Seventeen House Republicans gave California Democrats a late Christmas present this month when they crossed the aisle to vote for extending enhanced Obamacare premium subsidies for another three years. Not only did they move these massive handouts one step closer to permanent entitlement status, but they failed to advance reforms that would actually lower health care costs, like closing the Intergovernmental Transfer loophole that has cost taxpayers tens of billions over time. The Senate should stop this bill in its tracks and—in anticipation of pushback from those who have never seen a government expansion they didn’t like—prepare to argue to the public why propping up a broken system won’t reduce health insurance premiums. As I argued in The Hill, these subsidies just mask the true cost of government distortion. Since the Affordable Care Act passed, average family premiums have exploded to more than $25,000 per year. Government subsidies haven’t stopped that rise. They’ve enabled it—by insulating insurers from competitive pricing and reducing any pressure for meaningful reform. And while Washington debates whether to extend temporary tax credits, states like California are quietly siphoning off billions in federal Medicaid dollars through legalized budget fraud tied to the Intergovernmental Transfer loophole. It works like this: State-run hospitals or county agencies send funds to the state Medicaid program. The state counts those as its own Medicaid spending, uses them to trigger a higher Federal Medical Assistance Percentage match from the federal government, and then sends most of the money back to the local provider—often with a bonus. No new services are delivered. No patients are helped. But billions in federal money change hands—and California is the poster child for using this racket to cover its budget gaps it. The Paragon Institute calls this the “Local Loop.” I call it Medicaid fraud with federal approval. And it’s not new. The Government Accountability Office warned Congress about these tactics in 2004. Back then, Medicaid was a fraction of its current size. In March 2025, Paragon estimated that improper Medicaid payments totaled $1.1 trillion between 2015 and 2024—double what the federal government officially reports. California leads the pack. Gov. Gavin Newsom just introduced a $348 billion state budget, despite running a $3 billion deficit—again. His administration continues to lean on Medicaid Intergovernmental Transfer schemes to extract more money from Washington instead of enacting real fiscal discipline. This scam doesn’t just fleece taxpayers. It undermines care. In California, public ambulance providers that participate in funding transfer schemes are reimbursed more than $1,000 per Medicaid transport. Private ambulance services often receive a quarter of that. The result? Private providers leave the market, rural patients suffer, and public-sector monopolies get even stronger. The real path forward is not more subsidies, whether via the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid. It’s structural reform. We should start by shutting down Intergovernmental Transfer abuse—ending circular transfers, enforcing transparency in Medicaid financing, and tying federal dollars to real services delivered to real patients. Then we need to empower patients directly. In my Empower Patients Initiative with Dr. Deane Waldman, we propose giving Medicaid recipients no-limit Health Savings Accounts, funded through state block grants. These accounts allow individuals to pay providers directly, shop for care, and make health care decisions on their terms. Paired with time limits and work incentives for work-capable adults, this model would reduce dependency, lower costs, and improve outcomes. It would also inject long-overdue competition and price transparency into a system that’s been shielded from both. We shouldn’t spend another dollar on expanding a broken health care system where waste, fraud, and restricted access are the norm. The Senate has a chance to do something the House didn’t: say no to making pandemic subsidies permanent. Say no to another taxpayer-funded bailout for insurers. And say yes to fixing the corruption and distortion that actually drive- up health care costs. Let the subsidies expire. End the Medicaid shell games. And finally start empowering patients—not bureaucracies—to take charge of their care. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.    The post 17 House Republicans Cave on Subsidies While California Loots Medicaid appeared first on The Daily Signal.

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration is reviewing whether Planned Parenthood affiliates illegally received $88 million in loans during the COVID pandemic, The Daily Signal can first report. “At the height of the pandemic, affiliates of Planned Parenthood took $88 million in taxpayer dollars to fund their abortion-on-demand agenda – and the Biden Administration made sure they got nearly every cent forgiven, even after the first Trump Administration protested,” SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said. “Six years later, the Trump SBA holds the same conviction: Planned Parenthood Federation of America was never eligible to receive a dime in pandemic-era relief from taxpayers.” The administration’s move to challenge millions in funding for America’s largest abortion provider comes the week of the March for Life, when thousands of pro-lifers flock to Washington, D.C. to advocate for the right to life for the unborn. SBA on Thursday sent letters to 38 Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc. affiliates requiring them to prove they were eligible for the more $88 million in COVID-era relief through the administration’s former Paycheck Protection Program. In addition, the Biden administration forgave 34 loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates under the program. Now, SBA is reviewing if Planned Parenthood affiliates misrepresented the size of their organizations or the nature of their affiliation with the national organization to unlawfully qualify for the loans. “As part of the review underway, not only will we expose the Planned Parenthood affiliates who took advantage of the American people–we will take every necessary step to force every bad actor to pay them back,” Loeffler said. Planned Parenthood chapters which don’t provide the requested documentation may be determined to have been ineligible for the loan and the subsequent forgiveness. Additionally, affiliates which SBA finds to have provided incorrect or false eligibility certifications will face “severe penalties, including repayment of the loan, ineligibility for loan forgiveness, and possible referral for civil or criminal penalties.” The Paycheck Protection Program, which ran from April 3, 2020 to May 31, 2021, was formed to help small businesses keep employees on payroll amid disruptions caused by the pandemic. Applicants were required to self-certify their size and eligibility to the administration. Though each Planned Parenthood affiliate said they were an independent qualified entity with fewer than 500 employees, per the program’s requirements, the Trump administration found that none of them were eligible due to their affiliation with Planned Parenthood Federation of America, thus together exceeding the 500 employee limit. President Joe Biden’s administration then forgave many of the loans to Planned Parenthood affiliates without “engaging in a meaningful review of their respective applications.” The SBA is able to use its authority to open a review of loans despite prior loan forgiveness, according to a news release. Members of Congress had previously requested an investigation over the PPP funds given to Planned Parenthood affiliates. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, last March demanded “answers over how the funding was approved, and loans were forgiven despite PPFA being ineligible to receive PPP funds but were stonewalled at every turn by the Biden administration.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., sent a letter to the first Trump administration asking the Department of Justice to investigate if granting loans to Planned Parenthood violates SBA’s affiliation rules. “As you know, fraudulent loan applications can trigger both civil and criminal penalties,” the letter said. The post EXCLUSIVE: Trump Confronts $88 Million in COVID Funding for Planned Parenthood appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Victims of crime, especially violent crime, are not mere witnesses. They have a special status under state and federal law and are entitled to certain rights, including the right to be heard, to be treated fairly, and in some cases, to get restitution. Until Tuesday, it was an open question of whether the restitution owed to them by the convicted defendant was part of the criminal punishment. Whether the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act is considered legal punishment under the Constitution’s ex post facto clauses has been the subject of some debate in the lower courts. On Jan. 20, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling answering that question in the affirmative under the unique facts of this case. But what is the MVRA, how did it come to be, and why is this case a textbook example of the ex post facto clause in action?  Enacted by Congress in 1996, the MVRA was designed to ensure restitution for victims of certain federal crimes. The statute made restitution mandatory for specified offenses, including violent crimes, property crimes, and fraud. It also adopted a broad definition of “victim,” extending beyond those directly harmed to also include family members and others who suffered direct and proximate harm as a result of the offense. Finally, restitution under the MVRA is imposed at sentencing and enforced as part of the defendant’s criminal punishment. The ex post facto clauses, located in Article I, Sections 9 and 10 of the Constitution, forbid Congress and the states from enacting ex post facto—literally, “from a thing done afterward”—laws. To understand why, it is necessary to delve into the historical and legal context, and there is no better source for doing so than the third edition of the “Heritage Guide to the Constitution.” In Essay No. 70 of the guide, Evan C. Zoldan, associate dean for Academic Affairs at the University of Toledo College of Law, explains that despite well-documented historical concern about retroactive laws dating back to the founding of the United States, such laws often prove attractive to legislatures because they can serve as a form of retrospective “payback” for heinous crimes. Zoldan argues that the Supreme Court has struggled to interpret the clauses for “all they are worth,” which has led to a confused and inconsistent legal framework. To prove his point, Zoldan turns to perhaps the most influential Supreme Court case on the matter, Calder v. Bull from 1798. In Calder, the Supreme Court identified four categories of laws forbidden by the clauses: laws that criminalize previously innocent conduct; laws that “aggravate” a crime or make it greater than when committed; laws that increase punishment after a crime was committed; and laws that alter the rules of evidence to make conviction easier. While the Supreme Court has experimented with other frameworks over time, ex post facto jurisprudence seems to lead the court back to the Calder framework. At the conclusion of Zoldan’s essay, the guide’s first open question note poses a prescient question of law: Since the clauses prohibit laws that are punitive in nature, what exactly qualifies as punitive? This question brings us to Tuesday’s ruling. In a unanimous ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court voted to reverse the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Ellingburg v. United States and held that the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act imposes criminal punishment and therefore cannot be applied retroactively under the ex post facto clause. Justice Brett Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court. The facts of the case are simple: Holsey Ellingburg Jr. committed the federal crimes of bank robbery and using a firearm during a crime of violence in December 1995. He was later convicted and sentenced and ordered to pay restitution of $7567.25. The catch here is that the MVRA became law on April 24, 1996, after he committed the crimes.  Turning to the opinion itself, the court applied its standard as laid out in Smith v. Doe, which requires an analysis of a statute’s text and structure. Kavanaugh concluded that 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(1) imposes criminal punishment. First, the text of the statute itself denotes restitution as a penalty to be imposed during sentencing rather than as civil damages. Second, failure to make restitution payments can result in a court’s alteration of supervised release or probation terms. Third, when restitution is imposed by a district court, the court must abide by procedures of criminal law rather than civil. Returning to Smith v. Doe, Kavanaugh concluded that while the opinion allows for a defendant convicted of a relevant crime to register as a sex offender, the registration requirements were imposed through civil procedures, as opposed to the MVRA, which is imposed upon a criminal defendant in a criminal proceeding at sentencing. Justice Clarence Thomas concurred in the result, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch. Thomas concluded that the decision reflects a correct application of precedent as established in Calder v. Bull. Thomas emphasized that ex post facto laws are prohibited under Article I, Sections 9 and 10 of the United States Constitution. But Thomas did not stop at constitutional text alone. He also turned to the writings of James Madison in “Objections to the New Constitution,” in “Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States,” and the writings of Alexander Hamilton in “The Federalist Papers” as further evidence of his originalist claim. Thomas also addressed one of the three open questions of law posed by Zoldan in “The Heritage Guide” and how it can be reconciled with the Calder framework. Thomas identified two key distinctions to clarify Calder’s rightful place in the court’s jurisprudence. First, Calder did not involve the retroactive punishment of criminal conduct. Second, Calder limited the ex post facto clauses to laws imposing criminal punishment. Taking a page from Zoldan, Thomas noted that subsequent decisions have neglected these distinctions, producing a confused framework. But what is the standard going forward to distinguish punitive from civil remedies? Once again, Thomas argued for a return to a historical and textualist perspective. Turning to Blackstone’s distinction between private wrongs, which injure individuals, and public wrongs, which injure the sovereign, Thomas proposed that laws imposing punishment for public wrongs should fall within the ex post facto clauses, while laws addressing private disputes should not. The ruling in Ellingburg is a victory not only for applying the Constitution as it was intended, but also as a coherent and clarifying landmark for future rulings that protect citizens from unjust retroactive punishment. The post Justices Unanimously Hold That Restitution Under Victim Act Is a Criminal Penalty appeared first on The Daily Signal.

California Democrats should listen to The Rolling Stones. The band famously fled England in the 1970s, heading into tax exile in the south of France. Mick Jagger and his mates weren’t alone—a generation of rock royalty abandoned the U.K. because of its steep taxes: David Bowie opted for Switzerland; Rod Stewart went to California. “We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all,” Stones guitarist Keith Richards recalled to Fortune. Progressives are now transforming California into what Britain was before Margaret Thatcher—and it’s not celebrities who are leaving, but the billionaires who drive Silicon Valley’s economy, and therefore the state’s. The 2026 Billionaire Tax Act ballot measure is a recipe for reverse alchemy, turning the Golden State into lead. California’s descending into a vicious spiral all too familiar from other blue states and cities, whenever they try to make up for revenue lost as billionaires and businesses flee by raising taxes ever higher. But this is no ordinary tax on incremental gains—the Billionaire Tax is straight-up confiscation, a one-time seizure of 5% of a taxpayer’s assets. The law would hit anyone with $1 billion or more, which is admittedly a tiny population—fewer than 300 people—even in California. But if millions of people voting in a referendum can expropriate a few hundred people this time, what’s to stop them from doing it to a few thousand the next, or many thousands after that? What begins with the billionaires won’t end with them. Even Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s no stranger to scaring money away from the state—just ask Elon Musk—thinks the Billionaire Tax goes too far. Or does he? He tells The New York Times he fears it would harm California’s competitiveness with other states, but a national confiscation wouldn’t be so bad: “It’s one thing to have a prism of the nation, and you can talk about 50 states,” he says. “It’s another when you’re competing against 49 other states.” A prism of the nation? It sounds like Newsom meant “a prison of the nation” where the prey can’t escape by just moving to Texas. Newsom has made his state a sanctuary for illegal immigrants while his policies encourage the nation’s most successful businesspeople to self-deport. The low-tax red states of Texas and Florida are booming thanks to exactly the opposite approach—they’re sanctuaries for entrepreneurs who create new jobs and whole industries. The tech-talent exodus had begun long before the Billionaire Tax arose on California’s horizon. But it’s hastening the rush out, and whether or not it passes, the initiative confirms Silicon Valley’s worst fears about where things are headed. So the billionaires are headed someplace else: Elon Musk left for Texas in 2020 and subsequently relocated Tesla, SpaceX, and other companies he owns. Peter Thiel is now a Florida resident and has shifted his operations out of California by stages. David Sacks has gone to Austin, and Google’s founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are said to be cutting their ties to California, too. Even the billionaire owner of California’s iconic In-N-Out burger chain announced last July she was leaving for Tennessee. A June 2025 report by the Public Policy Institute of California notes the state lost 1.9% of its corporate headquarters between 2011 and 2021. The Los Angeles Times says California suffered a net emigration of 741 firms in 2022 and 531 in 2023 as well. Along with New York, California is the Democratic Party’s crown jewel at the state level. Yet both states are bleeding business because of high taxes and stifling regulations. “California and New York have, by far, the highest domestic outflow of domestic companies across the US” dating back to 2015, according to the Financial Times. These states, like other blue states and cities before them, are wrecking the very prosperity that makes their extensive social services and government benefits possible. And as in Illinois and so many other places, short-sighted unions are exacerbating California’s problems. The Billionaire Tax is being pushed by the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, which wants to make up for Trump administration cuts to federal services by sapping the wealthiest Californians. If that strikes fear into Newsom, so much the better—the union can use that fear to wring more concessions from him, his party and the state they control. Meanwhile, the men and women whose abilities and resources contribute the most to making California a place that would rank as the world’s fifth biggest economy if it were a country of its own aren’t waiting around to find out who’ll carve them for dinner. They’re following the Stones’ example and going wherever success isn’t punished. 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 From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes appeared first on The Daily Signal.

For the first time in more than 150 years, the second family is growing. On Tuesday afternoon, Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance announced that she is pregnant with her fourth child, a boy, due at the end of July. The Vances referred to this pregnancy as “this exciting and hectic time” before thanking military doctors, and the joyful announcement took Washington and the internet by storm. We’re very happy to share some exciting news. Our family is growing! pic.twitter.com/0RohEBYXM7— Second Lady Usha Vance (@SLOTUS) January 20, 2026 The pregnancy is historic, given that the last time a second family welcomed a child into the world was in 1870. Vice President Schuyler Colfax and his wife, Ellen, had a child while Colfax was vice president to President Ulysses S. Grant. Like Vance, Grant was from Ohio. Before JD Vance and Usha Vance’s pregnancy announcement in 2026, the last U.S. Vice President to have a child while in office was Schuyler Colfax and his wife, Ellen, in 1870. pic.twitter.com/AgTx4HpJ1x— History Calendar (@historycalendar) January 21, 2026 The news quickly became a trending topic on X. The Trump War Room account boasted the growing second family is part of a “MAGA BABY BOOM!” MAGA BABY BOOM https://t.co/hzTbYYo4lf— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) January 20, 2026 The White House X account, meanwhile, said the news is proof of “the most pro-family administration in history!” Perhaps the Trump War Room and the White House are right as several other members of the Trump administration are also expecting children. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is pregnant with her second child, a daughter, due in May. Katie Miller, the wife of Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, is pregnant as well. Like the Vances, this is their fourth child. Fellow Ohio Republicans were quick to wish the vice president and second lady well, including Gov. Mike DeWine and Sen. Jon Husted. Congratulations to Vice President @JDVance and @SLOTUS Usha Vance! Fran and I wish you and your family all the best. https://t.co/ZpHypSqga2— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) January 20, 2026 Congratulations! Children are an amazing gift. May mom and child be blessed with good health. https://t.co/1jvxIP9uHZ— Jon Husted (@JonHusted) January 20, 2026 Husted was not the only one to celebrate the “amazing gift” that children are. Florida Republicans Rep. Byron Donalds, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, and Sen. Rick Scott, also celebrated the news of new life. Get married. Have babies. Make families great again ??CONGRATS to the Second Family of the United States! @JDVance @SLOTUS https://t.co/xEnaWXzsq2— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) January 20, 2026 Catholic University Professor Chad Pecknold, a friend of Vances, quoted another friend of the Vances, the late Charlie Kirk. “Get married. Have children. Build a legacy.Pass down your values.Pursue the eternal.Seek true joy.” — @charliekirk11 pic.twitter.com/8ZDYq55vEH— Chad Pecknold (@ccpecknold) January 20, 2026 And then the memes came pouring in. Would Secretary of State Marco Rubio add another job as the Vance’s babysitter or godfather? Marco Rubio knowing he is going to be the nanny for JD Vance's new baby. pic.twitter.com/0t5mdkQjEc— Planet Of Memes (@PlanetOfMemes) January 21, 2026 Marco Rubio finding out he's about to be the godfather to the next Vance kid pic.twitter.com/TAWIZFswrG— Elise McCue (@EliseMcCue) January 20, 2026 Baby Vance is due in July 2026—right around America’s 250th birthday. The post MAGA Baby Boom? Vance Baby News Takes Internet by Storm appeared first on The Daily Signal.