Financial Times: “Below are five of the most statistically significant of these factors. Polling ahead of the referendum had long since identified education as one of the fundamental drivers of voting intention, and the demographic data shows that this was absolutely the case.”
A new Gallup poll identifies the factors that the 53% of Americans that rate Congress’s job performance poor or bad point to when complaining about the institution.
The majority say that Congress is distracted from helping its constituents and instead pays “too much attention to financial contributors” (56%) or “too much attention to special interests and lobbyists” (55%).
Anti-establishment sentiments are clear as well: 43% believe Congress “spends too much time campaigning and raising money,” while 32% believe congressmen “pay too much attention to party leaders.”
Financial Times’s Alex Barker: “It is a moment all EU leaders feared: a referendum jolt with the potential to fracture not just the union but reshape the postwar order in the west. Brexit tugs at the bonds holding the bloc together, and the collective standing and clout of its members in the world. The EU is at bay. Once Britain leaves, the EU loses its biggest military spender, a UN Security Council seat, its second-biggest economy and one of its most vocal champions of world trade and liberal economics. All that comes as the continent is buffeted by the aftermath of multiple economic and political shocks at home and abroad.”
Council on Foreign Relations’s Robert Kahn : “The fallout from the Brexit vote in the United States–tighter financial conditions caused by weaker stock markets and reduced risk taking, uncertainty about the future of Europe and global trade, as well as a weaker outlook for growth, strengthens the case for the Fed to put off rate hikes (if they needed any reason beforehand). Many issues that have come to the fore in our election campaign, including anxiety about the economic future of the country and globalization, will get a new look today. Together, there are many reasons to believe the economic consequences for the United States could be significant.”
New York Times’s Roger Cohen: “Warnings about the dire consequences of a British exit from President Barack Obama, Britain’s political leaders, major corporations based in Britain and the International Monetary Fund proved useless. If anything, they goaded a mood of defiant anger against those very elites.This resentment has its roots in many things but may be summed up as a revolt against global capitalism. To heck with the experts and political correctness was the predominant mood in the end. A majority of Britons had no time for the politicians that brought the world a disastrous war in Iraq, the 2008 financial meltdown, European austerity, stagnant working-class wages, high immigration and tax havens for the super-rich.”
Brookings Institution’s Richard Reeves: “Identity politics has tended in recent years to be of the progressive kind, advancing the cause of ethnic minorities, lesbians and gays, and so on. In both the U.K. and the U.S. a strongly reactionary form of identity politics is gaining strength, in part as a reaction to the cosmopolitan, liberal, and multicultural forms that have been dominant. This is identity politics of a negative kind, defined not by what you are for but what you are against. A narrow majority of my fellow Brits just decided that at the very least, being British means not being European.”
New York Times: “Despite intense support among his followers for his proposals for a Mexican border wall and a ban on Muslim immigration,Donald J. Trump will face trouble with independent voters on immigration in the November election, according to a survey published on Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution, nonpartisan research organizations.”
Of independent voters, “58 percent of respondents said they opposed a border wall… 78 percent of independents — and the same percentage of Americans over all — said those [11 million illegal] immigrants should be allowed to become American citizens or legal residents.”
Robert P. Jones, chief executive of the Public Religion Research Institute, said Trump’s proposals are “a winning strategy for the Republican primary but are not connected to where the country is as a whole. If Trump continues to double and triple down on that message, he may run into a wall with independent voters.”
New York Times: “The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a challenge to a race-conscious admissions program at the University of Texas, Austin, handing supporters of affirmative action a major victory.”
“The case, Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 14-981, was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who said the university had denied her admission based on her race. She has since graduated from Louisiana State University.”
Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, stating, “A university is in large part defined by those intangible ‘qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness.’ Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission.”
The Hill: “The Supreme Court dealt a critical blow to President Obama’s immigration policies on Thursday, deadlocking in a 4-4 decision over two controversial programs the White House wants to implement.”
“The tied vote leaves in place a lower court ruling that blocks a program allowing undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents to remain in the United States for three years and apply for work permits. It also prevents the administration from otherwise expanding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program issued by Obama in 2012.”
Democrats, led by President Obama, decried the high court’s ruling, while House Speaker Paul Ryan called it “another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers.”
A Pew Research Center poll examines partisanship and political animosity.
New York Times: “A federal judge on Tuesday night struck down an Obama administration regulation on the use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and gas on public lands, a blow to President Obama’s muscular stand on the extraction of fossil fuels on government lands.”
“The rule, released by the Interior Department in March of last year and scheduled to take effect this Friday, was designed to increase the safety of fracking. It would have required companies to comply with federal safety standards in the construction of fracking wells, and to disclose the use of some chemicals in the fracking process.”
“Judge Scott W. Skavdahl of Federal District Court in Wyoming ruled that the Interior Department lacked the authority from Congress to issue the regulation, and also noted that fracking is already subject to other regulations under state and federal law.”
“The blocked rule would not have affected most fracking operations in the United States, since it would have applied only to fracking on federal lands. The vast majority of fracking in the United States — almost 90 percent — is done on state and private land and is governed by state and local regulations.”
The Hill: “Medicare’s main trust fund will run dry by 2028, two years earlier than previous estimates, according to a review released Wednesday by the Obama administration.”
“‘Medicare faces a substantial, long-term shortfall that needs to be addressed,’ Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told reporters.”
“The long-term financial picture for Medicare is worsening despite a spate of government actions to reduce healthcare costs system-wide.”
The American Enterprise Institute’s Michael Barone: “If the number [of jobs] destroyed persistently exceeds the number created, you have a recession. If the number created only narrowly exceeds the number destroyed, you have what we’ve been living with for the last nine years.”
“Higher federal tax rates have hurt… Taking money away from existing enterprises and potential entrepreneurs to pay for skyrocketing pensions for retired public employee union members is not a recipe for job growth.”
As for the 2016 election, Barone criticizes the likely economic policies of the two presumptive nominees.
“Hillary Clinton would increase regulatory burdens and increase the cost of employing people.”
“Donald Trump’s promise to ‘make America great again’ promises restoration of a rosily remembered but largely mythical past. Abrogating trade agreements won’t create half a million auto and steel jobs. Trump’s penchant for dealmaking and crony capitalism means propping up insiders and preventing job creation.”
New York Times: “New analysis by The Upshot shows that millions more white, older working-class voters went to the polls in 2012 than was found by exit polls on Election Day. This raises the prospect that Mr. Trump has a larger pool of potential voters than generally believed.”
“The data implies that Mr. Obama was not as weak among white voters as typically believed. He fared better than his predecessors among white voters outside the South… He would have won even if he had done as poorly among Latino voters as John Kerry.”
“This is all good news for Mr. Trump. There’s more room for him to make gains among white working-class voters than many assumed — enough to win without making gains among nonwhite or college-educated white voters.”
The Hill’s Lawrence R. Jacobs: “It’s policymaking 101: When a policy delivers benefits to people, support for the policy grows. Political scientists call situations like these “policy feedback loops,” and they are a big part of the story of how Social Security and Medicare became so entrenched in American life. But what happens if hyper-partisanship stops the loop? Consider the Affordable Care Act (ACA).”
“The numbers are stark. Monthly tracking polls show that 49 percent hold unfavorable views of the ACA versus just 38 percent holding favorable views. These assessments fly in the face of the ACA’s accomplishments.”
“Why have overall assessments of the ACA remained so divided and largely negative? The culprit, we found, is the political environment. Prevailing attitudes of distrust in government, strong partisanship and ingrained attitudes — not features of the law itself — are perpetuating the public’s negative opinion.”
A Pew Research Center study examines the changing demographics of the work force.
