Michael Meeropol

On July 5th, Vice President Vance spoke at a right-wing think tank, the Claremont Institute.

In my opinion, the war in Iran is an attempt by all three governments to divert their peoples’ attention from domestic issues. The Mullahs who rule Iran are hated by the vast majority of the population --- they hold on to power with murderous repressive violence.

Recently I opened the printed version of THE ATLANTIC and discovered a very interesting article by David Frum entitled, “That 70s Feeling: Trump’s tariffs could cause stagflation for the first time in decades. It may go on for a long, long time.”

Economist Michael Meeropol offers commentary for Friday, May 2nd, 2025

In my oral radio commentary for Friday, April 18, I decided NOT to make any comments on the craziness of Trump’s on again off again tariff war with the rest of the world.

How does the federal government allocate the trillions of dollars it spends every year? According to polls, the government spends a lot of money on foreign aid and welfare. But of course those polls are wrong. For an example drawn from 2015 polling data, the public on average believed that the US government spent 26 percent of its budget on foreign aid. In fact it’s always been in the low single digits.

Everyone who had the misfortune to see Trump’s various speeches on inauguration day got to see him explain that the word “tariff’ was the most beautiful word in the dictionary, only to catch himself and say, well, actually “God, religion and love” need to come first. – THEN would come tariff.

My question for today is --- “How does a Republican Congressman sell a cut in Medicaid as NO CUTS TO MEDICAID?” Answer --- by hiding it in a big number without specification. In a first and very revealing vote, every Republican but one in the House, (including eleven who are the most vulnerable to a Democratic challenge in 2026), voted to move a budget “blueprint” forward.

This commentary was recorded the afternoon of February 19. That very day, there was an important hearing held before a federal judge in New York City. The issue was the decision of the Trump Justice Department to order the dropping of all charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.

Violating an explicit law and getting away with it is how autocrats kill democracies. This commentary presents one important example. When the Secretary of the Treasury gave Elon Musk and a few of his young “whiz kids” access to the Treasury Payments System and Musk immediately targeted the Lutheran Family Services, he was breaking the law. Let me explain.