Good morning,
Again, just to remind: TNR has moved the daily newsletter, which you used to get in the late afternoon, to mid-morning, with a short introduction written by me or staff writer Tim Noah or someone else. Soâletâs proceed with installment three.
The big political news of the day is the debt limit, and weâll circle back to that, but I want to note a different development expected to happen today. Jonathan Kanter, Joe Bidenâs nominee to head the Justice Departmentâs antitrust division, has his Senate confirmation hearing, and heâs expected to be confirmed. The New York Times has a decent summary of the situation.
Why is this so important? Because if the Democrats lose the House, as the odds would favor, the ability of the Biden administration to make dramatic change moves to the executive branch. Under Barack Obama, that hinged on executive orders and regulatory change, but now it means, or should mean, aggressive trust-busting. And Biden has signaled through appointees Kanter and Tim Wu and Lina Khan that heâs ready to rumble.
Insanely quick history of U.S. government posture toward monopoly power:Â One, monopolies grew unchecked; two, the government cracked down, under Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson (and Louis Brandeisâtodayâs anti-monopolists call themselves the âNew Brandeisiansâ) and Franklin Roosevelt; three, Robert Bork (yep, that guy) screwed it all up in 1978; four, itâs high time to de-Bork antitrust policy.
(Interruption: As I type these words, I just heard Mika Brzezinski say on TV that Lindsey Graham was shouted down by his Republican constituents over the weekend. For a foolish split second, my heart rose. Was it because heâs against funding childcare? Because they want him to expand Medicare to include dental? No. Because he meekly suggested that maybe they should consider vaccination.)
Back to Kanter: If the Democrats manage to pass these two bills this month, that may be about it in terms of legislation. Voting rights and minimum wage, I hope. There will be no more big spending bills, in all likelihood. But they donât need legislation to take on monopoly power. So keep an eye on Kanter (and Khan and Wu).
Piece worth reading today: As I know (!) you read a while back, I wrote a column explaining how the mediaâs incessant use of the $3.5 trillion reconciliation number frames the debate on terms favorable to the right. I wrote that the truer way to put it is $60 billion a yearâless than 1 percent of the federal budget. Now David Cay Johnston goes me one better and does a little more ciphering* to show that the price tag for this bill to your average American is $2.88 a day. But even that is misleading because the rich will pay more. Itâs a numbers-heavy (in a good way), important read.
At NewRepublic.com, Grace Segers has a solid rundown on the debt-limit situation. The Democrats are of course going to have to do this through reconciliation. Mitch McConnell thinks theyâll pay a political price for this. I donât think anyone gives a crap about the debt limit, which Iâll probably argue in a future column. Esther Wang explains why police unions are up in arms about vaccine mandates for cops (basically, because they have the power to be). Timothy Noah lays out why South Dakota is a horrible state and should not exist. And treat yourself to Alex Shephardâs rollickingly funny take on who might win the Nobel Prize for literature.
Happy Wednesday,Â
Michael Tomasky, editor
*You may not know this usage of âciphering.â But if youâre from a place like West Virginia, or ever watched The Beverly Hillbillies, you do.
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