Weekly Digest: Red State Blues

Welcome to my weekly digest for May 27, 2022.

For new subscribers, this contains a roundup of my recent writings and podcasts, as well as links to the best articles from around the web this week. You can control what emails you get from me by visiting your account page.

If you are a new paid subscriber, instructions for how to access the Knowledge Base, which contains an organized archive of key web links from the last several years and which I plan to continue adding content to, can be found in this post.

Matthew Stanley gave a great subscriber webinar last night with an introduction to blockchain and cryptocurrency. I will be uploading it to the Knowledge Base in the near future, but in the meantime, instructions for accessing the replay are in this post.

If you’re not yet a Subscriber, please consider becoming one today. For just $10/month, you not only help sustain and grow the mission here, but you also get access to exclusive content, podcast and interview transcripts, access to the Subscriber Knowledge Base, and special events like webinars.

Red State Blues

My debut article in the new Compact magazine is now online. It’s a summary of some of my take on red state economies, and how we need to go beyond simplistic formulas for growth.

In 2012, under Gov. Sam Brownback, Kansas passed a big tax cut, reducing the top rate to 4.9 percent, down from 6.45 percent, and eliminating taxes completely on “pass-through” businesses (where the income from the business is treated as personal income to the owners, rather than as a separate corporate entity). Not only did this not spark economic growth, Kansas underperformed the nation and its own previous track record. What the Brownback tax cut did do was cause a fiscal crisis. Large budget shortfalls necessitated cuts in services and triggered a reduction in the state’s bond rating. Eventually, in 2017, the state legislature reversed most of the cuts. The “Kansas experiment” was a failure.

…

The unpleasant reality is that an entire 23-state region I call “the Old North (the Northeast, Midwest, and Great Plains), has underperformed, with population and economies showing relative (or even absolute) decline versus the nation as a whole. Only North Dakota, with its likely temporary oil boom, has been an exception. Population growth seems to be closely linked to factors like warm January temperatures that cold-weather states can’t do anything about.

Click through to read the whole thing.

More Content and Media Mentions

Trevin Wax is continuing his interesting series at the Gospel Coalition about the relationship between Christianity and society. He’s published part two and part three.

I got another nice mention from Rod Dreher. And another one from First Things.

I got a nice shout out in the new issue of the Southwestern Journal of Theology. And a student at Virginia Commonwealth University cited me in his master’s thesis.

Mitch Daniels’ former campaign manager took strong issue with my recent post about the “truce” on social issues.

New this week:

• Unfair Criticism Can Still Be Right - I look at a recent Atlantic piece about wacky political churches and note that despite that author’s biases, he has some valid points.

• My podcast this week is a riff on a recent Michael Anton essay about conservatives not funding art and culture. Subscribers can read the transcript.

• At American Reformer, Timon Cline writes on Protestant politics and natural law, and Ben Dunson reviews Yoram Hazony’s new book on conservatism.

Note that there will be no podcast next week in honor of Memorial Day. You can listen to my podcast on Apple, Google, or YouTube.

Best of the Web

There were a number of really interesting articles this week.

Somebody sent me an essay from a new Substack by someone called “Kennaquhair” that examines the lack of a heroic feminine archetype in our modern culture and what that might look like.

American Affairs has a fantastic review of a new book about the thought of the radical Catholic critic of modernity Ivan Illich. The review is a good introduction to his thought. Illich has influenced me in a number of ways even if the practical application of his radical critiques are not always obvious.

WSJ: Does Your Mayo Need a Mission Statement? - A great look at what happened when Unilever went all in on ESG and demanded that all of its brands have a social purpose. It hasn’t worked out all that well financially. Interestingly, their one brand were a social agenda is actually congruent with the brand is the only one Unilever’s CEO doesn’t like: Ben & Jerry’s.

WaPo: The reinvention of a ‘real man’ - More advocacy for the deconstruction of masculinity.

Christianity Today: Willow Creek Church has a major layoff - attendance is down by half from pre-Covid.

Mere Orthodoxy: Why our churches should be beautiful