Build back better? Then stop outsourcing our agricultural soul



Drive through our country’s heartland — past golden fields, cattle-speckled hills, and humming dairies — and you’ll see the soul of America at work. But look closer, and a bitter truth emerges: The hands harvesting our crops and milking our cows are too often foreign-born laborers here illegally or on a costly visa program.

In my state, the Idaho Dairymen’s Association admits a staggering 70% or more of dairy workers are using phony documents — illegal labor propping up Idaho’s top commodity and our country’s No. 3 milk-producing state.

Today, we’re fed a line that Americans have gone lazy, addicted to cubicles or city lights. Nonsense.

We’re told Americans won’t do these jobs. Really? From the 1880s through the 1940s, Americans built these very industries. So what changed? It’s not the workers. It’s the bosses who stopped believing in them.

American grit built our farms

Idaho’s dairies, ranches, and construction sites can thrive with American grit — if employers stop making excuses and start making offers.

Go back to the late 19th century, when Idaho’s Snake River Valley was raw desert. Local settlers — farmers, laborers, families — dug canals, built dams, and turned dust into fields of potatoes and alfalfa, as historian Mark Fiege shows in his 1999 book “Irrigated Eden.” These weren’t hired foreigners; they were Americans, mostly Western settlers, whose sweat and cooperation built an agricultural empire through the Depression and wartime into the 1940s.

Those were hard years. Yet, these people showed up, sleeves rolled, ready to work. They weren’t too soft for the sun on their necks or the ache of a long day.

Employers abandoned American workers

Today, we’re fed a line that Americans have gone lazy, addicted to cubicles or city lights. Nonsense. Some yes, but fewer than imagined. The problem isn’t our people; it’s an industry that’s forgotten how to call them home.

Don’t tell me Americans won’t work. Plenty of us still hunger for the kind of labor that smells of earth and steel — jobs that build calluses and communities. Idaho’s fields offer purpose: the roar of a tractor, the precision of robotic milkers, the quiet triumph of a harvest under wide skies.

Vice President JD Vance nailed it when he sarcastically gave in to the notion that deporting tens of millions of illegal aliens will send us back to 1960 — when homes apparently couldn’t be built without illegal labor. Absurd! The same goes for agriculture.

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These aren’t dead-end gigs; they’re the backbone of our nation. But employers need to stop acting like foreign workers are the only option. If you are one of these employers who show up to the town parade waving Old Glory, singing Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” — if you claim to be America First — then hire Americans first. Anything less is just talk.

Illegal workers cost more

Here’s where the elites squirm. As state Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen (R-Idaho) noted during a House debate, Idaho employers often admit that foreign labor isn’t even cheaper. Visas, travel, lodging, meals, and transportation add up — often rivaling what an American might earn in salary and benefits. Yet, they claim no amount of money will lure American workers.

Have they tried? Really tried? Take those bloated costs — every dime spent on foreign logistics — and pour them into wages, health plans, or housing for locals. Build training programs to teach kids how to run today’s high-tech rigs. If tech giants can sell college grads on coding in Silicon Valley, Idaho’s dairies can sell our youth on feeding America.

It’s not rocket science. It’s will.

The same elites twist unemployment numbers to prop up their narrative. They cite low jobless rates to argue that no one’s left to hire. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes a key group: able-bodied men ages 25 to 54 who’ve dropped out of the workforce entirely. They’re not working, not looking, and not counted. That forgotten group alone includes an estimated seven million Americans.

Make American farming great again

Picture this: billboards across Idaho showing a young farmer steering a drone-guided planter, grinning like he owns the future. Community colleges partnering with ranchers to train veterans and high schoolers. County fairs where dairies hand out scholarships — not just milk samples. That’s not fantasy. That’s strategy. Businesses that want loyalty don’t wait for workers to show up — they go find them.

Right now, 70% of dairy workers rely on falsified papers. That’s not a workforce. It’s a failure of imagination. Legal, local labor builds trust, strengthens communities, and proves we take sovereignty seriously.

Idaho can lead the way. America’s watching.

Employers, quit hiding behind old excuses. Redirect your budgets, roll out campaigns, and watch Americans answer the call. Lawmakers, reduce or eliminate regulations that incentivize foreign labor.

Neighbors, cheer these jobs as the honorable work they are. Picture our fields alive with Americans, dairies humming with citizens who know this land as home.

That’s not just Idaho’s future, it’s America’s. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. All it takes is the guts to try.

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America last? Not anymore as Trump targets Big Pharma



President Trump’s executive order on Monday turned a harsh spotlight on pharmaceutical companies’ long-standing practice of charging Americans far more for prescription drugs than they charge consumers in other countries.

The order’s language remains vague — it mentions only future “price targets” and possible enforcement mechanisms — but the message is unmistakable: The U.S. government will no longer tolerate paying inflated prices for drugs when European governments negotiate far lower ones.

Americans crushed by high drug costs also vote — and they can elect a president and Congress willing to rewrite the rules.

Trump’s order addresses just one part of a larger, deeply rooted problem: the runaway cost of prescription drugs in the United States. A major contributor to that cost is the pricing of patent-protected drugs, which face no competition and often come with astronomical price tags.

Pharmaceutical companies now operate under a politically dangerous business model. They enjoy government-granted patent protections to block competition, while squeezing insurers and patients to extract maximum profit. This isn’t capitalism. It’s a merger of legal monopoly and short-sighted corporate greed — a textbook example of protectionism paired with profit-maximization stripped of ethical restraint.

Legally, these companies act within their rights. But politically, they’re playing with fire. Americans crushed by high drug costs also vote — and they can elect a president and Congress willing to rewrite the rules. Trump’s executive order sends a warning. If the pressure builds, Congress will follow with legislation.

In a free-market ideal, companies compete to win consumers by offering better, cheaper products. That’s good. But when a company invents something new — especially something as vital as a life-saving drug — it deserves a temporary monopoly to recoup research and development costs. That’s why the government issues patents. This, too, is good.

Yet, once the government grants monopoly rights, we’re no longer in a purely free market. The question then becomes: What responsibility does the government have not just to the patent-holder but also to the consumers who depend on that drug for survival?

Stephen Moore, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, recently addressed one side of the debate in the Washington Times. He criticized so-called “compounders” — companies that tweak existing drugs and resell them without going through the same research-and-development and FDA approval process. Moore called these copycats unsafe and accused them of free-riding on innovation.

Compounders clearly respond to market demand but so do pharmaceutical companies charging monopoly prices under government protection. Both “cash in.” One simply does so with fewer legal barriers.

If the government takes seriously its role in enforcing patents, it must also consider whether those monopolies serve the public good — or exploit it. Monopoly pricing for essential drugs carries moral consequences. Government can’t ignore them.

This brings us to another, equally troubling aspect of the problem: the "America last" approach embedded in current drug pricing practices.

Many Americans struggle to afford life-changing medications, while pharmaceutical companies sell those same drugs overseas — at a fraction of the U.S. price. Industry defenders argue that American consumers must bear the brunt of R and D costs, allowing foreign countries to buy at lower “incremental” prices. Without those sales, they say, U.S. prices would rise even higher.

But that argument wears thin.

Charles Rotter recently posted on X that U.S. drug pricing amounts to backdoor foreign aid. “Other countries’ healthcare systems stay sustainable and affordable because American patients bankroll the difference,” he wrote. “Why should a senior in the U.S. pay dramatically more for the same pill than a senior in France, effectively subsidizing France’s national health system?”

Pharmaceutical pricing isn’t just a pocketbook problem. It reflects a broader failure to prioritize American citizens. Companies obeying the letter of the law still fail the test of loyalty and common sense. The system persists only because voters haven’t yet forced change. Trump’s executive order signals they’re starting to.

Congress could go further by revisiting patent protections and demanding greater price transparency. The message to Big Pharma should be clear: You can choose to act like responsible corporate citizens and stop bleeding patients dry, or you can wait for the government to do it for you.

If drug companies continue to exploit their monopolies, they shouldn’t be surprised when voters — and their elected representatives — decide to break them.

Trump’s pharma fix might make Reagan squirm — but it’s needed



President Trump on Monday signed an executive order to lower prescription drug prices for Americans by up to 80%. The move — called the “most favored nations” pricing policy — seeks to require pharmaceutical companies to charge U.S. consumers no more than what they charge consumers in other developed nations.

To many Americans, this may sound like simple fairness. After all, why should U.S. citizens pay two, three, or even four times more for the exact same medication than citizens in countries like France, Japan, or Canada?

When the market has been effectively captured, Trump’s executive order is not government overreach but rather a corrective intervention.

But this price disparity is not accidental — it’s systemic. For decades, the United States has quietly subsidized the rest of the world’s access to pharmaceuticals.

Global drug manufacturers earn their profits not in Berlin or Brussels, but in Des Moines and Dallas. In effect, Americans have been the financial backbone of an international pricing scheme that benefits other nations at our expense.

President Trump’s executive order directly challenges this arrangement. It stipulates that if a drug company offers a product to another country at a lower price, the United States should receive the same rate. It’s a reciprocal principle: no more preferential treatment for foreign buyers.

This is a significant departure from business as usual in Washington, and it’s not hard to see why the policy is resonating with the public. At face value, it offers a rare and overdue measure of accountability in a system where Americans are consistently overcharged for lifesaving medication. For anyone who has ever had to ration insulin, split pills, or go without treatment due to cost, this action likely feels like justice.

What free market?

But for those of us who believe strongly in the free market — and I count myself among them — this executive order raises uncomfortable questions.

In principle, I oppose government interference in pricing. I’ve long warned that when the government inserts itself into private industry, the result is usually distortion, inefficiency, and unintended consequences. History offers plenty of examples. In the 1990s, then-first lady Hillary Clinton’s health care proposals — including a federal mandate that vaccine manufacturers sell to the government at deeply discounted prices — led to supply shortages and industry retreat. When profit disappears, so does innovation and availability. That pattern tends to repeat.

So why am I not condemning President Trump’s latest move outright?

Because we no longer operate in a truly free market. In the pharmaceutical industry, the system is already so burdened with lobbying, regulation, and insurance complexity that the idea of unencumbered market exchange is little more than a fiction. Prices are not driven by consumer choice or transparent competition. Instead, they are the product of negotiations between drug companies, insurance providers, and governments — while the average American is left footing the bill without a seat at the table.

In this environment, where the market has been effectively captured, Trump’s executive order can be seen not as government overreach but as a corrective intervention. It's an attempt to level a playing field that was rigged long ago. The United States is the single largest buyer of pharmaceuticals in the world, and yet we have consistently refused to leverage that bargaining power.

Every other country negotiates drug prices. We don’t. That isn’t capitalism; it’s capitulation.

A necessary disruption

To be clear, I am not advocating long-term price controls. The risks of such policies are well-documented: reduced innovation, fewer treatment options, and deeper government dependency. But I also refuse to pretend that what we currently have is a functioning free market. It isn’t. And continuing to prop up a broken system in the name of “principle” is not conservatism — it’s negligence.

We should still scrutinize the details. We should remain skeptical. But we should also acknowledge this: The current system is unsustainable. Americans are being overcharged for medications so that other countries can pay less. Call it what you want, but don’t call it capitalism — or justice. I’d call it a redistribution scheme masquerading as market logic.

President Trump is right on one crucial point: America has been getting ripped off for far too long. His executive order is a necessary disruption to a system that has failed the very people it was supposed to serve.

It’s time we stopped playing the chump.

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Amazon is adding a 'fuel and inflation surcharge'



This past Wednesday, Amazon announced that for the first time in the company’s history, it will be charging sellers a “5% fuel and inflation surcharge.”

According to CNN Business, the new fee is being imposed because “inflation has worsened significantly in recent months.”

In a company-wide memo, Amazon said, “In 2022, we expected to return to normalcy as Covid-19 restrictions around the world eased, but fuel and inflation have presented further challenges.”

“It is unclear if these inflationary costs will go up or down, or how long they will persist,” the company said.

Patrick Graham, a spokesperson for the company, said that the fee surcharge applies only to fee rates paid by sellers that choose to use Amazon’s fulfillment services. These services include the storage, packing, and shipping of products.

Reportedly, sellers who do not use Amazon’s fulfillment services will not be impacted.

Amazon’s fee is the latest example of how businesses are reacting to soaring energy costs and the general increased cost of goods and services due to inflation.

Last month, Lyft — the popular ridesharing service —announced that it was adding a surcharge of 55 cents to each ride given in order to offset the surging price of gasoline.

ABC News reported that all of the money being generated through this surcharge will be given directly back to Lyft’s drivers and that it would remain in place for “at least the next 60 days.”

In mid-March, Uber announced a similar initiative to that of their competitor. Uber announced that it would tack on a 45 to 55 cent surcharge on all of its rides and add a 35 to 45 cent surcharge on all Uber Eats deliveries.

However, drivers said the surcharge reimbursements they would be receiving from their employers weren’t enough.

According to a blog from “The Rideshare Guy,” 43% of Uber and Lyft drivers said they were driving less or quitting their rideshare gigs because of the rising cost of fuel.

These rising costs, and the little relief drivers received, prompted them to organize a protest in front of Uber’s Manhattan headquarters.

The new surcharge Amazon is implementing on its sellers could trickle down and affect consumers as retailers seek to pass along the rising cost of hosting their businesses on Amazon.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that suppliers raised their prices by 11.2% in March as inflation raised 8.5% year-over-year.

In the company-wide memo, Amazon said, “Like many, we have experienced significant cost increases and absorbed them, wherever possible, to reduce the impact on our selling partners. When we did increase fees, we were focused on addressing permanent costs and ensuring our fees were competitive with those of other service providers.”