Policy and Government

Stephen Moore: The car tariffs are taxes that nobody wants.

Phil Kerpen of American Commitment, on Fox, discusses possible federal campaign finance law violations by AOC.

Director Kudlow: U.S. and China trade deal must work for America’s long term interests.

NYT: Democrats’ march to the left unnerves moderates.

Monetary

Lawrence Summers, at the Washington Post, declares that the left’s embrace of modern monetary theory is a recipe for disaster, “the supply-side economics of our time. A valid idea — that traditional fiscal-policy taboos need to be rethought in an era of low real interest rates — has been stretched by fringe economists into ludicrous claims that massive spending on job guarantees can be financed by central banks without any burden on the economy.”

At Forbes.com, Brian Domitrovic points out that “Modern” Monetary Theory was decisively eviscerated by the Mundell-Fleming work over half a century ago.

At NRO, George Will mocks modern monetary theory.

George Selgin at Alt-M, with a hat tip to JP Koenig, genteelly but decisively dismantles MMT and its “novel policy pronunciamentos that are as tantalizing as they are false.”

Kenneth Rogoff, at Project Syndicate, hopes that “all the nonsense about MMT will fade. But that’s what people said about extreme versions of supply-side economics during Ronald Reagan’s 1980 US presidential campaign.”

NYT: America’s most profitable export? Money.

Nathan Lewis, at BullionVault, straightens out Hayek’s misconceptions about gold and the gold standard.

Spending

The Washington Post reports that the White House budget will seek to hike military expenditures, cut domestic spending, and accept projected deficits for 15, not 10, more years.