‘These accounts clearly are designed as a capitalist alternative’

‘“Trump Accounts” give babies a boost — but do nothing to help parents with today’s costs’

Chicago Tribune editorial board

Parents have “another option in the form of the newly created so-called Trump Accounts,” which allows a “$1,000 taxpayer-funded deposit for every child born in 2025 through 2028,” says the Chicago Tribune editorial board. But “Trump Accounts will do nothing to address the real affordability crisis plaguing American families.” A “$1,000 ‘thank you’ from the government for procreating, accessible 18 years down the line, doesn’t put food on the table now or purchase clothes for ever-growing kids.”

Read more

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

‘The ever-present panic about America’s schools’

Idrees Kahloon at The Atlantic

The “recent war over the use of critical race theory in schools was really about whether teachers were imposing a radical and harmful curriculum designed by out-of-touch, highly educated elites,” says Idrees Kahloon. The “suspicion that Americans are becoming more illiterate has long been irresistible to the educated class.” But “across time and cultures, we hear the alarm of declinism.” Perhaps the “kids have simply never been all right in the eyes of their elders.”

Read more

‘Mark Kelly in 2028?’

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) has “recently emerged as a fierce moral counterweight to this administration,” says Renée Graham. As the “White House looks for goats to scape, Kelly is excoriating this administration with passion and precision.” If “Kelly, 61, has presidential aspirations, he’s unlikely to announce them anytime soon. But whatever he is called to do, his voice is welcome and right on time in this fearsome moment.” Believe “Kelly when he says he won’t be cowed or silenced.”

Read more

‘What Syrians want’

Salma Al-Shami and Michael Robbins at Foreign Affairs

A “year after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, Syria remains a country very much in transition,” say Salma Al-Shami and Michael Robbins. To “figure out how Syria can best rebuild, its leaders and international supporters must understand the wants and needs of the country’s citizens.” New survey results “provide reasons to be optimistic about Syria’s future.” The “new government has bought itself time to transform the country,” but “eventually, the honeymoon will end.”

Read more