The Red Line

In last week’s GOP debate, illegal immigration sparked heated exchanges about “amnesty,” the polarizing issue at the center of any reform proposal.

But as Marco Rubio pointed out, the failure of Washington politicians to solve the immigration problem over the past 30 years — primarily their failure to staunch the flow of illegal entry — Americans are so suspicious they will not accept any reform until the problem of illegal entry is solved conclusively.

You may remember a 2014 Gallup poll that had Connecticut as the new Dodge City, the place that half the residents wanted to get out of. Well, many are leaving, eroding the tax base. And the next may be Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric.

Headquartered in Connecticut since 1974, GE is evaluating whether to stay or leave after being hit with a big tax increase. A decision is expected next month.

Companies and people are leaving the state because taxes have been jacked up steeply in recent years under the one-party rule of Democrats. Further hikes are inevitable, given looming budget deficits, driven primarily by escalating annual contributions to the state’s overgenerous and seriously underfunded public-sector employee pension fund and unfunded health care obligations.

Sen. Ted Cruz and the Freedom Caucus in the U.S. House always want to fight, even when defeat is certain, as it is now when Senate Democrats can kill any legislation with a filibuster and President Obama can veto anything that might survive a filibuster.

The unwinnable-fights attitude can cause real damage, such as the current GOP leadership crisis and the current threat to the nation’s finances. Hopefully, the leadership chaos has passed with everyone rallying around Paul Ryan. Cruz and company’s threats to block an increase in the federal debt ceiling led the U.S. Treasury to cancel its next debt auction, which couldn’t settle before we hit the current ceiling on November 3. With luck, Tuesday’s tentative budget deal will remove this threat.

Fighting with the prospect of winning is ideal. Fighting to make a new point is fine. But repeatedly fighting the same unwinnable shutdown battles?

Can it get any crazier? Fourteen candidates on one debate stage? Leading newspapers in three small early primary states are partnering with C-SPAN to sponsor the “Voters First Forum,” a prime time TV event inviting all announced GOP presidential candidates Monday.

Nuts, right? Maybe not. What’s at stake is a fundamental principle of democracy. Should voters have the first say on the candidates or should pollsters and Madison Avenue hired guns working for the candidates with the most money?

After last year’s low volatility and impressive gains, stock market investors have been whipsawed in early 2014. Stocks dropped sharply in January, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling more than 5%, and falling again Monday.

Yet the roller-coaster ride may just be getting started. Aside from the trouble in emerging markets and slowdown in U.S. manufacturing activity, there is a tax effect at play in the current market downturn, and it is likely to increase market volatility for the rest of this year.

This weeks widely followed Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) results comparing the education attainment of 15-year-olds across much of the industrialized world found a floundering U.S. education system. American students' performance plummeted from 25th to 31st in math, 11th to 21st in reading, and 20th to 24th in science. The result was amplified coming only weeks after our own National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) disappointed once again.

Sandwiched between the two reports was one reason why America's education system continues to lag. We keep investing in efforts that don't produce results.

Universal pre-kindergarten schooling, every progressive’s fondest dream, is back in the news. Bill de Blasio, the overwhelming favorite in the New York mayoral race and the likely future head of the nation’s largest school system, is pushing universal pre-K as his No. 1 policy proposal. President Obama offered a national version of this idea in his February State of the Union address and has since pushed hard in other settings. Two problems: Such programs would have negligible educational value, and they would be massively expensive.

Senators from both sides of the political divide are displaying an encouraging resolve to break up the country’s biggest banks. Unfortunately, they’re focusing too much on the complexity of big bank operations and ignoring the greater threat entailed in their enormous size.