Reads of the Week: ‘Building Back’ the Labor Market, Holocaust Education, and the Future of US-UK Relations

Each week, we’ll be featuring opinion pieces from the alumni and current participants of AF’s Writing Fellows Program. A few highlights from the past week are below. Do you dream of having bylines like these? Learn more about how the Writing Fellows Program can help boost your writing career!

‘Build Back Better’ Would Sink the Labor Market by Vance Ginn (Spring 2019) in the Wall Street Journal

The two sides of a coin are typically regarded as opposites. In the case of President Biden’s $5 trillion Build Back Better bill, the two sides are actually the same. Both the revenue and expenditure provisions of this agenda will cause substantial decreases in employment. The only difference will be how.

The Build Back Better bill would deliver a double blow to an already disrupted labor market. Most of the explicit tax increases in the agenda directly disincentivize investment, which reduces capital, wealth, wages and employment. Meanwhile, the creation of new (and the expansion of existing) employment-tested and income-tested benefits would increase the implicit tax on working…

Students need richer Holocaust education, not ‘opposing’ perspectives by Beth Bailey (Fall 2018) in the Washington Examiner

The Southlake, Texas, Carroll Independent School District’s executive director of curriculum and instruction, Gina Peddy, directed teachers this month who have a Holocaust book in their classroom to provide students a book with an “opposing … perspective.” A staff member recorded Peddy instructing teachers to “remember the concepts of [House Bill 3979 ].”

The new bill instructs teachers who “discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues” to do so “from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective”…

AUKUS Is Only Half the Equation by Ryan Nabil (Summer 2016) in The Diplomat

The United States and the United Kingdom’s recent decision to expand their Asian security presence has the potential to deter China, but Washington and London should recognize its limits. The U.S. and U.K. governments need to build stronger trade and investment ties to create a sustainable and long-lasting diplomatic presence across Asia.

As China pursues an increasingly assertive foreign policy, Anglo-American strategic cooperation with regional partners like Australia could help check Chinese ambitions in the region. In September, the Biden administration and the Boris Johnson government announced a new Indo-Pacific defense alliance between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. – AUKUS for short. While the alliance will initially help Australia build a nuclear-powered submarine, it ultimately seeks to deepen trilateral security cooperation in Asia. Although the decision was seen as a snub by France, it was a welcome distraction for the Biden administration following its botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. The move was also a diplomatic win for Downing Street as it seeks to expand Britain’s diplomatic presence beyond Europe…