May 20, 2026

Driving Up The Cost Of Energy While Claiming To Promote "Affordability"

May 20, 2026/ Francis Menton

A fair criticism of politicians is that they all lie, at least to the extent of engaging in extreme levels of spin and/or exaggeration to put the best face on their proposals and programs. But some political lies are worse than others, in that they go far beyond mere spin or exaggeration and get into the blatantly counter-factual. In that category are the claims of many of the governors of the Northeastern states that they are promoting energy “affordability.” These lies are particularly consequential in that they involve very large economic effects and vast waste of resources.
In late 2025, the talking point of energy “affordability” became a major theme of the successful candidacies of Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill for the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, respectively.
Elsewhere in the region, the governors’ offices were not up for election in the off year, but the sitting governors have equally been talking up their energy “affordability” agendas. See for example, Governor Maura Healey of Massachusetts here on March 16 (“Governor Maura Healey today is setting strong new targets for bringing more energy into Massachusetts and lowering energy bills.”); and Governor Kathy Hochul of New York here on May 7 (“[Governor Hochul] Tackles Energy Costs With Sweeping Affordability Package.”).
And yet somehow, it’s hard not to notice that the electricity rates in the Northeastern states are among the highest in the country.

May 16, 2026

"Sue And Settle": Two Can Play This Game

May 16, 2026/ Francis Menton

As you may be aware, early this year President Trump commenced a personal litigation against the federal government, seeking compensation for various alleged wrongs committed against him during the Biden presidency, and even during his own first term. According to this New York Times piece from yesterday, the wrongs that Trump has alleged against the government include “leak of his tax returns during his first term, as well as the investigations into his handling of classified documents after he left office and into his 2016 campaign’s potential ties to Russia.” The amount of damages Trump seeks has been reported as $10 billion.
And then two days ago (May 14) there comes news that there is a tentative settlement in the case. ABC News appears to have been the first with the story. Excerpt:
President Donald Trump is expected to drop his $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service in exchange for the creation of a $1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
So how do you feel about that?

May 14, 2026

May 14, 2026/ Francis Menton

It’s been a long time since I have done an update on the homelessness situation in San Francisco. The reason is that I have avoided the issue until sufficient evidence had accumulated to make the obvious conclusion completely definitive and undeniable.
It was all the way back in 2018 that some of San Francisco’s foremost do-gooders, led by billionaire Salesforce founder Marc Benioff, organized a referendum to implement a new payroll tax to raise the revenue to solve the homelessness problem once and for all.
The referendum was designed to raise some $300 million per year, on top of San Fran’s already generous homelessness spending. All of the new spending was to be dedicated to the task of ending the homelessness crisis.
On October 24, 2018 — just a few days before the referendum was scheduled to take place — Benioff got an op-ed published in the New York Times advocating for its passage. The gist of the op-ed was that it was time for San Francisco’s business community to step up and get this done.

May 12, 2026

May 12, 2026/ Francis Menton

Suppose that you are a large U.S. state with a dynamic modern economy. Here’s an idea for a strategy for powering your electrical grid: Intentionally disinvest in your functioning fossil fuel generation plants; fail to maintain them adequately, and let them age into obsolescence. Meanwhile, encourage and even subsidize the development of solar panels as a replacement. After all, solar power is cheaper!
Those who follow the policy of New York State with respect to our electrical grid will recognize this description as covering the essential elements of our strategy. In our case, the strategy was mainly enacted into law in 2019 via the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
In heading down this path, have we checked around to see what other states or countries have adopted this strategy, and how it has worked out? Just asking.

May 10, 2026

May 10, 2026/ Francis Menton

Among all the crazy ways that humanity is supposed to “save the planet” by reducing emissions of carbon dioxide, offshore wind electricity generation has to be about the craziest. Between the expense of building and integrating the facilities and the intermittency of the output, the build-out of offshore wind infrastructure has threatened large and accelerating increases in consumer electricity bills.
Despite lack of any demonstration of feasibility or cost of running the grid on offshore wind, the Biden administration (with support from Congress) threw tens and hundreds of billions of taxpayer funds into the industry in the form of open-ended life-of-project tax credits.
The Trump administration came into office with a known hostility to offshore wind. However, its first efforts to shut down construction on these projects ran into a wall of judicial opposition. But rather than giving up, or embarking on years of appeals with uncertain outcomes, the administration has done some strategic thinking and come up with Plan B. This one looks to me like it will work.

May 08, 2026

May 08, 2026/ Francis Menton

Medicaid is the joint federal/state program that provides free medical care to the poor and near-poor in the U.S. Who could be against that?
A website called Statista collects data on various subjects of interest and presents them in useful charts. One subject is the total federal plus state spending on the Medicaid program by year since inception of the program back in the 1960s through the latest year of 2024. Here is that chart:
Looking at the chart, a few things leap out. One is rapid and unbroken growth year after year from the beginning up to the most recent year. Another is two particularly rapid periods of growth, first in the 1990s (Bill Clinton was President), and then again in the most recent period of 2020-2024.