Despite $27 Billion Surplus in June, More Fiscal Reforms Are Needed thumbnail

Despite $27 Billion Surplus in June, More Fiscal Reforms Are Needed

By Family Research Council

The U.S. Treasury Department announced Friday that the federal government ran a surplus of $27 billion in June, raising hopes that Washington may have turned a corner away from debt-bound demise. The month-in-black marked the first June surplus since 2017, the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first term, and it improved substantially upon the $71 billion deficit the government ran in June 2024. However, while the monthly surplus is a positive sign, the U.S. government is not out of the woods just yet.

Administration officials credited Trump’s tariffs for the budget surplus. “Another promise made. Another promise kept,” tweeted Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “As President Trump works hard to take back our nation’s economic sovereignty, today’s Monthly Treasury Statement is demonstrating record customs duties — and with no inflation!” Indeed, the U.S. government collected some $27 billion in customs duties in June, a number strikingly close to the surplus.

Does this result signal that tariffs are the solution to America’s excessive federal debt?

The short answer is no, because the reality of government finances is far more complex.

To explain this, it’s helpful to begin with a definition. As many readers will already know, a surplus occurs when total income (receipts) exceeds total expenses (outlays). Last month, the federal government brought in $526 billion (a $60 billion increase, or 13%) and spent $499 billion (a $38 billion decrease, or 7%).

Right away, these figures make it apparent that the total surplus ($27 billion) was less than the decrease in outlays ($38 billion) and less than half the increase in receipts ($60 billion). Even though tariff income roughly equaled the surplus, it was not the largest factor in June’s budget result.

The decrease in outlays was primarily due to “calendar adjustments,” which happen when payments are made a few days earlier or later than normal, the Treasury Department acknowledged. Since June began on a Sunday, any payments due by June 1 would have been paid on the previous business day, Friday, May 30; these payments would therefore count towards May’s total, instead of June’s. Without these calendar adjustments, June would have registered a $70 billion deficit, the Treasury Department noted. (That’s a remarkably high discrepancy of $97 billion, or roughly 20% of all outlays, but there is also a remarkably high percentage of payments due on the first day of the month.)

The increase in receipts was also due primarily to non-tariff-related factors. While customs duties in June totaled $27 billion, they also brought in $23 billion in May, resulting in an increase of $4 billion. That means most of the $60 billion increase in revenue was raised from other sources, likely quarterly tax payments. “June is one of Treasury’s biggest revenue months of the year,” wrote The Wall Street Journal editors, “because it’s a month when companies and individuals file their quarterly estimated tax payments.”

This raises another essential point, which is that balancing the budget requires responsible spending across all 12 months of the fiscal year, not just a surplus in certain high-revenue months. Before the June surplus of $27 billion, the U.S. federal government ran a deficit of $316 billion in May, with nearly as much income from tariffs. For the current fiscal year, which began in October, the government has run a deficit of $1.34 trillion. In comparison, June’s surplus is little more than a rounding error (technically, $0.027 trillion).

“June was the highest monthly level so far [for customs duties],” the WSJ editors allowed, “but even on an annual basis that’s about $300 billion a year. That’s not nothing, but it won’t balance a $7 trillion spending budget.”

However, the effort to relate tariff revenue to the budget surplus does underscore one obvious point: the path to balancing the budget requires both more taxes and less spending. (Tariffs are a tax on imported goods.) Politicians don’t like to talk about this reality because both items are unpopular, but there’s no way around it, just like a family may be forced to both cut expenses and produce extra income (perhaps through a side hustle) to make ends meet.

Unfortunately, taxes have other ill effects. In economic terms, all taxes reduce efficiency by driving prices way above the supply-demand equilibrium, resulting in lost productivity known as “Dead Weight Loss.” Of course, taxes are necessary to support government, which God instituted as a means of common grace, and Scripture instructs Christians to pay their taxes (Matt 22:15-22; Romans 13:7). Nevertheless, taxes siphon off economic resources, making it beneficial to keep them as low as possible.

Already, the effect of tariffs may be slipping into U.S. inflation statistics. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.3% in June, after increasing 0.1% in May, for a 2.7% increase over the past 12 months, reported the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Tuesday. Subtracting the volatile categories of food and energy, the “core” CPI increased 0.2% in June and 2.9% over the past 12 months.

While overall inflation numbers were only slightly higher than average, prices increased sharply in categories that are heavily dependent on foreign imports. For instance, apparel prices increased 0.4% in June, while household furnishings and appliances increased a whole 1.0% in a single month. Even pro-Trump Breitbart News attributed these increases to tariff pressures.

(In fairness to the administration, Trump’s tariffs have caused far less inflation than some critics have predicted, as Bessent recently pointed out. However, this is partly due to the fact that the higher tariff rates have yet to take effect for many countries.)

In addition to fueling inflation, tariffs (like all taxes) will also reduce economic activity. Even when taxes are beneficial, such economic downsides are inevitable. Thus, the simplest solution is for the government to avoid spending money it doesn’t have in the first place.

Alas, such warnings have gone unheeded for decades. Given the depth of the fiscal hole the U.S. government has dug for itself, there are no easy ways out — not tariffs, not DOGE cuts, not rescissions. Only hard, deep, and painful cuts — such as serious entitlement reform — can set the nation on the path to fiscal sustainability. And that is unlikely to happen until voters, like they did in Argentina, are willing to listen to real solutions.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Senate Republicans Sabotage $400 Million of Trump’s Anti-Woke Cuts

Trump Admin. Streamlines Detentions and Immigration Courts

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The post Despite $27 Billion Surplus in June, More Fiscal Reforms Are Needed appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Republicans Advance Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote thumbnail

Republicans Advance Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote

By The Geller Report

Just as important as the Big, Beautiful Bill, passing the rescissions bill is essential with the national debt at unsustainable levels.

If the bill isn’t signed into law by the end of July 18, the appropriated government funding the White House is seeking to rescind has to be spent.

Backstabbing Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), once again betray the party.

The Hill: Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle on the path to clawing back billions of dollars in funding previously authorized by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting. Vice President Vance had to break the 50-50 tie vote after three Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — voted against a motion to discharge the rescissions package out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, allowing the full upper chamber to advance to consideration of the package.

Washington Post: Tuesday’s vote was a first step toward passing the bill. The Senate must vote to start debate on the bill, followed by hours of debate and votes on amendments. Lawmakers are under pressure because Congress must approve the cuts by Friday at midnight under the law they are using to dodge a Democratic filibuster…. The catch: Congress must send the bill to Trump’s desk by Friday or the administration will be forced to release the funds. Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning they can lose up to three Republican votes and pass the bill. The House — which approved the package last month — will need to vote on it again if the Senate changes it .

Vance casts tie-breaking votes to move forward $9.4B rescissions package — which would defund PBS and NPR — in Senate

By Victor Nava

Vice President JD Vance cast two tie-breaking votes in the Senate Tuesday to move forward a $9.4 billion rescissions package — which would rip federal funding from PBS and NPR — in the upper chamber.

The Senate deadlocked, 50-50, on two procedural votes to start debate on the multibillion-dollar spending clawback package before Vance’s votes advanced the measure requested by the White House.

Three Republicans — Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) — joined all Democrats in opposition to the bill.

The package, approved by the House of Representatives last month, axes approximately $8.3 billion previously allocated to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1.1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which partially finances National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

A proposed $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program is expected to be scrapped via an amendment before the bill comes up for a final vote.

“There was a lot of interest from our members on doing something on PEPFAR,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters after a meeting with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought. “That’s reflected in the substitute.”

“We hope that if we can get this across the finish line in the Senate, that the House will accept that one small modification that ends up making the package about a $9 billion rescissions package,” Thune added.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Republican Lawmakers Join Trump Administration Push to Stop the Sale of U.S. Land to China

All Members of Anti-Semitic UN Commission of Inquiry Resign

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post Republicans Advance Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

The Dr. Rich Swier Report for July 17, 2025 thumbnail

The Dr. Rich Swier Report for July 17, 2025

By Editorial Board – DrRichSwier.com

The Dr. Rich Swier Report for July 17, 2025

View this email in your browser

100% of 2025 Job Growth Went to Americans Thanks to Mass Deportations

‘You Can’t Use This Feature Right Now’ — How Meta’s Facebook Censors Americans using the ‘Spam Scam’

‘Woke,’ ‘Weak,’ and ‘Out of Touch’: The Crisis of the Democratic Brand

Republicans Advances Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote

VIDEO: Exodus Cry Films launches July 30, 2025—World Day Against Trafficking in Persons

Dismantling Judeo-Christian Values, One Case at a Time?

Meme of the Week

VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Scottie Scheffler: “I’d much rather be a great father than a great golfer.”

Twitter   Facebook  Website

Copyright © DrRichSwier.com, LLC, All rights reserved.

The post The Dr. Rich Swier Report for July 17, 2025 appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Republicans Advances Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote thumbnail

Republicans Advances Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote

By The Geller Report

Just as important as the Big, Beautiful Bill, passing the rescissions bill is essential with the national debt at unsustainable levels.

If the bill isn’t signed into law by the end of July 18, the appropriated government funding the White House is seeking to rescind has to be spent.

Backstabbing Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.), once again betray the party.

The Hill: Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly cleared a key procedural hurdle on the path to clawing back billions of dollars in funding previously authorized by Congress for foreign aid and public broadcasting. Vice President Vance had to break the 50-50 tie vote after three Republicans — Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Susan Collins (Maine) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.) — voted against a motion to discharge the rescissions package out of the Senate Appropriations Committee, allowing the full upper chamber to advance to consideration of the package.

Washington Post: Tuesday’s vote was a first step toward passing the bill. The Senate must vote to start debate on the bill, followed by hours of debate and votes on amendments. Lawmakers are under pressure because Congress must approve the cuts by Friday at midnight under the law they are using to dodge a Democratic filibuster…. The catch: Congress must send the bill to Trump’s desk by Friday or the administration will be forced to release the funds. Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning they can lose up to three Republican votes and pass the bill. The House — which approved the package last month — will need to vote on it again if the Senate changes it .

Vance casts tie-breaking votes to move forward $9.4B rescissions package — which would defund PBS and NPR — in Senate

By Victor Nava

Vice President JD Vance cast two tie-breaking votes in the Senate Tuesday to move forward a $9.4 billion rescissions package — which would rip federal funding from PBS and NPR — in the upper chamber.

The Senate deadlocked, 50-50, on two procedural votes to start debate on the multibillion-dollar spending clawback package before Vance’s votes advanced the measure requested by the White House.

Three Republicans — Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) — joined all Democrats in opposition to the bill.

The package, approved by the House of Representatives last month, axes approximately $8.3 billion previously allocated to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1.1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which partially finances National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

A proposed $400 million cut to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program is expected to be scrapped via an amendment before the bill comes up for a final vote.

“There was a lot of interest from our members on doing something on PEPFAR,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters after a meeting with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought. “That’s reflected in the substitute.”

“We hope that if we can get this across the finish line in the Senate, that the House will accept that one small modification that ends up making the package about a $9 billion rescissions package,” Thune added.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Republican Lawmakers Join Trump Administration Push to Stop the Sale of U.S. Land to China

All Members of Anti-Semitic UN Commission of Inquiry Resign

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post Republicans Advances Recission Bill—With Vice President Vance Breaking Tie Vote appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Elon Musk And His Third Party thumbnail

Elon Musk And His Third Party

By Neland Nobel

Written by Neland Nobel

Elon Musk is frustrated with both political parties. The Republicans are not doing nearly enough to correct the course of public finance in the country. Democrats keep spending, put millions of illegals on public assistance programs, and have fully embraced Modern Monetary Theory, which claims taxes don’t support government expenditures but money created out of thin air does. In many ways, we agree with Musk and sympathize with his perspective. However, his solution to the problem is likely to weaken even further the political forces trying to get the nation back on a path to solvency. The history of third parties is not a good one from the perspective of a Conservative. Even if a third-party candidate were to win, like the two “independents” in the Senate, they would have to caucus with one of the parties. Bernie Sanders and Angus King vote as Democrats, despite their labeling.

This article is so amazing, we published it for premium members only.

Does that sound like you?

Click here to enroll in premium membership for only $4.99 per month.

Already a member? Login below.

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

100% of 2025 Job Growth Went to Americans Thanks to Mass Deportations thumbnail

100% of 2025 Job Growth Went to Americans Thanks to Mass Deportations

By Family Research Council

President Donald Trump’s mass deportation program is already having an effect on the job market, with gains going to Americans rather than foreign-born workers. The U.S. Department of Labor announced this month that “native-born workers have accounted for ALL job gains since January.”

In a recent podcast, economics editor and attorney John Carney explained that net job growth under the Biden administration went to foreign-born workers, but the Trump administration has reversed that trend. “When you are adding up all the people who gained and all the people who lost, the net increase in jobs is going to Americans,” Carney said. He continued, “Whereas, during the Biden administration, you had fewer Americans being employed every month and more foreigners being employed. So the net gain was all going to foreign workers, to migrants of some sort or another.”

“Now it’s going to Americans,” the veteran economics writer observed. He continued, “It’s going to native-born Americans. That’s actually quite interesting, too: it’s not just going to people who are legal residents of the United States, it’s actually going to … American-born people.” Carney added, “This is very important, again, because that’s fundamentally who the country is supposed to work for, for the people we have here. And it is working for them again, for us again.”

Carney further explained that wage growth is rising as more job growth goes to Americans. “One of the reasons wage growth gets bad is when businesses believe that they can just import new workers. They don’t give people raises because they say, ‘You know what? I’ve got more workers in the pipeline. I can just draw people over the border,’” he said. “So, without that, they have to start bidding against each other, basically a competitive bidding war for American workers. And that’s what we’re seeing in the wage gains.” Carney noted that “the wage numbers are now outpacing inflation, which is, again, the reverse of what we saw under Biden, where inflation consistently outpaced wage gains.”

Even Wendy Edelberg, a senior fellow in economic studies at the left-of-center Brookings Institution, admitted in an interview that mass deportations will drive up American earnings. “As a result of this immigration policy, we will have negative net migration, which is to say more people leaving the country than entering the country this year for the first time in many decades,” she observed. “We’re going to see stronger wage growth in some occupations, stronger wage growth in the agricultural sector, stronger wage growth for home health workers” due to the decreased share of foreign-born workers.

E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told The Washington Stand, “Political pundits and commentators seem to forget that the labor market is a market, with outcomes determined by supply and demand. Mass deportations will include some unskilled labor, reducing the supply, and therefore putting upward pressure on price, which we call wages.” Antoni continued, “Again, these are simple market dynamics that apply everywhere, but people often pretend the labor market is somehow exempt from the laws of economics.” He added, “Of course, many illegal aliens aren’t working at all, so they’re not participating in the labor market and removing them from the country has no direct effect on the wage rate for unskilled labor.”

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports have demonstrated that, under the Biden administration, nearly 90% of job growth went to immigrants, not to Americans, with an estimated 60% of new jobs going to illegal immigrants. The Trump administration’s deportation raids have inspired many illegal immigrants to voluntarily leave the workforce in the U.S. and self-deport, resulting in measurably higher wages for Americans in blue-collar jobs.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: Senate Advances Trump’s $9 Billion Spending Cut Bill as Vance Casts Tie-Breaking Vote

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.


The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The post 100% of 2025 Job Growth Went to Americans Thanks to Mass Deportations appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Toyota To Build Track And More At Arizona Testing Site

By Zachery Schmidt

Written by Zachery Schmidt

Estimated Reading Time: 2 minutes

Toyota has begun construction of a $50-million-plus expansion project at an Arizona testing facility.

The new amenities will include a 5.5-mile oval track, an off-road park, new ride and handling surfaces, as well as other improvements, Toyota announced. The changes are being made at Arizona Mobility Test Center at Toyota Arizona Proving Grounds. Toyota has owned this facility since 2021. It’s located in Wittmann, Arizona, approximately 60 miles from Phoenix.

AMTC at TAPG spans nearly 11,650 acres and features 77 miles of testing surfaces, as well as 60 miles of paved roads, according to a recent Toyota press release.

Toyota estimates the construction will be completed by the end of 2025.

“The new investment in Arizona signals the facility’s importance to Toyota,” said Stefan Young, vice president at Toyota Motor North America’s research and development.

“Site updates make it more attractive as an ideal place for companies to test new vehicle capabilities, including by Toyota for our own North American-developed vehicle line-up, thanks to the new and expanded development capabilities,” he added.

Toyota also said it plans to develop a future facility at AMTC at TAPG for advanced driver assistance technology.

The manufacturer has received bipartisan support from Arizona politicians for the project.

Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said Arizona is “grateful” for the efforts Toyota is bringing to the state.

“This new investment in our state will spur economic growth and put us at the forefront of auto ingenuity,” she said.

State Rep. Leo Biasiucci, R-Lake Havasu City, also showed his appreciation to the Japanese-based company. He thanked Toyota for its continued investment in Arizona.

“As chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, I’m proud that Toyota chose Arizona to call home,” Biasiucci said.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Toyota

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

This Land Is Your Land thumbnail

This Land Is Your Land

By Tony Francois

Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Senator Lee should introduce the New Frontier Homestead Act of 2026

Should the federal government auction less than one percent of non-conservation status public lands to alleviate housing shortages and reduce the federal debt? This is how Utah Senator Mike Lee tried to frame the question when he included a provision to this effect in the Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill. Alas for Senator Lee, the New Right’s resounding answer has been hell no, and he has beaten a hasty retreat. Perhaps to his relief, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled the public land sale provision ineligible for the reconciliation procedure under which the BBB was being handled. Mr. Lee lives to fight another day, but can the New Right be warmed up to his proposal?

For many years, Western Republicans have chafed at the federal government’s poor management of public lands, which make up most of the acreage of several states. California is almost half public land, while Nevada is more than 80%. Western states average about 50% public lands.

These lands were open to homesteading until 50 years ago, just as was the vast American valley of the Mississippi. But where the Great Plains were rapidly settled with farms and towns, the arid Mountain West saw far less settlement. Late 19th-century technology was inadequate to access the water resources necessary to farm most of the high desert, so homesteaders stuck to the very few fertile stream valleys. The rest of the land remained free for mining and cattle grazing.

Some of it was eventually settled in the first half of the 20th century thanks to large irrigation projects, and vast areas were classified as national forests, preserving them for timber production. Dozens of national parks were added to the mix at the dawn of the environmental movement in the 1960s, and federal legislation ended homesteading in 1976. The frontier, long practically closed by technological and cultural limits, was now formally and legally closed as well.

The conservation and recreation values of these millions of acres of public land are high, and for many millions of Americans (and a notably strong cohort in the New Right) the opportunity to hike, backpack, camp, fish, hunt, and just be more human is an essential element of our American heritage.

Much public land is in various types of “conservation status”: wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and the like. But many millions of acres are “generic” and managed (or mismanaged) by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service for mining, grazing, and timber production. It is a mistake to think of every acre of public land as pristine wilderness fit only for permanent preservation and enjoyment in its natural state. But it is also a profound error to think of public lands with spreadsheet-brain proneness to maximize measurable financial value.

These are the teeth of the trap into which Senator Lee stepped.

Reopening the Frontier

What policy problem was Lee’s bill meant to solve? Not fire danger, not reduction in productive resource development, not revitalization of struggling rural towns—all of which haunt the West after decades of federal ineptitude. No, it was introduced to help pay down the national debt and solve the conundrum of housing affordability, which congressional allies then restated as affordable housing, which most people know is not even the same thing.

Lee wanted to sell areas of public land suitable for housing development near cities, with priority given to isolated tracts with existing infrastructure services, and excluding pretty much everything in conservation status. Many New Right critics argued that nothing in the bill prevented the sale of non-conservation lands that nonetheless have high recreational value and use. But I don’t think that was the biggest problem with the bill.

In my view, it was that the legislation would not help solve the problem Lee wanted to address. Outrageous housing costs are caused by local land use practices, not federal land ownership near cities. If Senator Lee’s bill was passed and signed by President Trump, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum could designate a perfect area of land in Solano County, California (let’s stipulate that nobody would object to this specific sale), and sell it to Silicon Valley billionaires trying to show the world they can build a new city in California. The tech bro town fathers would still be completely helpless when they apply to the Solano County Planning Commission for permits to build California Forever. Some new housing, maybe someday—but not so affordable.

Any undeveloped land the federal government transfers into private hands would then be fully regulated by state and local governments, under whatever rules those zoning overlords impose. And the only players likely to prosper in such environments are large-scale developers with substantial capital who currently operate those systems effectively.

There is another feasibility problem with Lee’s bill. Who would anyone trust within the federal land bureaucracy to carry out such a program effectively, and would other federal laws allow it to move forward? Lee’s bill had no exemptions from federal environmental review or the Endangered Species Act. The discretionary selection of lands to be sold under his bill would languish through years of planning, interagency consultation, and environmental review, followed by more years of litigation extending so far into the future that we would be dealing with Elon Musk’s breakaway Republic of Mars long before anyone sells your favorite MAGA influencer’s favorite hiking trail to BlackRock.

So should Senator Lee avoid introducing another public lands bill in the future? No.

Many critics of Lee’s bill conceded that some disposal of public lands could be in the public interest. The real questions are: Which ones, what for, and how to ensure that the purpose is achieved?

The state of water technology closed the frontier to new settlement decades before Congress repealed the Homestead Act in 1976. But the technological frontier has remained open, and lack of water is not the same barrier it was a century ago for at least some settlement of the arid West. Conservation, building, well technology, and the increased feasibility of non-agricultural settlement make it possible to found new communities in areas that once lacked adequate water resources.

What was impossible in 1925 is possible today: the reopening of the Western frontier to new settlement.

A generation of Americans yearning to build something good in their own country should be allowed the opportunity to try what their grandparents succeeded wildly at. The Western half of the United States should be open to technologically feasible settlement in the same way the Eastern half was. New towns that could grow into new cities would foster the Golden Age that everyone is tweeting about—which need to be built in real time. Just doing things is better than endless planning, consulting, assessing, and other forms of bureaucratic morass that engulf everything it touches.

Just Doing Things

Senator Lee should introduce a different bill: the New Frontier Homestead Act of 2026.

The first task is defenestrating state and local land use veto holders from the conversation. If reopening the frontier to technologically feasible settlement on public lands is a congressional objective, then the county planning commission is just going to have to pound sand. The tech bros aren’t going to build California City if the Solano County planning Karens have anything to say about it. The New Frontier will have to be opened under federal protection.

The second task is like the first: preventing federal laws and bureaucracy from killing it. To be exempt from state law, the land will have to remain in federal ownership or control while development occurs. But for any desirable development to occur under federal protection, several elements of federal law will have to be explicitly waived as well. This list of federal anti-development statutes can be copied and pasted from the congressional authorization to build the border wall. Presto—no environmental review, no decades-long interagency consultation over habitat for gnatcatchers. Instead, this is about “just doing things.”

With those obstacles surmounted, how would the Act work?

The current Interior Department and Forest Service (perhaps a DOGE-type team within each) should propose a list of non-conservation lands to be opened (the percentage of non-conservation public land in the original Lee bill, which was between .5 and .75%, is probably about right). Congress could then put that list in legislation. Or it could distill the list into a clear set of criteria for parcels. Proposing a list before the legislation is enacted would demonstrate the competence of the GOP and the Trump Administration, and help build the cultural and policy case for the New Frontier Homestead Act.

If the NFHA is wildly successful, more might be done in a future round. If it flops, relatively little harm will have been done. In any event, the conservation ethic will remain strong and serve as a natural check on the disposal of large amounts of public land, as will the usefulness of much of it, particularly for mining strategic metals and rare earths. Once the lands are determined, they should be catalogued into 40-acre parcels for disposal, just as with the original Homestead Act.

Only adult, natural-born citizens would be eligible for a New Frontier homestead. No shell companies, no layers of corporate bureaucracy concealing pension funds, insurance companies, multinationals, or sovereign wealth funds. These would be the only qualifications for eligibility.

Requiring individuals to take responsibility at the front end helps vet applicants and limits them to only one entry. The Lee bill allowed any type of entity to win two parcels per auction cycle. But the Tocquevillian spirit of the original Homestead Act, focused on small holdings and personal development, is needed to open the New Frontier.

The original Homestead Act allowed anyone to stake a claim and then build a home and farm the claimed land over five years. If a threshold percentage of the homestead was farmed over those five years, the Land Office transferred ownership to the homesteader. Farming was the necessary foundation for a new community in the 19th century.

This is clearly not true today, with new technology and new economics. One should still be allowed to establish title through farming part or all of the land. But other ways of improving land should be counted, including starting businesses that employ a given number of people who live on the 40 acres, building homes with related amenities (like a church, school, clinic, or community store) and similar measures of development.

For simplicity and to minimize the amount of judgment and discretion exercised by federal bureaucrats charged with approving the final patents, the qualification for obtaining the land grant should be very clear and enforceable. This will lead to some oversimplification and perhaps gaming the requirements, but the alternative is endless fights over whether a homesteader has done enough to earn the patent. We want this to succeed wildly, not be a federal program to install rural broadband.

If the homesteader doesn’t develop the homestead adequately, he loses his investment, and it goes back to the pool for reallocation. Great rewards require great risks and are not for the faint of heart. Tolerating risk of loss is a necessary filter for the pioneers we want on the New Frontier.

The Lee bill awarded parcels to winners at auction. The biggest war chest would win twice in every auction cycle. Instead, the way to choose the pioneers without advantaging the oligarchs is by lottery. Anyone with a dream can get land, not just the wealthiest auction bidders, and if anyone can win, more people with good ideas or energy will try it.

Various lottery methods can be used. Entrants could be aggregated nationwide, with the entire pool chosen from for each parcel. Or entrants could designate one or a small number of parcels to be considered, and then the lottery for each parcel could be among those most interested in it. Though once your number is pulled, you are then ineligible for another parcel in the lottery.

What will the winning pioneers pay? Processing costs. If we want the New Frontier settled by young builders with vision, energy, and optimism, we can’t give them the student loan treatment. Yes, they will get an enormous benefit for very little land cost if they succeed, and no, this won’t help pay off the $37 trillion national debt. But today nearly everyone in the Western portion of the Mississippi Valley lives on land that was once given by the federal government to a homesteader. We all idolize the pioneer spirit of those homesteaders, our great-grandparents who made something out of nothing and built a nation. We don’t resent the fact they were given 40 acres of Mississippi Valley farmland for $10 as part of a strategic policy to settle a nation.

So there we are: the New Frontier Homestead Act. Natural-born citizens are eligible to enter a lottery to be awarded 40 acres of public land. If they develop to specific benchmarks within five years, free of both state and federal regulation, the federal government grants them title upon payment of processing costs.

Do you want to renew America? This is a pretty good start.

*****

This article was published by The American Mind and is reproduced with permission.

Image Credit: Oklahoma land rush Wikimedia Commons

Switch to Patriot Mobile

The Prickly Pear supports Patriot Mobile Cellular and its Four Pillars of Conservative Values: the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Right to Life, and significant support for our Veterans and First Responders. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, not only do you support these causes, but most customers will also save up to 50% on their monthly cellular phone bill. 

Here at The Prickly Pear, we know that switching to a new cellular service can be challenging at times. Let’s face it, no one wants the hassle.  But that hassle is necessary if Conservatives want to support those who support them.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE…

Trump Economy Defies Doomsday Predictions thumbnail

Trump Economy Defies Doomsday Predictions

By The Daily Signal

Many so-called experts predicted that President Donald Trump’s economic agenda would usher in an inflationary Armageddon. This projection was so often repeated in the media that many Americans, especially Democrats, believed a depression was imminent. Yet the economy is thoroughly beating expectations and consumers’ expectations are becoming increasingly optimistic.

Upon taking office again, Trump reiterated the economic policy goals that he laid out during the campaign: reductions in excessive taxation, burdensome regulations, and government spending, coupled with increases in tariffs and energy production.

This was labeled as some kind of toxic mixture. Thus far, though, it’s been an elixir for the American economy, which was suffering from inflation and a general malaise.

Consider that when Trump took office in January, inflation (as measured by the consumer price index) was running at an annualized rate of 5.7%, at which pace prices double in less than 13 years. With Trump back at the helm, however, inflation has averaged an annualized rate of just 1.4%.

The lower inflation means people’s income isn’t being so quickly eroded by lost purchasing power. Under President Joe Biden, the average American’s weekly paycheck grew almost 20% but they bought 4% less because inflation so outpaced wage growth. Conversely, under Trump, the average weekly paycheck buys 1% more today than when he was inaugurated in January.

This is precisely the opposite of what many analysts and so-called experts predicted would happen. Of course, the same folks who said Trump’s tariffs would cause runaway inflation also said Biden’s profligate spending wouldn’t cause inflation. They’re perpetually wrong, but never in doubt.

Simultaneously, the labor market is quickly transitioning off its dependence on government and back to the productive private sector. During Biden’s tenure, job growth was disproportionately the result of increasing government payrolls and burgeoning bureaucracy—a completely unsustainable, and expensive, pattern.

But what a difference a president makes. Every month of 2025 has seen a reduction in the federal workforce as the Trump administration takes steps to make the government more efficient. Far from crashing the labor market, these public-sector layoffs have coincided with the private economy adding many more jobs than expected this year.

This good news probably comes as a shock to the average American consumer, and certainly to the average Democrat, who earlier this year thought Trump would usher in America’s Dark Ages. A variety of consumer surveys beginning in January showed many people souring on the economy, particularly their economic outlook for the year ahead.

For example, the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey, which oversamples Democrats, showed the worst inflation expectations in the survey’s history, coupled with the economy falling off a cliff. On the other hand, Republicans largely ignored the so-called experts quoted in the press and expected inflation to be low.

The latter were clearly correct and were wise to ignore the hyperbolic predictions of politically motivated pundits. With each month that goes by, all Americans, regardless of party registration, are becoming increasingly optimistic about the economy. Survey data from the regional Federal Reserve Banks confirms this, as well as private sources like the Conference Board.

That’s not to say everything is sunshine and rainbows, however. Many American families are still hurting.

Having just experienced the fastest rise in both inflation and interest rates in over 40 years, many people are drowning in debt with punitively high interest payments on that debt.

American families are paying over $300 billion annually just in finance charges on their credit cards from the deadly combination of large outstanding balances and high interest rates.

The current cost-of-living crisis didn’t arise overnight, and it won’t disappear that quickly either. But the nation has course-corrected and is once more heading in the right direction. As Trump continues shrinking the government, leaving room for the private economy to grow, folks will work, spend, save, and invest more, and things will keep improving—including people’s expectations.

Originally published by The Washington Times

AUTHOR

EJ Antoni is a public finance economist and the Richard F. Aster research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget. EJ on X: .

The post Trump Economy Defies Doomsday Predictions appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Qualitative Analysis of the Big Beautiful Bill thumbnail

Qualitative Analysis of the Big Beautiful Bill

By M. Stanton Nobel

Written by M. Stanton Nobel

The incessant flap over President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) has been based on challenges to the numbers. Both opposition forces and supporters fling billions and trillions of dollars into the political air, like so much confetti, while the fundamental financial analysis and logic are scrupulously avoided. But, since when has reality become part of a political argument? Therefore, this article will examine the bill from a common-sense, business perspective. To right the sinking ship, financial leaks must be plugged. As painful as it is, this process begins by reducing the headcount of unnecessary employees, including executives, and laying off others who make a marginal contribution to the bottom line.

This article is so amazing, we published it for premium members only.

Does that sound like you?

Click here to enroll in premium membership for only $4.99 per month.

Already a member? Login below.

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

The Coming Revolution

By Bruce Bialosky

Written by Bruce Bialosky

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

I have read a multitude of articles and opinion pieces on the victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary election for mayor of New York City. Many have been informative and insightful, but have not addressed some essential points. This column is meant to do that.

This happening is a manifestation of the education system manipulating the minds of their targets – the students. That trend is delineated in Christopher Rufo’s terrific book, America’s Cultural Revolution. 

The Left took control of the education system and altered the minds of the last two generations. They made them into environmental zealots with little science behind what they promoted, and they turned them into people willing to vote for a person who calls himself a ”socialist” and tells these people he will give them many free things. That education system never taught them that the form of government that Mamdani wants has never worked anywhere. It always ends with people’s rights being destroyed and failure.  Telling them that would be a buzz kill, so the Leftist professors just groom their students and leave them to suffer the consequences while the professors live their cushy lives in the overpaid environments.  

The Wall Street Journal analysis states Mamdani was propelled by young college graduates. You must be college-educated to fall for this malarkey. It is always the so-called “educated” who lead the revolution. In this case, it is white liberals and often Jewish white liberals who know better than everyone else because they are “educated.” As I have often said, the most dangerous people in America are white liberals.  

Because of their orientation from their education, they do not recognize the fact that the government caused the problems that have been created. Their solution is to advocate for more government. They live in a state that has 20% less population than the state of Florida. Despite the difference in population, the New York State budget is $252 billion versus $115 billion for Florida. That is $12,602 per person versus $4,828 for Florida, or more than 2.5 times as much per person. One might say that New York City is not New York State, but it is 42.5% of the population, and we all know NYC is the tail wagging the dog. The flow of New Yorkers out of the state to Florida tells you where they think life is better — and it is not just the weather.  

New York City folks are unhappy about their rent. Everyone except these folks know that the rent control apparatus in New York has virtually destroyed the market. Last year 26,310 apartment units were held off the market because the owners cannot make economic sense of renting them because of rent controls and other oversight factors.  13,000 have been held off for two years. Landlords cannot afford repairs. There are 38,600 units registered as vacant. New rent controls will continue to crush the market. Rents controls have been in place in NYC since 1943. If rent controls were effective, you would think that apartments would be affordable and plentiful.  As always, they say “They just haven’t been done correctly, try it this way.” Mamdani will make things even worse.

Mamdani purports to be a man of the people. He is not. He moved to the United States to live in Manhattan on the Upper West Side, one of the most exclusive addresses in the entire country.  He went to an exclusive private school through the eighth grade.  He attended Bowdoin College, a pricey exclusive private university.  He has zero personal experience being part of the working class.  

Mamdani has a dysfunctional understanding of economics. He is proposing a new income tax of 2 percent on residents making more than $1 million a year, which he estimates would bring in roughly $4 billion per year. That will never materialize. He does not understand the world as it exists. If he were to impose that tax, he would see the people who produce that income disappear. It has happened repeatedly. It is happening now in Britain where a new tax is driving people out of the country. Read about it. Wall Street has significantly moved to Palm Beach and has a central core there already. That would entice so many more to relocate their operations. They do not have to start from scratch. As much as they love New York, many will say enough is enough. Broadway and bagels can only hold people for so long.  

All this is demonstrated in the elected individuals running the three largest cities in America. Los Angeles’s Karen Bass and Chicago’s Brandon Johnson. Those two are doing their best to destroy these cities. They care more about the homeless than the housed. They care more about illegal immigrants (you will never catch them using the term “illegal”) than the Americans born here. Bill de Blasio did his best to run NYC into the ground. Eric Adams is at least trying to save it.  But white liberals may ride to the rescue of Mamdani and once again bring NYC to its knees.  

If you do not believe he is a Communist from these proposals, note that in 2021 he stated he believes in the need to “seize the means of production” which is directly from Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto.

If these white (supposedly) educated people would leave us alone and not stick us with these Communists in charge of our largest cities, then we might have some salvation. Mamdani supposedly is charming. Communists all have charm — until they are in charge. 

*****

This article was published by FlashReport and is reproduced with permission from the author.

Image Credit: YouTube Screenshot 12 News

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

20 States Sue To Keep Medicaid Data Away From ICE

By Elyse S. Apel

Written by Elyse S. Apel

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Editors’ Note: The divisions within the Republican Party that allowed for a Democrat victory that tilted Arizona purple with Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs and turncoat Republican Attorney General Chris Mayes, is the gift to Democrats that keeps giving. It is annoying to see Arizona join ranks with California and Minnesota in lawsuits because that is not representative of public opinion in this state. Democrats want socialized medicine, and they will try every trick towards “universal care.” Even so, those benefits should be for citizens only, yet they block every effort to determine the legal status of recipients. Their next logical step is for the US to pay for universal healthcare for the entire population of the world. Why not? If non-citizens can get benefits, do they have to reside here? Isn’t healthcare a human right?

 

A multi-state coalition is suing to keep Medicaid enrollment information away from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Colorado and California joined 18 other states, almost all Democrat-run, in the lawsuit. The coalition is arguing that the mass transfer of this data violates the law by exposing confidential information, which includes immigration status.

“The personal healthcare data collected about Medicaid beneficiaries is confidential, to be shared only in narrow circumstances that benefit public health and the integrity of the Medicaid program,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser. “There’s no reason to share this sensitive data with immigration or law enforcement agencies. We’re suing to protect Colorado’s Medicaid program and the health and welfare of the people it serves.”

The coalition is suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over HHS’s June decision to provide ICE access to Medicaid data.

The government claims the data transfer was made “to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them.”

“[Trump] promised to protect Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “To keep that promise after Joe Biden flooded our country with tens of millions of illegal aliens, CMS and DHS are exploring an initiative to ensure that illegal aliens are not receiving Medicaid benefits that are meant for law-abiding Americans.”

Currently, though federal law does not allow illegal immigrants to enroll in non-emergency Medicaid, data from the Congressional Budget Office showed that at least 1.4 million illegals are enrolled in taxpayer-funded programs, including Medicaid. This is because some states, such as California, Oregon and Colorado, have opted to extend Medicaid eligibility to illegal immigrants.

Republicans argue illegal immigrants should not be eligible for any Medicaid services.

“There are 21,000 illegal immigrants receiving taxpayer-funded health care in Colorado. That’s money that could be going toward care for seniors and people with disabilities,” said Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colorado. “Republicans are fighting to provide care for the most vulnerable who need it … not illegal immigrants.”

The lawsuit, which was filed last week in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, argues that HHS’s decision to transfer the data was unprecedented and carries “serious consequences.”

“In the seven decades since Congress enacted the Medicaid Act to provide medical assistance to vulnerable populations, federal law, policy, and practice has been clear: personal and private healthcare data collected about beneficiaries of the program is confidential,” it states. “Plaintiffs bring this action to protect their state Medicaid programs, and to prevent them from being used in service of an anti-immigrant crusade, or other purposes unrelated to administration of those programs.”

Weiser’s office added to that, stating in a press release that this move is “creating fear and confusion” about the prospect that that information might be used for a “sweeping database for mass deportations and other large-scale immigration enforcement purposes.”

While the coalition says it is pursuing the lawsuit for the protection of personal data, they’ve also highlighted concerns about losing federal funding if illegal immigrants begin unenrolling from Medicaid preemptively.

“States will also ultimately bear the negative public health costs associated with reduced utilization of health care,” the lawsuit states. “Meanwhile, the public will suffer irreparable damage due to increased morbidity and mortality.”

Colorado and California are joined in the lawsuit by Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.

The coalition is requesting the court enjoin HHS from transferring Medicaid data to DHS or any other federal agency and enjoin DHS from using this data to conduct immigration enforcement.

*****

This article was published by The Center Square and is reproduced with permission.

Image credit: ChatGPT image generator

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

Trump’s BBB Triumph thumbnail

Trump’s BBB Triumph

By Amil Imani

The Big Beautiful Bill, President Donald Trump’s legislative masterpiece, has passed Congress and detonated with a glorious roar. This is no timid policy nudge — it’s a full-throttle revolution, slashing taxes, unshackling industry, and igniting the American dream with a fire that’ll burn for generations. This bill is a love letter to workers, farmers, and patriots. It’s Trump’s promise kept.

This bill is a tax-cutting juggernaut that slashes rates for every hardworking American. Deductions up to  $40,000 a year for five years, zero taxes on tips and overtime, and billions unleashed for corporations to grow, hire, and dominate. The White House nails it: this is a “win for workers, farmers, and America’s future.” These cuts are rocket fuel for the economy. Forget the naysayers whining about the national debt — $4.5 trillion over a decade is a small price to pay for unchaining the American spirit. The Congressional Budget Office can crunch numbers, but it can’t measure the heart of a nation.

This isn’t just about numbers — it’s about power. The bill hands it back to the people, letting them keep more of their hard-earned cash. Every dollar saved is a dollar to build a business, buy a home, or chase a dream. They’re the job creators, the risk-takers, the ones who’ll turn this tax windfall into factories, farms, and futures. A tidal wave of prosperity, lifting every boat from Main Street to Wall Street.

The Big Beautiful Bill takes a battleaxe to the bloated welfare state. Medicaid and Medicare get a $1 trillion trim, forcing accountability with work requirements — 80 hours a month for those under 65. This isn’t cruelty; it’s common sense. No more freeloading, no more handouts for those who won’t contribute. The bill torches benefits for undocumented immigrants, ensuring American resources go to American citizens. Food assistance? Streamlined to prioritize the truly needy, not the lazy. Pell Grants? Refocused to reward merit, not entitle the masses.

This is “fiscal sanity.” The bill saves $1.6 trillion in mandatory spending, clearing the way for a leaner America where the private sector thrives. Critics who cry about lost coverage are missing the point: this bill empowers people to stand on their own, not lean on a crumbling system. It’s freedom, not a free lunch.

Stocks and crypto are soaring, with investors betting big on Trump’s vision. This is one for the new economic order: a “boom for the ages.” The bill’s tax cuts and deregulation will ignite corporate profits and unshackle innovation. The debt ceiling is raised as a mark of confidence in America’s ability to outwork, outbuild, and outlast any challenge. Every dollar freed up is a dollar fueling growth, creating jobs, and proving the haters wrong.

The bill boosts manufacturing with incentives that’ll keep factories busy from Detroit to Dallas. Oil and gas are unleashed to make America the world’s powerhouse. This bill creates jobs, drives innovation, and secures our dominance. Corporations aren’t just sitting on their tax breaks; they’re building, hiring, and making America the envy of the world.

The Big Beautiful Bill is Trump’s magnum opus, a thunderclap of courage and vision. The bill’s tax cuts, spending slashes, and deregulatory blitz are a blueprint for prosperity.

This isn’t just policy — it’s a revolution. The Big Beautiful Bill is America’s comeback story, and it’s only just begun. Trump’s America is back, and it’s bigger, bolder, and more beautiful than ever.

©2025 . All rights reserved.

The post Trump’s BBB Triumph appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

The Train May Have Left the Station thumbnail

The Train May Have Left the Station

By Neland Nobel

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

But . . . there is still time for passengers to get on board.

As part of an effort to create real value in some of our financial columns for VIP subscribers, we have offered from time to time actionable investment ideas that we hope will make you, the reader, money. That is simply one way we have of paying back those who have been kind enough to support us by subscribing.

However, in this case, we are making this idea available to all readers.

One contemporary example is our recent piece on silver, which we thought was poised for a breakout. On June 11, we wrote that silver was displaying better relative strength than gold, suggesting that silver in the short term was poised to outperform gold. We also felt silver had demonstrated sufficient technical strength that a money-making move was in the offing.

Well, it has been slightly more than a month since that column was written. What have the results been?

We suggested a breakout was likely if silver could close above $34 per ounce, which is something it had just achieved.

As we write one month later, on July 11, silver bullion is up an additional 7.5% in the past 30 days. SIL, an ETF representing silver mining shares, closed on June 11th at $47.87 a share. Today it closed at $50.84, up about 6.2% in 30 days.

The moves only further confirm our suspicions that silver is ripe for a move upward. There is now little in the way of resistance on the charts until we get to the area of the two previous tops at around $50 per ounce.

Of course, we are describing just 30 days of activity that is part of a much larger, more bullish pattern.

The year-to-date gains for silver bullion are 32%, and for SIL, they are 60%. We hope you were on board for most of this advance.

However, given these gains, should we be worried that silver has gone too fast?

While the market is modestly overbought, the overall setup suggests at least an attempt to retest the old highs, but we suspect silver has much more upside than that over time.

In our last piece, Silver Makes A Move, we noted the long history of the gold-to-silver ratio. The long-term chart (20 years) looks to be breaking down in favor of silver. That does not mean bad things for gold; it simply implies that further advances in precious metals, silver, will likely be playing catch-up and outperforming gold on a relative basis.

As it is a relative strength ratio chart, this is a weekly chart that shows the ratio breaking down, which means silver will outperform by having the ratio fall. If you look at the blow-ups of the long-term chart to the right, you can see that the 5-week, 20-week, and 40-week moving averages are all rolling over to the downside. 

Note as well that momentum indicators (top panel) and MACD also have turned downward, suggesting silver is getting better momentum than gold.

As we mentioned previously, we think gold is essential since central banks have been buying and are scheduled to continue buying gold for reserve purposes. Also, gold, as of July 1, became Tier One capital for international banks, on par with U.S. Treasury bonds.

Silver, though, presents a speculative opportunity that looks quite attractive. It appears too cheap relative to gold, and its technical action is quite exciting.

Silver mining shares add leverage to the play, although we always suggest investors first start by buying physical silver and taking possession of bullion coins or small bars.

SIL had a nice healthy pause to run off excesses, and has just broken out to new highs. Notice how MACD has declined and looks primed to cross back to the upside.

Regarding silver’s price chart, what has many market mavens excited is the colossal size and chart pattern that silver has built over the years. This chart, from investing.com, does a good job of explaining the particular kind of formation silver has constructed.  It is a classic among chartists…the so-called “cup and handle” formation.  The theory is that if the market price action can break out of the handle, a significant move to the upside would be expected.  Not only has silver built such a formation, but it is one of the most enormous formations ever built.  Moreover, the latest moves break it out of the handle.

As you might expect, there are specific “rules” related to chart patterns of different kinds.  For this type of formation, the “rules” are:

  • Measure the Cup Depth: The depth of the cup is the vertical distance between the lowest point of the cup (the bottom) and the highest point of the cup (the peak before the handle forms). This depth is typically measured in price units (e.g., dollars for silver).
  • Project the Target: After the price breaks above the resistance level of the handle (the top of the cup), the price target is calculated by adding the cup’s depth to the breakout point (the resistance level).

For example, if we say the depth of the cup is about $48, you would add that to the breakout price of about $34, which provides the potential to rise to $82 per ounce.

Can you take such calculations to the bank?  No, but what it does suggest is that silver has considerable upside potential beyond its double top at $50.

Does it tell you when it will do this?  No, it just suggests the upside target range and tells you nothing about short-term wiggles.

As a final note, our long-term sponsor American Precious Metals is offering a special on silver at this time.  If you call and place an order and use the promotion code Prickly Pear, they will offer a discount on your first order. Call them at 1-800-522-GOLD or 602-840-5500

In summary, the train has been moving for some time, but there is still plenty left in the journey.

All Aboard!

*****

If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our monthly subscription, as these sorts of articles are usually behind a paywall.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Charts courtesy of Stockcharts.com draw by the author

Switch to Patriot Mobile

The Prickly Pear supports Patriot Mobile Cellular and its Four Pillars of Conservative Values: the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Right to Life, and significant support for our Veterans and First Responders. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, not only do you support these causes, but most customers will also save up to 50% on their monthly cellular phone bill. 

Here at The Prickly Pear, we know that switching to a new cellular service can be challenging at times. Let’s face it, no one wants the hassle.  But that hassle is necessary if Conservatives want to support those who support them.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE…

Inventories of Homes for Sale in Big California Markets Jump to Highest in Years, Days on the Market Soar, Demand Withered thumbnail

Inventories of Homes for Sale in Big California Markets Jump to Highest in Years, Days on the Market Soar, Demand Withered

By Wolf Richter

Written by Wolf Richter

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes

Listings YoY: Orange County +66%, San Diego +55%, Fresno +48%, Sacramento +47%, Los Angeles +45%, Riverside-San Bernadino +43%, San Jose & Silicon Valley +39%; San Francisco metro +30%.

Los Angeles County: Active listings spiked by 45% year-over-year in June, to 14,692 homes for sale, the most for any June in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016, passing by even 2019 (dotted purple line).

In 2018 (brown double-line), the Fed was hiking rates, and the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 5% by November 2018. Home sales stalled and inventories piled up in the second half of 2018. And that inventory pileup continued into mid-2019 (dotted purple line). That’s the inventory level that 2025 just blew by. At the end of July 2019, with inflation substantially below target, the Fed cut its policy rates, and mortgage rates began to come down.

But that’s not what happened this time around. In the fall of 2024, the Fed cut its policy rates by 100 basis points despite re-accelerating well-above-target inflation. In response, the bond market, worried about inflation and a lackadaisical Fed to fight this inflation, threw a hissy-fit and longer-term Treasury yields and mortgage rates surged by 100 basis points. Active listings have been going straight up so far this year:

The median number of days that homes spent on the market in Los Angeles County before they were either pulled off the market (delisted) or sold rose to 47 days, matching June 2020, and both were the highest Junes in the data by realtor.com going back to 2016.

San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metro: Active listings surged by 30% year-over-year in June, to 7,196  homes for sale, by far the most for any month in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016.

Compared to June 2019, the second highest June in the data (purple dotted line), active listings were up by 21%. Always astounding how a much-hyped “housing shortage” turns into an inventory pileup.

This metropolitan statistical area (MSA) includes the counties of San Francisco and San Mateo (northern portion of Silicon Valley), part of the East Bay, and part of the North Bay.

The median number of days that a home spent on the market in the San Francisco metro before it was either pulled off the market or sold jumped to 40 days, the highest by far for any June in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016, up from 31 days a year ago.

Sellers pull their homes off the market “in frustration.” This increase in median days on the market comes despite a surge of delistings across the US as frustrated sellers, seeing that demand has withered and that they can’t get the price they want, pulled their homes off the market and decided to wait for better days or whatever.

Delistings surged by 47% year-over-year across the US, as “sellers who can’t get their price quit the market in frustration,” realtor.com reported in a blogpost today.

“The trend is especially noticeable in the South and West, where inventory has surged back above pre-pandemic levels, and prices are flat or falling,” Realtor.com noted. So that includes California.

Prices in many of these markets have begun to drop – the “in frustration” part – and so sellers decided to wait until prices drop even further?

San Diego County: Active listings spiked by 55% year-over-year, to 6,116 homes for sale, the highest for any June 2018 (brown double line) and June 2019 (purple dotted line) in the data going back to 2016.

The median number of days that a home spent on the market in San Diego County before it was either pulled off the market or sold rose to 41 days, up from 33 days a year ago, and the second-highest June in the data from realtor.com going back to 2016, behind only June 2020.

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR

AI Industry Needs Standards To Protect Against Bad Actors thumbnail

AI Industry Needs Standards To Protect Against Bad Actors

By Middle East Media Research Institute

MEMRI Daily Brief No. 805

The following is an op-ed for the Forbes Nonprofit Council by MEMRI Executive Director Steve Stalinsky, Ph.D. Titled “AI Industry Needs Standards To Protect Against Bad Actors,” it was published June 18, 2025 by Forbes.[1]


Exemplifying the legitimate fears among many who study AI and warn of its dangers, on May 23, Anthropic revealed that in a test of its new Claude Opus 4, the system chose to blackmail one of its engineers to prevent him from shutting it down. Early versions of the system had been found to comply with dangerous instructions and even expressed a willingness to assist with terror attacks. Anthropic said that these problems had largely been resolved in the current version but also openly acknowledged, on May 22, that in internal testing, Opus 4 had performed more effectively than prior models at helping users produce biological weapons.

While Anthropic should be commended for telling the truth, eliminating such assistance for terrorism should not be left up to any one party.

As AI technology has advanced meteorically, impacting society both positively and negatively, and as it becomes more commonly used across all sectors, cases like that of Opus 4 can be expected to become commonplace if nothing is done.

Concern Grows Over AI’s Use By Extremist And Terrorist Groups

Of growing concern is the wholesale adoption of AI by extremist and even terrorist groups, for outreach, recruitment and incitement and for planning and supporting actual attacks. AI could soon become a vital weapon in their online arsenal and a disruptor in both mainstream online spaces and on their own channels.

AI use in terror attacks could also be a challenge for law enforcement unless swift action is taken. In my research, I have found that groups and individuals are talking about using AI to plan terror attacks, to make weapons of mass destruction, to organize armed uprisings to overthrow the government and more. Others have discussed using AI for developing weapons systems, including drones and self-driving car bombs.

Recent examples include the man who killed 14 and wounded dozens on Bourbon Street in New Orleans on New Year’s Day 2025; he used AI-enabled Meta smart glasses in preparing and executing the attack. They also include a teen in Israel who consulted ChatGPT before entering a police station with a weapon on March 5 and trying to stab a policeman.

While Platforms Already Ban Such Activity, Enforcement Is A Challenge

Having spent over two decades heading a nonprofit whose mission includes supporting the U.S. government in counterterrorism and law enforcement as well as assisting the tech community, and in particular strategizing how to deal with terrorist use of the internet, social media and other technologies, I have for years been calling for tech companies and their CEOs to come up with best practices and industry standards to fight terrorist use of their platforms. The time for the AI industry to do so is now.

By this point, the AI industry should be capable of coming up with strategies to keep terrorists and other criminals from using their products and for companies to collaborate on industry standards to keep terrorists out. But they must be committed to doing so.

Most of these platforms ban such activity in their terms of service—but are these policies being enforced? For example, OpenAI’s ChatGPT states in its Terms of Use that a user “may not use our Services for any illegal, harmful, or abusive activity.” Its CEO, Sam Altman, said in October 2024 at a “fireside chat” at Harvard: “Should GPT-4 generate hate speech? Fairly easy for us to say no to that.”

The Acceptable Use Policy of xAI’s Grok states: “Do not harm people or property … [or] Critically harm or [promote] critically harming human life (yours or anyone else’s) … [or] develop bioweapons, chemical weapons, or weapons of mass destruction.”

Perplexity AI’s Terms of Service prohibit its use “in a manner that is obscene, excessively violent, harassing, hateful, cruel, abusive, pornographic, inciting, organizing, promoting or facilitating violence or criminal activities.”

MicrosoftGoogle and DeepSeek all similarly ban such activities in their terms of service.

Each one of these companies has good—and often overlapping—ideas on dealing with extremism and terrorism, and these could be the basis for a starting point for creating industry standards to follow. But enforcing these terms of service poses a challenge, as was seen from the earliest days of the industry.

Microsoft’s chatbot Tay, released in March 2016, was shut down within 24 hours after it tweeted pro-Hitler messages—yet today, the danger posed by hate groups’ use of AI has increased by orders of magnitude. One history chat app let users chat with simulated historical figures, including Hitler and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Currently, users can still create extremist content on many AI platforms—despite terms of service not allowing it.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman explained in an interview in 2023 that “time” is needed “to see how [the technology is] used,” that “we’re monitoring [it] very closely.” In his testimony before a Senate committee on May 8, Altman was asked by Senator Jacky Rosen whether he would consider collaborating with civil society to create a standard benchmark for AI related to antisemitism, to be used subsequently for other forms of hate, as well. Altman replied that “of course, we do collaborate with civil society on this topic and we are excited to continue to do so” but that “there will always be some debate and the question of free speech in the context of AI is novel.”

Industry And Government Leaders Must Step In – Now

The need for standards and guidelines for AI technology is clear. But to date, there have been no official moves to examine criminal and extremist use of this technology. While the National Institute of Standards and Technology has reportedly developed frameworks for responsibility in AI use, few seem to know about them.

Early on, AI leaders promised to address the spread of hate and extremism on their platforms. But they have failed to deliver, and this alone is why I believe companies themselves cannot be trusted to deal with terrorists using their products. As we saw with Claude Opus 4, AI has the potential to help facilitate unimaginable terrorist attacks. Government and industry together must act fast to prevent this from happening.

AUTHOR

Steven Stalinsky

 Steven Stalinsky is Executive Director of MEMRI.

REFERENCE:

[1] Forbes.com/councils/forbesnonprofitcouncil/2025/06/18/ai-industry-needs-standards-to-protect-against-bad-actors, June 18, 2025.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post AI Industry Needs Standards To Protect Against Bad Actors appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Another Word For American thumbnail

Another Word For American

By Conlan Salgado

Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

If you enjoy this article, please sign up  for our monthly subscription. Articles like this are normally accessed only in PREMIUM CONTENT.

The delirium over the Big Beautiful Bill–given that it was signed into law by the hand of Donald Trump–is both predictable and boring. The Democrats, entirely without power and therefore, in envy, extra-concentrated on the destruction of the American spirit, have made even the most exciting pitches of human emotion monotonous and dull.

Bless them.

I feel the obligation to tell our readers that no, the work requirements enacted under the Big Beautiful Bill pertaining to Medicaid and SNAP benefits do not equal the Holocaust (remember Hakeem “millions will die” Jeffries?), or the other mass atrocities of recent memory.

In brief, the work requirements for Medicaid are as follows:

  • Recipients must work, volunteer, or attend school for at least 80 hours per month (approximately 20 hours per week) to maintain eligibility.

  • States are required to conduct eligibility redeterminations every six months starting December 31, 2026, to verify compliance, which may lead to coverage loss if administrative requirements are not met.

People affected?

  • Applies to able-bodied adults aged 18–64 without disabilities.

  • Parents with children over the age of 14 are included in the work requirements, with exemptions for parents of children aged 14 or younger.

  • Exemptions are provided for pregnant women, caregivers for dependent children, and individuals with particular disabilities (such as blindness, intellectual and developmental disorders, and substance abuse disorders).

In brief, the work requirements for SNAP benefits are as follows:

  • Able-bodied adults without dependents aged 18–64, and parents with children aged 7 or older, must complete at least 80 hours per month of work, training, or volunteering to qualify for SNAP benefits.

Allow me to reiterate: in order to meet the work requirements newly enacted, one must work less than one part time job per month. LESS THAN ONE PART TIME JOB PER MONTH! Nor does one have to work, strictly speaking; community engagement (including volunteer work) and time spent attending Educational programs also count toward meeting those terrifying new work standards.

Thus, the most honest way of summing this up is: the Big Beautiful Bill requires able bodied adults without young dependents to spend 10% of their monthly existence doing something verifiably useful–both for themselves and their community.

There’s an end of it! 

The left’s mind-losing and hysteria-pimping reactions, while honoring the traditional deranged response to a Trump victory, reveals how deeply necessary the Largesse State is to the Democrat political vision. The work requirements of the Big Beautiful Bill are remarkably light, considering that many Americans work full time jobs or multiple part-time jobs, while at the same time being staunch parents, spouses, caregivers, and community volunteers.

The Democrat ethos is not only one of dependence on the government for the necessaries of life–health, wealth, housing, food–but also an ethos directly opposed to even the littlest measures self-improvement.

Of course, the foundation of their ethos is even darker, and more explicitly anti-American; to understand why we must grasp that self-reliance is an essential American virtue, since it is the man who is reliant on himself who most fiercely values freedom for the self.

It is not so strange when one considers how a man who has his own thoughts–lots of them–and many which ONLY belong to him, will surely have a larger and more valuable freedom to speak than a man who says what every other person in the world says or might say.

The second man will certainly appreciate being able to open his mouth and bleat, may even consider it his right, but when he does exercise “the right to free speech” it is only to indicate what an enslaved mind he possesses.

In the end, the government need not restrict the speech of a parrot; a parrot may talk as much as he likes, because he has been restricted at a much more fundamental level already: his capacity for free thought, which is the prerequisite for free speech.

If it can be so articulated, our God-given rights are acts of faith, hopeful anticipations of our one day fully realizing our human capacities. When a government protects your right to freedom of speech, it protects the permanent possibility of you one day becoming an eloquent and fluent defender of truth. 

That is a profound and important relationship, the one which exists between freedom and self-reliance. Someone who depends upon The State for housing, for health, for food, or for his livelihood, will perhaps still be granted “liberties”, but his condition of dependence changes the character of the liberty he is granted.

A population utterly reliant on government generosity and too indolent to redeem itself through hard work cannot ask the government to be less generous; it can only ask the government to expand, to interfere more, to confiscate more responsibilities and therefore restrict corresponding rights.

Such is the nature of rights: a self-reliant man must have the right to private property, to his own land. Someone who lives in government housing has already forbidden that right to himself. The government need take no further action.

The Democrats hate “work requirements” in the same way they would hate “virtue requirements”, or “think your own thoughts” requirements. They hate self-reliance, because it is another word for freedom.

And they hate freedom because it is another word for America.

*****

Image credit: Grok AI

If you enjoy this article, please sign up for our monthly subscription. Articles like this are normally accessed only in PREMIUM CONTENT.

Switch to Patriot Mobile

The Prickly Pear supports Patriot Mobile Cellular and its Four Pillars of Conservative Values: the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Right to Life, and significant support for our Veterans and First Responders. When you switch to Patriot Mobile, not only do you support these causes, but most customers will also save up to 50% on their monthly cellular phone bill. 

Here at The Prickly Pear, we know that switching to a new cellular service can be challenging at times. Let’s face it, no one wants the hassle.  But that hassle is necessary if Conservatives want to support those who support them.

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE…

Another Major Corporation Bends The Knee To Trump thumbnail

Another Major Corporation Bends The Knee To Trump

By The Daily Caller

T-Mobile agreed to kill off its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies, joining Verizon in compliance with the Trump administration.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr publicized a letter sent to the FCC on Wednesday. The filing announces that ‘T-Mobile will no longer have any individual roles or teams focused on DEI.”

The letter, signed by Mark Nelson, T-Mobile’s executive vice president and general counsel, also claims that the company “has removed references to DEI or ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ from its employee training materials  and will ensure that all future training materials are focused on achieving the company’s core business objectives and anti-discrimination instruction, without reference to separate DEI objectives.”

T-Mobile did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Carr called T-Mobile’s decision to ditch DEI “another good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and the public interest.”

“A big victory for @BrendanCarrFCC — @TMobile is a German company, pushing far-left EU politics in America,” Consumers Research Executive Director, Will Hild said on X. “This should *never* be tolerated and I’m glad Chairman Carr is ensuring they’re ditching their woke European ways in America.”

T-Mobile’s letter follows Verizon’s May announcement of an end to its corporate DEI, “effective immediately.” The company erased DEI “not just in name or in the way [it is] described, but in substance,” following a February letter from Carr, questioning Verizon’s continued promotion of DEI.

Verizon’s chief legal officer, Vendana Venkatesh, claimed in the May letter to Carr that “Verizon is making these changes to its practices not just in name or in the way they are described, but in substance.”

FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, however, calls this move by T-Mobile a “cynical bid to win FCC regulatory approval,” where the company makes “a mockery of its professed commitment to eliminating discrimination, promoting fairness, and amplifying underrepresented voices.”

President Donald Trump has made efforts since he entered office to cut DEI out of the workforce and out of schools via 2025 executive orders, including an order directing the Labor Department to remove affirmative action terms from federal contracts with an April 20 deadline.

AUTHOR

Daisy Roser

Contributor

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Admin Ends Biden DEI Mandates For Transportation Funding

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post Another Major Corporation Bends The Knee To Trump appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

FIFA Office Opens Doors In Trump Tower thumbnail

FIFA Office Opens Doors In Trump Tower

By The Daily Caller

Well, isn’t this interesting …

FIFA, the global governing body over the sport of soccer, has strengthened their connection to President Donald Trump after opening an office in Trump Tower in New York City.

The decision from FIFA comes a year before the 2026 World Cup (men’s), which takes place throughout North America. It should be noted that FIFA also opened a Miami office in 2024. 

Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, issued a thank you Tuesday to Trump, branding the president as “a big fan of soccer.” Infantino also thanked Eric Trump, the son of the president, for both he and his father’s “big support.”

Infantino has taken several visits in 2025 to the White House and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Florida, doing so to boost up a relationship with Trump that will lead to success for the 2026 World Cup.

Say what you want about Gianni Infantino, but he’s been making big moves as of late. From entertaining the suggestion of Drake potentially performing at the World Cup to meeting with President Trump to ensure the best product, the dude has been on point as of late.

It’s a nice change from the typical corruption we see from FIFA.

AUTHOR

Andrew Powell

Sports and Entertainment Blogger

RELATED ARTICLE: Trump Keeps It Real About Commanders’ Horrible Name Change From Redskins

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

The post FIFA Office Opens Doors In Trump Tower appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

Does The Stock Market Need A Rest? thumbnail

Does The Stock Market Need A Rest?

By Neland Nobel

Written by Neland Nobel

Since the April low in the stock market, triggered at the time by “Liberation Day” and the announcement of tariffs, the stock market has roared back not only to its former high but has pushed through into new high territory. This recovery is undoubtedly one for the record books. In just three months off the low, the market, according to Charlie Bilello, has made the second most powerful recovery in 75 years. What should an investor do?

This article is so amazing, we published it for premium members only.

Does that sound like you?

Click here to enroll in premium membership for only $4.99 per month.

Already a member? Login below.

Sourced from PRICKLY PEAR