Jim Antle, the magazine’s executive editor, brings to life the pages of the Washington Examiner magazine on the show Inside Scoop. Each episode features exclusive insight from the article authors and expert analysis.
This week, Jim Antle gives his take on balancing the U.S. federal budget deficit. He notes it hasn’t been balanced since 2001 and is currently at $37.9 trillion. While it is down $41 billion from the previous year, the interest payments rival defense spending. The deficit has been exacerbated by the Great Recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, and ongoing spending. Antle says both parties are to blame for the deficit.
“Republicans blame out-of-control entitlement spending as the long-term driver of the debt,” Antle says. “Democrats naturally blame the Reagan, Bush, and Trump tax cuts, saying that they don’t bring in enough revenue to cover all of the spending that they’d like to have. But the reality is that this is a bipartisan problem, and there seems to be a bipartisan disinterest in doing much about it.”
Efforts to introduce a Balanced Budget Amendment have stalled since the 1990s, despite bipartisan support in the past.
Next in the show, David Harsanyi joined Antle to discuss the cover story on the Middle East peace process. Harsanyi, a senior writer for the Washington Examiner, believes peace seems possible in the Middle East, and Trump deserves considerable credit.
“I think now that there’s going to be a buffer zone around Gaza, now that many nations have signed on to Trump’s agreement, which is 20 points long, and the first point is that Hamas, much must de-radicalize; there’s a chance that that can happen,” Harsanyi said. “It’s not going to be easy. I don’t think Hamas is going to voluntarily give up its weapons as easily as we think. But if you have them in this sort of hermetically sealed bubble there, you could stop them from getting Iranian arms. You could stop them from launching hundreds of missiles at civilian towns and so on. I think there’s a chance in the long run that you’re going to have some peace.”
Antle was also joined by Jay Caruso, the Communications and Strategic Initiatives Director of Mair Strategies, to discuss his article on how populists and progressives are winning the argument among Democrats. Caruso highlights how Zohran Mamdani’s impending victory in New York City, and his plans for government-run services, could embolden progressives.
“I mean, he’s winning in New York. It’s not like it’s a bright red town, but they have elected Republicans in the past,” Caruso said. “Now they’re going even further left. Regardless of the fact that it’s just a city mayoral race, it’s going to embolden progressives to say this is something we could do in a much larger scale.”
Though Caruso warns that the Democratic Party’s lack of leadership and direction, especially with their focus on culturally divisive issues like trans rights, may alienate voters.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean those voters, who might otherwise vote for them, are going to run and vote for a Republican,” Caruso said. “But they might just sit there and say, ‘I like what he has to say about the economy, but this other stuff, I’m just going to sit this one out.’ That could prove to be very detrimental to the party, especially as we’re coming up on the midterms.”
INSIDE SCOOP: MIDDLE EAST PEACE, RESTORING AMERICA, SCOTUS CASES TO WATCH
For generations, the Democratic Party has had a monopoly on political power in many urban jurisdictions, without any Republicans to stop them from implementing the “best” Democratic policies. Our in-depth report by Conn Carroll lays out the consequences five cities face when Democrats are given unchecked power.
Tune in each week at washingtonexaminer.com and across all our social media platforms to go behind the headlines in the Washington Examiner’s new show, Inside Scoop.
