Terrorism as a career choice, Biden’s ‘tax cut’ baloney and other commentary

Eye on Palestine: Terrorism as a Career Choice

The Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay program,” which offers terrorists and their families compensation based on how much harm they do, “sends a clear message,” observes Gadi Taub at Tablet: “Killing Jews is not just a religious calling” and a “political mission” but also “a way to make a living.” You can get eight times the PA’s minimum wage if your terrorist act is so horrific that it draws a 30-year sentence. And that’s “just one thread” of a Palestinian culture that promotes “jihad.” Experts “concur that PA indoctrination” — notably, via schools — “is a greater source than Hamas of genocidal hate.” So: “The idea that the way forward in Gaza is for Hamas to be replaced” by a revitalized PA is “a risible exercise in wishful thinking.”

From the right: Biden’s ‘Tax Cut’ Baloney

“Taking from the rich to give more to working (and even non-working) families is a familiar theme in Democrats’ income redistribution playbook, but the Biden administration’s latest tax cut rhetoric is . . . misleading, as it is designed to mask major federal benefit expansions,” warns Matt Weidinger at The Hill. “The administration is playing a deceptive game involving ‘refundable tax credits,’” which are “a growing class of benefit checks paid by the IRS to adults who don’t earn enough to owe federal income taxes.” “Overall, a combined 83 percent of the cost of the three proposals is from benefit expansions,” and just 17% “of the cost involves relief for those who pay taxes.”

Woke watch: What Went Wrong at Boeing

City Journal’s Chris Rufo shares a company insider’s take on Boeing’s woes: “We have a marginalization of the people who build stuff.” How? Well, “status games rule every boardroom in the country” and “DEI got tied to the status game” — yet DEI “is anti-excellence, because it is ill-defined, but it became part of the culture and was tied to compensation. Also, “the headquarters in Arlington” is “an empty executive suite.” “The purpose of the company is now ‘broad stakeholder value,’ including DEI and ESG. This was then embraced as a means to power, which further separated the workforce from the company. And it is ripping our society apart.”

Foreign desk: West’s Double Standard for Israel

Israel’s accidental killing of seven aid workers in Gaza sparked outrage from Western leaders, including President Biden and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. Yet “there is something off,” argues Brendan O’Neill at the Spectator, about the “finger-wagging.” “From Cameron to Biden, powerful men who have been involved in wars far more horrific and far less justified than Israel’s war on Hamas, are now pontificating against the Jewish State.” US and UK friendly fire has killed lots of innocents over the years. “Terrible accidents happen in war,” but “it seems Israel is the only state not allowed to make mistakes. Where us decent Westerners kill friends in error,” the logic goes, “Israel does it intentionally, with malice at its heart.” “This isn’t ‘anti-imperialism’— it’s the attempted rehabilitation of Western prestige.” “The double standards are staggering.”

Opioid journal: Oregon Recriminalizes Hard Drugs

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek this week signed a law to recriminalize the possession of small amounts of hard drugs, reversing a 2020 ballot measure. “In a far-from-shocking” dashing of progressive hopes, the Washington Examiner’s Zachary Faria points out, “an increase of hundreds in overdose deaths followed,” surging “from 472 in 2020 to 738 in 2021 to 956 in 2022.”

And the state “still has a massive amount of work to do.” “Homelessness and homicides are also up from 2020, and the social decay from tolerating crime will take a lot longer to rectify.” Oregon’s experiment with drug decriminalization is “another example of the faulty premise of “criminal justice reform” failing its test against reality.” The state “is fixing its mistake, but it comes four years and hundreds of overdose deaths too late.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board