Andrew Maddox

Category: Politics

  • Sunday Links (Oct. 26)

  • Douthat: Conservatives Are Prisoners of Their Own Tax Cuts

    As a parent of three, point number 2 on Douthat’s opinion piece resonates with me:

    Second (in the voice of a social conservative), the law doesn’t do enough for family and fertility. No problem shadows the world right now like demographic collapse, and while the United States is better off than many countries, the birthrate has fallen well below replacement levels here as well. Family policy can’t reverse these trends, but public support for parents can make an important difference. Yet the law’s extension of the child tax credit leaves it below the inflation-adjusted level established in Trump’s first term.

    One of the odd parts of political haggling is the loud voices, particularly those related to tax deductions for high earners in high tax states. (Yes, the SALT deductions). It’s a small group of high earners in a small number of states. Yet, they’ve managed to be squeaky enough to expand the deduction from $10k to $40k. Well done for their lobbying!

    From Claude:

    Expanding SALT deductions would primarily benefit upper-middle-class and wealthy taxpayers earning $100,000+ annually, particularly those in high-tax states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, who own expensive homes and face high state and local tax burdens. The benefits become increasingly concentrated among the highest earners, with the top 1% receiving disproportionate benefits from any expansion.

    Back to the child tax credit itself. At $2,200, it represents an expansion but is far below the original law (for inflation adjusted dollars). So it seems that our congress cares more about a handful of high income earners than they do for a large (and important) swath of the country: parents.

  • TechCrunch: Congress might block state AI laws for five years

    Senators Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn include a measure to limit (most) state oversight of AI laws for the next five years as part of the “Big Beautiful Bill” currently in the works. Critics (and the Senate Parliamentarian) have reduced the scope and duration of the provision to modify the measure.

    However, over the weekend, Cruz and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who has also criticized the bill, agreed to shorten the pause on state-based AI regulation to five years. The new language also attempts to exempt laws addressing child sexual abuse materials, children’s online safety, and an individual’s rights to their name, likeness, voice, and image. However, the amendment says the laws must not place an “undue or disproportionate burden” on AI systems — legal experts are unsure how this would impact state AI laws.

    The regulation is supported by some in the tech industry, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whereas Anthropic’s leadership is opposed.

    I’m sympathetic to the aims of this bill as a patchwork of 50 state laws regulating AI would make it more difficult to innovate in this space. But I’m also aware of real-life harm (as a recent NY Times story profiled), so I’d be much more sanguine if we had federal-level regulation, a prospect that seems very unlikely considering the current political makeup.

  • Politico: Artificial intelligence threatens to raid the water reserves of Europe’s driest regions

    Amazon and Microsoft are considering building data centers in Aragon (northeastern Spain), a prospect that some in Europe are concerned about because of water use.

    This is an extension of an ongoing conversation in the EU:

    Much has been written about A.I.’s energy demand and carbon footprint. But running a data center is also extremely thirsty work. In 2024, Europe’s data center industry consumed about 62 million cubic meters of water, which is equivalent to about 24,000 Olympic swimming pools.

    After reading this, I thought, geez, that’s a lot of water. But when converting this to acre-feet, it’s roughly 50,000 acre-feet. A large number, for sure, but not astronomically large. By comparison, Granger Lake in Texas stores roughly the same amount of water.

    In 2022, total water usage in Texas eclipsed 15 million acre-feet, of which approximately 7.5 million acre-feet were consumed by irrigation. This makes the 50,000 figure from Europe seem negligible for an population of 450 million.

  • There’s a Link Between Therapy Culture and Childlessness

    A recent NYTimes essay by Michal Leibowitz explores the growing childlessness and starts by mentioning a number of commonly postulated factors like climate change. But then the twist:

    I suspect there’s some truth in all of these explanations. But I think there’s another reason, too, one that’s often been overlooked. Over the past few decades, Americans have redefined “harm,” “abuse,” “neglect” and “trauma,” expanding those categories to include emotional and relational struggles that were previously considered unavoidable parts of life. Adult children seem increasingly likely to publicly, even righteously, cut off contact with a parent, sometimes citing emotional, physical or sexual abuse they experienced in childhood and sometimes things like clashing values, parental toxicity or feeling misunderstood or unsupported.

    This cultural shift has contributed to a new, nearly impossible standard for parenting. Not only must parents provide shelter, food, safety and love, but we, their children, also expect them to get us started on successful careers and even to hold themselves accountable for our mental health and happiness well into our adult years.

    And

    A result of these changes is that parenthood looks more like a bad deal. For much of history, parent-child relationships were characterized by mutual duties, says Stephanie Coontz, the director of research and public education for the Council on Contemporary Families. Parental duties might include things like feeding and clothing their children, disciplining them and educating them in the tasks and skills they would need in adulthood. Children, in turn, had duties to their parents: to honor and defer to them, to help provide for the family or household, to provide grandchildren.

    Today, parents still have obligations to their children. But it seems the children’s duties have become optional. “With parents and adult children today, the adult child feels like, ‘If you failed me in your responsibility as a parent’ — in ways, of course, that are increasingly hard to define—‘then I owe you nothing as an adult child,’” says Dr. Coleman.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/opinion/therapy-estrangement-childless-millennials.html

  • Democrats set out to study young men. Here are their findings.

    The prospectus for the two-year project, Speaking with American Men, was reviewed by the New York Times:

    The prospectus for one new $20 million effort, obtained by The Times, aims to reverse the erosion of Democratic support among young men, especially online. It is code-named SAM — short for “Speaking with American Men: A Strategic Plan” — and promises investment to “study the syntax, language and content that gains attention and virality in these spaces.” It recommends buying advertisements in video games, among other things.

    Cofounder of the project, Ilyse Hogue, talked about the importance of listening and using “language that young men are speaking.” From Politico:

    Hogue said part of SAM’s mission “super charg[ing] social listening” and progressive influencers on Discord, Twitch and other platforms in their fundraising proposal. They’re urging Democratic candidates to use non-traditional digital advertising, especially on YouTube, in-game digital ads and sports and gaming podcasts.

    “Democrats can’t win these folks over if they’re not speaking the language that young men are speaking,” Hogue said. “Most people I talked to, Democratic operatives, have never heard of Red Pill Fitness, which is just huge online.”

    Language and advertising are important, for sure, but it’s hard to believe that these tactics alone would stem the tide.