has said it “will amend existing regulations to address fraud and national security concerns, [and] protect U.S. workers from being displaced by foreign nationals.“ Before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2025, Forbes reported that the “upcoming Trump administration rule is expected to end or restrict Optional Practical Training.” The post EXCLUSIVE: Senator Urges Trump to End Program That Gives US Jobs to Foreign Graduates appeared first on The Daily Signal.