Trump’s economic agenda needs a Vegas test — and a Vegas win



Las Vegas is a mirror. When it works, America works. When it struggles, the problem isn’t local — it’s national.

Vegas was built on a simple idea: value. Give people a reason to come, treat them fairly, and let them choose how much risk they want to take. No lectures. No stupid political games. No government hand in your pocket every five minutes.

A great city doesn’t nickel-and-dime its customers. Value matters. People don’t expect cheap. They expect fair. That lesson applies nationally, too.

That formula built the entertainment capital of the world. And right now, it’s under pressure.

The neon lights have dimmed

Vegas is getting squeezed from both ends, and the pressure feels familiar because it’s the same pressure families across the country have felt.

Under the Biden administration, inflation surged. Housing costs jumped. Groceries, energy, airfare, and insurance rose together. Families didn’t get richer. Their dollars just bought less.

Reckless spending, energy restrictions, and regulatory overreach drove the damage. Washington acted like prices were somebody else’s problem.

Southern Nevada also felt the economic whiplash. Tourism collapsed during the 2020 lockdowns, wiping out billions and driving unemployment as high as 33% at its peak. Visitor spending returned slowly, then softened again in 2025 — after wages, rents, and debt had already risen on the assumption that demand would keep growing.

For locals trying to raise families, that meant higher baseline costs and less margin for error. Housing, rent, and transportation ate paychecks. Hospitality wages rose, but many workers still lost ground as commuting costs and rents climbed faster.

A gamble on progress

Under President Trump, the trend has started to reverse — not overnight, but directionally. Energy production is up. Supply chains have stabilized. Regulatory pressure has eased. Inflation cooled. Costs didn’t snap back, but the bleeding slowed.

That matters because affordability is competitiveness. Vegas shows what happens when value breaks.

For decades, Vegas understood the middle-class customer: a weekend trip, a decent room, a good meal, a show, maybe a little gambling — and you left feeling like you got your money’s worth.

That perception is cracking. Resort fees that feel like a second room rate. Paid parking where it never used to exist. Food and drink prices that make people stop and stare. Fees stacked on top of fees, revealed at checkout. The experience starts feeling less like entertainment and more like an airport terminal.

Visitors notice. And when people feel squeezed, they don’t just complain — they change their behavior.

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Vegas runs on volume. When fewer visitors come, fewer dollars circulate. The pain hits the dealer, the server, the bartender, the stagehand, the hotel staff, and the rideshare driver long before it reaches the executive suite.

Zoom out, and you see America facing the same dynamic.

The United States used to win because we offered the best value on earth. Not the cheapest — the best deal. A place where costs made sense and life felt attainable.

That edge has been eroding, especially in housing. When home ownership becomes a fantasy, workers can’t relocate, young families delay building stable lives, and talent looks elsewhere.

Meanwhile, competitors are building. Riyadh. Dubai. Macao. Singapore. They’re creating new tourism and entertainment hubs designed to pull dollars away from legacy markets like Las Vegas.

They’re betting America forgets how competition works.

Make Vegas Vegas again

Federal policy matters here. Washington still treats Vegas like a cash register, with outdated rules such as taxing gambling winnings and forcing IRS reporting thresholds stuck in the 1970s. That doesn’t just annoy visitors. It tells the world America doesn’t understand modern consumer behavior.

Ending the federal tax on gambling winnings isn’t radical. It’s strategic. Updating IRS reporting levels isn’t reckless. It’s realistic. Both would improve the visitor experience and help Vegas compete.

The industry also has work to do. A great city doesn’t nickel-and-dime its customers. Transparency matters. Value matters. People don’t expect cheap. They expect fair.

That lesson applies nationally, too.

America doesn’t win by lecturing consumers or ignoring affordability. America wins by making this country the best place on earth to live, work, build, and spend money.

Vegas is telling that story in real time. If Washington listens, the rest of the country benefits.

Trump has the chance to end the welfare free-for-all Minnesota exposed



It’s the $1.2 trillion question.

The United States spends roughly $1.2 trillion every year on means-tested welfare programs — cash aid, food assistance, housing subsidies, and medical care. The list runs through a thicket of acronyms: SNAP, TANF, SSI, EITC, ACTC, WIC, CHIP, ACA subsidies, and CCDBG, plus school meals, Medicaid, and Section 8 housing.

States that eliminate fraud can afford to provide better aid to real residents in need — creating a race to the top in administration rather than a race to exploit Washington.

This guaranteed-income architecture now fuels a destructive cycle. Federal spending drives debt. Debt fuels inflation. Inflation expands dependence. And Washington responds by printing more money and sending it back to the states — without demanding serious accountability.

The result is a bottomless pit of spending, fraud, and inflation, with states handed endless federal funds and almost no incentive to police abuse.

Minnesota’s massive Somali-linked fraud scandal exposes this system in its most grotesque form. The question is whether President Trump will use it to force states to reclaim ownership — and responsibility — over welfare.

The day-care, nutrition, and medical fraud uncovered in Minneapolis is not an aberration. It is the predictable outcome of an open-ended entitlement state. Fraud networks thrive wherever federal money flows without limits or consequences. While the Minneapolis cases involved tight-knit ethnic networks, the underlying problem is national and structural. As long as states do not have to pay their own way, fraud will remain rational behavior.

California offers a parallel example. A report last summer found that roughly one-third of all community college applications in the state were fake — submitted solely to extract federal financial aid. That scam could not survive if California had to pick up the tab.

It isn’t just a blue-state problem, either. As Alex Berenson has reported, Indiana’s Medicaid spending on “autism behavioral therapy” exploded thirtyfold in just six years, reaching $75,000 per child for a few hours a week of unproven playtime therapy. When federal dollars cover the bill, discipline evaporates.

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Many Americans ask how Minnesota allowed the Feeding Our Future scandal to persist for years. The answer is simple: Washington supplied unlimited money, and the state faced no budgetary consequence for ignoring warning signs.

Over 200 day-care and medical providers allegedly siphoned billions across Medicaid, child care, and nutrition programs. That scale of fraud does not occur without political indifference — or worse.

States have every incentive under this system to look away. Federal money enables a closed loop of special interests, dependency, and electoral protection. Oversight threatens the flow.

Devolving welfare programs to the states — using fixed block grants rather than open-ended federal matches — would cut this dynamic off at the knees. States must balance their budgets. They do not have a printing press. When fraud costs real money, enforcement follows.

This is the moment for Trump to make that case. Either states raise taxes to fund welfare programs themselves, or they reform and prioritize them. That choice restores democratic accountability.

Consider the contrast. The United States spends roughly $1 trillion on national defense — protecting everyone. Yet we now spend even more on means-tested welfare that serves narrower populations while distorting the economy for all. Open-ended welfare spending drives inflation, which then forces more people onto welfare. End the money-printing, and fewer people will need subsidies in the first place.

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In response to the Minnesota scandal, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget froze $10 billion in funding for TANF and the Child Care Development Fund across several states. That is a start. But temporary freezes will not survive the next Democrat administration.

The durable fix is statutory restructuring — through budget reconciliation — to force states to assume full financial responsibility for welfare programs. Without unlimited federal backstopping, abuse becomes politically and fiscally intolerable.

Critics warn that block grants spark a “race to the bottom.” The 1996 welfare reform suggests the opposite. When states gained ownership, many innovated — emphasizing work, child-care support, and fraud reduction. Accountability improved because incentives changed.

Yes, benefits should be limited to the truly needy. Open-ended entitlements allowed 250 “meal sites” to appear almost overnight in Minnesota, claiming to feed 120,000 children a day.

Force states to balance their books, and they will treat taxpayer money with respect. States that eliminate fraud can afford to provide better aid to real residents in need — creating a race to the top in administration rather than a race to exploit Washington.

The real way to “feed our future” is to end inflationary money-printing and dismantle the infinite entitlement state — so families can afford food on their own again.

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'Something has gone terribly wrong': Marriage is in 'disastrous' decline — perhaps because of women



The marriage rate has been in decline for decades, dropping from 10.6 per 1,000 people in 1980 to 6.1 in 2023. Last year, American adults were less likely to be married than at nearly any other time since the Census Bureau began logging marital status in 1940, with married couples heading only 47.1% of U.S. households.

The apparent aversion to marriage is bad news for American children, who perform better in school and are far less likely to end up in prison or depressed when raised by married parents, as well as for American adults who tend to see better health outcomes, be happier, and live longer when espoused.

'Devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences.'

Recent Pew Research Center analysis of survey data from the University of Michigan suggests that this decline may continue — especially if young women's growing resistance to marriage goes unremedied.

Whereas 20 years prior, 80% of 12th graders said that they were most likely to choose marriage in the long run, only 67% of 12th graders polled in 2023 indicated that they want to get married someday. Another 24% said they don't know if they'll get married, up from 16% in 1993.

This drop appears to have been largely driven by shifting views among girls.

In 1993, 83% of girls and 76% of boys said that they wanted to get married. In 2023, only 61% of girls said they wanted to get married — a drop of 22% — while 74% of boys indicated they wanted to ultimately tie the knot.

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Pew indicated that there was also a precipitous drop in the percentage of 12th graders who indicated they wanted to have kids if they marry.

Whereas in 1993, 82% said they wanted to have kids, in 2023, only 73% indicated they wanted to welcome new life into this world. Even more dramatically, the percentage of those who said they would "very likely" want to have kids if married dropped from 64% in 1993 to 48% in 2023.

"It's almost like decades of devaluing marriage and motherhood has consequences," wrote the Alabama Policy Institute.

Katy Faust, founder of the children's advocacy group Them Before Us, stated, "More than almost anything else trending, this terrifies me. Because of the nature of our bodies women have historically pursued marriage more. What kind of disastrous, antihuman messaging are young women being flooded with to return these kinds of results?"

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Dr. Brad Wilcox, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and director of the National Marriage Project, said the anti-nuptial trend among young women and adolescent girls was "disastrous."

Wilcox underscored that this trend reflects a particularly raw deal for women, highlighting a recent YouGov survey of U.S. women, ages 25 to 55, fielded by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institute, which found that married women with children are:

  • more likely (19%) to report being "very happy" than both unmarried women with children (13%) and unmarried women without children (10%);
  • more likely (47%) to report that life has felt enjoyable most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (40%) and unmarried women without children (34%);
  • less likely (11%) to report being lonely most or all of the time in the past 30 days than both unmarried women with children (23%) and unmarried women without children (20%);
  • more likely (51%) to receive physical affection than both unmarried women with children (29%) and unmarried women without children (17%); and
  • more likely (28%) to report their lives have a clear sense of purpose than both unmarried women with children (25%) and unmarried women without children (16%).

Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet said of the Pew report, "Something has gone terribly wrong."

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The FDA’s deadly betrayal of pro-life America



The Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a generic version of mifepristone, a drug used in chemical abortions, isn’t just another bureaucratic misstep. It’s a profound betrayal of pro-life Americans and a reckless disregard for public safety.

The agency has now accelerated the mass production of a drug that ends unborn lives and carries serious risks for women. In doing so, the FDA’s bureaucracy has made clear that it serves ideological interests, not the citizens or the administration it is supposed to answer to.

Every life matters — both the woman and the child. Without moral clarity in policy, America risks losing its foundation altogether.

Only days before the approval, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary publicly pledged to conduct a full safety review of mifepristone. That commitment lasted less than a week. By fast-tracking the generic drug, the agency reversed its own position without completing the promised review.

Mifepristone is no ordinary medication. It is designed to be 100% lethal to an unborn child and carries documented risks to the mother, including severe bleeding and infection. The FDA’s reversal isn’t a matter of procedure — it’s a moral failure dressed up as administrative routine.

For millions of Americans who value the sanctity of life, this decision feels like déjà vu: another Washington agency disregarding its duty under the cover of “regulatory process.”

The bureaucracy’s excuse doesn’t hold

Pro-life Americans — one of the largest and most enduring constituencies in the nation — have been ignored by the bureaucratic elite for decades. When confronted, officials claim they’re merely “following the law.” But the FDA has wide discretion to delay or deny authorization for drugs that raise ethical or safety concerns.

Choosing not to use that authority isn’t neutrality. It’s cowardice. It’s the decision to shrug and look away while a drug designed to end life gains wider reach.

This approval darkens what should have been a pro-life administration’s legacy. Mifepristone’s purpose could not be clearer: It ends human life. Authorizing a generic version without exhaustive review prioritizes ideology over science and convenience over conscience.

Between promise and practice

The FDA insists that further studies will follow, but the promise rings hollow. As 17 U.S. senators recently pointed out, the safety study Makary pledged during his confirmation took six months to even be announced — and was done quietly, with little public notice.

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That delay reveals the real problem: a deep-state bureaucracy operating with impunity, detached from the leadership and values of the nation it serves. When bureaucrats make decisions that contradict both policy and conscience, accountability becomes nonnegotiable.

A call to accountability and courage

The FDA must immediately identify and remove the officials responsible for this approval. It should also reconsider mifepristone’s production and distribution altogether. A drug designed to end life has no place in a nation that claims to defend the vulnerable.

The stakes could not be higher. Every life matters — both the woman and the child. Without moral clarity in policy, America risks losing its foundation altogether.

This moment demands courage, not compliance. Those who value life must stand firm, demand accountability, and work toward a future where the institutions of government defend life instead of destroying it.

Fake money fuels real pain as elites cash in and families fall behind



Think for a moment about the “speed of life.” Two centuries ago, it took months to cross the Atlantic on a wooden ship. Today, it takes five hours by plane. The Pony Express once needed weeks to deliver a message. The telegraph shrank that to seconds.

Human ingenuity has always accelerated life, but it was still bound by reality — the limits of earth’s raw materials.

On August 15, 1971, America traded reality for illusion.

Technology built from those natural parts is real, sustainable, and grounded. But when systems detach from the real world, they become artificial. They may run for a time, but they cannot endure.

Now consider money as a form of energy. Once, it was tangible: gold coins, silver dollars, bills you could hold in your hand. Even when transactions became electronic, they were still tethered to reality, with gold as their anchor. Cotton became fabric, chickens became food, gold became money. Nature set the limits.

That changed on August 15, 1971.

Faced with economic pressures, President Richard Nixon severed the dollar from gold. In doing so, he handed America’s financial energy supply to the Federal Reserve and the political class — a system now untethered from nature. Money no longer reflected real value. It was conjured from nothing. Now the government, once dependent on the real economy, had the power to create its own artificial economy.

You can’t print money to pay your bills. You live in reality. Washington escaped it — at least temporarily. The result is a false economy where the supply of “financial energy” outruns the natural world.

The treadmill effect

That’s why ordinary Americans feel like they are running on a treadmill that only speeds up. The $37 trillion in so-called “debt” isn’t debt at all. Debt requires repayment. It is the measure of money created out of thin air. When fake energy collides with real commodities, prices rise.

Look around you. Everything in your home — your chair, your phone, your groceries — is either a commodity or built from one. Oil powers the machinery that produces and delivers them. Since 2000, the cost of commodities has risen about 8% every year. Wages, in contrast, have only risen about 3% annually. That gap explains why families can’t keep up, why the middle class shrinks, and why frustration mounts. And because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, this inflation doesn’t just punish Americans — it ripples out to every nation on earth.

The burnout economy

Think of the human body. It runs on about six volts of electricity. Plug it into 220 volts and you’ll get incredible output — briefly — before the system burns out. That’s what the Federal Reserve and political elites have done to our economy: forced humanity into hyper-speed, compressing decades of natural economic activity into a few frantic years. The result is burnout — social unrest, inequality, rage, endless wars, and declining health.

Even environmental strain ties back to this misalignment. Artificial money fuels artificial demand, driving overproduction and overconsumption. Elites congratulate themselves for “managing” the system while ordinary citizens pay the price — in higher bills, weaker wages, and a constant sense of instability.

This was not inevitable. For nearly two centuries, the dollar was worth 100 cents, because it was tied to gold. Today, it’s worth about three cents. The rest has been stolen — not from us, but from the future. Tomorrow’s dollars are being dragged into yesterday’s spending. But eventually, nothing will be left to plunder. That is the endgame of artificial money: a collision between illusion and reality.

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Most Americans don’t fully understand this, but they feel it in their bones. They sense that something is wrong, that they work harder only to fall farther behind. Artificial money creates artificial problems — and artificial problems have no real solutions. Only a reckoning with reality can set them right.

Reclaim reality

Elites in Washington and on Wall Street will not save us. They are the ones benefiting from the distortion. The rest of us are left to adapt. For many, that means simplifying life, rediscovering the virtues of family, community, and localism — the parts of America still tethered to reality. In the countryside, where life is slower, you can still glimpse the America that once was.

On August 15, 1971, America traded reality for illusion. The day Nixon closed the gold window, government and elites unshackled themselves from the limits the rest of us still live under. Until we recognize that truth, we will keep chasing solutions to problems that can’t be solved — because they were never real to begin with.

DC’s crime problem is much worse than you think



After building a reputation for cutting federal jobs in Washington, D.C., the Department of Government Efficiency is now tied to an expansion of federal authority.

President Trump announced Monday he would take over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard — an unprecedented move that came less than a week after photos of a shirtless, bloodied 19-year-old former DOGE employee went viral. The president declared August 11 “Liberation Day” and vowed to end violent crime and homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Our nation’s capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

Trump’s detractors immediately pointed out that violent crime, including shootings and homicides, has been falling in the district. They’re right — on paper. Violent crime is down 26% this year, according to the city’s own numbers. But those figures are under scrutiny after accusations that officials manipulated the data.

Homicides, which are harder to fudge, are down 12%: 99 killings through August 11 compared to 112 during the same period in 2024.

Numbers alone, however, can’t capture the lived reality. Having spent the last year of my 15-year career in D.C. at the city’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I spoke with residents desperate for change. One man told me he and his pregnant wife dove to the floor when a bullet smashed through their window. Another woman worked with neighbors to demand more police patrols. Their frustrations highlight the fact that crime isn’t just a local issue but a hyperlocal one.

One activist I met has kept a memorial wall for homicide victims in his apartment since the 1990s. Some of the kids he mentored, he said, cherished the photos and videos because they were the only images they had of their fathers. In D.C., more than 60% of murders happen in just two of the city’s eight wards — far from tourist landmarks and high-end retail stores. Last August, a Democrat council member from one of those neighborhoods called for the National Guard himself after a wave of shootings.

Yet, those communities — overwhelmingly poor and black — rarely drive the political conversation about crime. Conservatives, like progressives, focus on the violence and vagrancy near their offices, homes, and favorite restaurants. That’s not a criticism; it’s human nature.

Everyone wants to feel safe where they live, work, and visit. But people from places where one murder makes front-page news can’t easily grasp how easy it is to grow numb to constant violence and disorder.

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The left has its own contradictions. Leftists had no problem with the FBI combing through a NASCAR garage when they thought driver Bubba Wallace had been the target of a hate crime. More than 90% of D.C.’s homicide victims are black, yet racial inequality in violent crime barely registers among self-described antiracists.

Likewise, in 2021, commentator Roland Martin demanded a federal crackdown on “white domestic terrorism.” But he didn’t explain how many murder victims in D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Chicago were killed by skinheads or neo-Nazis.

Whether the federal takeover will reduce crime remains to be seen. Conservatives frustrated by the government’s inability to produce the Epstein files might be overestimating how quickly crime can be cleaned up. Real change will require coordination across every level of government.

Still, my hope is simple: that whatever is done in D.C. will make it safer for residents, workers, and visitors alike. Our capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

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