#Don’t raise corporate taxes and other commentary

Economist: Don’t Raise Corporate Taxes

Even if President Biden wanted to raise revenue to address America’s “mountain of debt” (rather than for his dubious $2.3 trillion “infrastructure” plan), hiking corporate taxes “is the wrong way to go about it,” contends Allison Schrager at City Journal. The Trump tax cuts led to “a significant repatriation of profits” that companies had kept overseas, and wages grew faster than in a decade. Also, taxes that lower corporate earnings will “directly” hurt the half of all Americans who own stock. Plus, investors will now be “making decisions under a cloud,” wondering if rates will change with every president. If corporations don’t pay enough, it’s because “the tax system is too complex,” filled with “hundreds of potential deductions and loopholes.” To raise revenue, Biden should “simplify the maze,” while “keeping rates low.”

Conservative: Border’s Worse Than You Think

The feds’ response to the surge of illegal border-crossings has been “entirely improvised” since President Biden “threw out key policies with nothing ready to replace them,” laments the Washington Examiner’s Byron York. Scrapping the Trump remain-in-Mexico policy and other deterrents has “opened the door to would-be illegal crossers” and left the border’s guardians “overwhelmed and increasingly giving way to bureaucratic pressure to let most people in.” Texas has recruited state law enforcement to fill in the gaps, while the Border Patrol is busy with migrant children and trying to “keep up the traditional work of protecting the border, even if the president of the United States doesn’t really want to do it.”

Foreign desk: Who’s Spilling Israeli Secrets?

“Who is whispering to reporters, spilling details that according to Israel’s official policy should remain secret?” wonders Benny Avni at The New York Sun. “As Iran suffers a host of mysterious mishaps,” media accounts finger Israel. “Are Israeli officials too eager to brag about their battlefield success, or are Americans, in an effort to appease the ayatollahs, trying to sabotage Israel’s military efforts?” A leak to The New York Times almost “sabotaged a complex Israeli attack on an Iranian vessel” that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps uses for intelligence-gathering. It’s “not hard to imagine the Biden administration playing a role in such leaks,” given its desperation to revivify the 2015 nuclear deal.

Tech beat: Twitter Covers for BLM

“What,” John Fund asks at National Review, “explains Twitter’s censorship of Jason Whitlock, an African-American sports commentator formerly of ESPN?” He’d “posted a link to a real-estate blog showing that Patrisse Khan-Cullors, a Black Lives Matter co-founder, was buying a $1.4 million home in a secluded Los Angeles neighborhood, where only 1.4 percent of residents are black,” then “had some fun zinging the self-described ‘trained Marxist’ ideologue for her hypocrisy.” Twitter’s move to make the post “no longer available” is strange, says Fund, since “many former supporters of BLM believe that it’s time for Khan-Cullors and the other co-founders to answer basic questions.” The head of New York City’s BLM chapter “is calling for an independent investigation into BLM’s finances.” And “Khan-Cullors isn’t the only left-wing figure to get soft treatment and protection from Big Tech. Recall that Twitter shut down the New York Post’s account” over its Hunter Biden scoops.

Media watch: Times Beclowns Itself on Court

“President Biden will create a panel to study expanding the Supreme Court in an effort to balance the conservative majority created by Donald Trump.” That was how The New York Times summed up what is obviously “a commission to radically change the high court in what could ultimately go down as one of the most radical acts carried out by a US president,” scoffs Jon Concha at The Hill. The notion that court-packing is about “balancing” the Supremes is “just about the best unintentional comedy you’ll see out there. And ask yourself this: If the roles were reversed,” and Trump moved toward packing the high court, “would the Times frame it the same way? Rhetorical question.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board