Morning Belz, April 1

Links.

Even a lot of Republicans support tax hikes for infrastructure — Kevin Drum
5-10% gov’t spending increase will cut 2030 GDP by 3-10% — CBO*
Interesting 2-part video on northeast China’s rust belt — BBC World
What happens when the 1 percent go remote? — CityLab
Amtrak’s plan to spend infrastructure dollars (see map) — Amtrak
Breakdown of Day 15 of the Chauvin trial — Star Tribune**
Philip Roth’s plot against himself — New Criterion

*the abstract on page 2 is a good summary.

**some of you didn’t appreciate the Spectator column I linked to yesterday. I don’t want to have to say whether and how much I agree with every article I put in this newsletter, but in this case, given the gravity of the subject, the inflammatory language in the column, the obviously slanted presentation of fact and the tone that’s dismissive of outrage over Floyd’s death, I should have qualified it better. “One guy’s case for Derek Chauvin’s acquittal” or “An overwrought argument for Chauvin’s acquittal” would have been an improvement on my flatter “The case for Derek Chauvin’s acquittal.” For what it’s worth, I don’t agree at all that the trial is a “despicable farce.” It seems to have been handled quite carefully by the courts, and anyone in the world can watch it live.

Quote
“Certainly we need education. Certainly we need religion to solve this problem. Beyond that, we need legislation. As I said in my message this morning, it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart, but it can restrain the heartless, and this is what we seek to do through legislation. We cannot change bad internal attitude through legislation. Religion and education will have to do this. But, we seek to control the external effects of bad internal attitude. And so legislation is necessary in this period of transition.” — Martin Luther King, Jr., speech in Mankato, Minn., 1961

About: I was a newspaper reporter for 14 years, most recently at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I explained why my family left Minneapolis here. Now we live just outside Chattanooga and I work on Scuffed News, a project that either succeeds by July or will have to be abandoned. This is my newsletter. Please share it with anyone you think might enjoy it. And please consider supporting this work with your money on Patreon.