Wednesday Edition

Democrats and Republicans both agree there’s a big problem at the U.S. border, but have philosophical differences on how to solve it. (Reuters)

Democrats focus more on managing border arrivals efficiently and funding, rather than strictly discouraging illegal immigration: They say the U.S. needs to hire more border agents, processing staff, asylum review officers, and judges to clear the backlog of 3 million cases in immigration court. President Biden has hinted he’s open to new restrictions on asylum claims and expanding deportation authority, but other Democrats oppose reducing access to asylum.

The GOP is pushing tougher enforcement: Republicans want to reinstate Trump-era restrictions, end certain Biden policies that allow migrants to enter legally for humanitarian reasons and have proposed a bill (H.R. 2) that would effectively end asylum access at the U.S.-Mexico border. They’re also calling for a border wall and increased authority for rapid deportation of migrants.

House Speaker Mike Johnson on President Biden’s latest border security funding request: “Of that funding, much of it falls within the parameters of managing the crisis –processing tents, medical services, consumables, etc. – that have little to do with actual border security and interior enforcement and more to do with processing illegal immigration into the interior as fast as possible, arguably to hide the humanitarian crisis from public view.”

Obama Treasury Secretary Steven Rattner on the broader question: “In the long run, we need to come to a national consensus on how many immigrants we want to accept and the bases for determining who is chosen.”

From a fiscal conservative view, the 2024 budget deal House Speaker Mike Johnson just struck with Democrats isn’t all that bad considering the looming government shutdown and Republicans’ thin House majority. (WSJ)

What’s in it?

• Fiscal year 2024 discretionary spending is set at $1.59 trillion, adhering to a previous debt-ceiling agreement.

• Defense spending will total $886 billion, non-defense is $704 billion.

• A $69 billion domestic spending increase agreed to by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has now been partially offset by a $10 billion cut in the IRS budget (a $20 billion total decrease in FY2024), and an additional $6.1 billion was saved from unspent Covid-era funds.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board’s take on the deal: “Overall, domestic discretionary spending remains essentially flat, while defense dollars increase by roughly 3%. … House Freedom Caucus members are denouncing the deal as a sellout, but they always do. Could they do better with a three-seat margin in the House and Democrats in charge of the Senate and White House?”

Members of Congress will now work to get the deal passed before the first shutdown deadline of Jan. 19, with a deadline for remaining agencies set for Feb. 2.

Critics who claim the SATs are biased against disadvantaged students and bad at predicting college success are wrong, argues The New York Times’ David Leonhardt in a new essay. (NYT)

A new paper from researchers at Harvard University:

• Students with higher SAT/ACT scores tend to have higher first-year college GPAs.

• High school GPA is a poor predictor of college academic success.

• Test scores do not show bias against students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

Campus tensions tied to identity and equity have flared up lately: Many elite colleges phased out SAT and ACT admissions requirements during the pandemic. The Supreme Court last year gutted race-conscious admissions policies.

Leonhardt: “The debate over standardized testing has become caught up in deeper questions about inequality in America and what purpose, ultimately, the nation’s universities should serve. But the data suggests that testing critics have drawn the wrong battle lines. … Restoring the tests might also help address a different frustration that many Americans have with the admissions process at elite universities: that it has become too opaque and unconnected to merit.”

Young American men are becoming more Republican, according to Gallup data obtained by American Enterprise Institute Survey Center on American Life director Daniel Cox. (X)

In 2013, 38% of men age 18 to 29 identified as Republicans. That number increased to 49% in 2023, with most being independents who lean GOP.

There’s been a growing ideological divide between young men and women. In 2021, 44% of young women identified as liberal, compared to only 25% of young men, creating a nearly 20-point gender gap, per Gallup polling. A decade ago, similar numbers of young men (27%) and young women (30%) considered themselves liberal.

Cox last year on the ideological gender divide: “Young women have lived through a succession of seismic events, including the #MeToo movement, the election of Donald Trump and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, all of which profoundly shaped their politics. These events had far less influence on the politics of young men.”

Amid a homicide spike in Washington D.C., the city’s council yesterday postponed a controversial vote to allow a convicted murderer to join the city’s 17-person criminal sentencing commission. (WaPo)

If appointed, Joel Caston, a former inmate who spent 27 years in prison for murder, would draft and modify criminal sentencing guidelines. While behind bars in 2021, he won a seat on the D.C. Advisory Neighborhood Commission, marking the first time an inmate was elected to a public office in the city. D.C.’s top federal prosecutor has spoken out against Caston’s appointment.

The concerns about Caston’s nomination are part of a broader debate over whether D.C. is too soft on crime:

• Violent crime in the District rose 39% compared to the previous year.

• While homicides declined in most large U.S. cities last year, D.C. experienced its deadliest year since 1997, with 274 homicides and a 35% increase in its murder rate.

• 56% of criminal arrests were not prosecuted in D.C. in 2023, a slight improvement from 2022, but still higher than nine of the past 10 years and nearly double 2013's rate.