The State of America’s Heartland

How is America’s Heartland doing? What many elites in Washington, New York and California consider “flyover country” is essential to the safety and prosperity of the nation.

Last month the Brooking’s Metropolitan Policy Program partnered with the Walton Family Foundation to release a by-the-numbers look at economic and social conditions in the interior U.S. Trends in 19 diverse Heartland states were examined. The conclusion was that the region is doing relatively well.

According to the Factbook, “the region enjoys key strengths in advanced manufacturing, agriculture, and other exports… The Heartland’s employment rate and cost-of-living adjusted median earnings—critical measures of wellbeing—actually exceed the rest of the country. And those measures are rising in the region—meaning more people may be living more comfortably.”

Three major takeaways emerge clearly from the Factbook, as noted in its’ Executive Summary:

The Heartland economy is doing better than is sometimes portrayed. Growth measured by job and output growth have been steady, if not stellar, since 2010 with all of the Heartland states adding jobs and 18 increasing their output. Prosperity has also been slowly rising as all 19 states enjoyed increased standards of living, all 19 posted increases in the average wage, and 12 saw productivity increases. Supporting all of this, meanwhile, is an impressive base of crown jewel export industries, in particular strong concentrations of advanced manufacturing in the eastern Heartland and of agribusiness in the western Heartland. Overall, the 19 Heartland states constitute a manufacturing super-region and export powerhouse that outperforms the rest of the country on a number of core economic indicators.

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Serious deficits in the region’s human capital and innovation capacity pose the most serious challenges to improving future prosperity. On this front the factbook’s indicators depict a region that is—in most places—struggling to amass the human and technology capacity needed to support broad-based prosperity. Regarding the region’s stocks of human capital, only the Dakotas added population as fast as the rest of the nation, meaning that slow population growth—including among prized young workers—limits the region’s overall growth prospects. Worse, only three Heartland states exceeded the average B.A. attainment for the rest of the country, meaning that most places and populations in the region may be unprepared for an increasingly digitalized labor market. Turning to the region’s innovation assets, weak R&D flows, a thin roster of top universities for tech transfer, and a near-complete dearth of venture capital (VC) investment outside Chicago leave Heartland firms starved of the new ideas, new practices, and funding leveraged by firms elsewhere to drive competitive breakthroughs. Finally, lower levels of urban dynamism and epidemics of obesity and opioid use represent substantial drags on productivity and output. In sum, these deficits represent the most challenging findings of the factbook and pose the greatest hurdles to changemakers…

The good news is that even in its most challenging areas for improvement, the Heartland boasts some of the most impressive and impactful collaborations anywhere of business, civic, and government changemakers working together to solve problem.

Photo: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Judge Merchan continues to deny justice to Donald Trump

In August of 2024, we discussed the US Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States. We described the three tiered system enunciated by Chief Justice Roberts to determine whether or not the actions taken by the President of the United States are entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution or not. The first tier are acts within the President’s constitutionally mandated authority which are subject to “absolute immunity.” The next are acts that may have “presumptive immunity,” and are subject to examination with evidence that rebuts the presumption of immunity. The third are acts which are unofficial, and which enjoy no immunity. In September, we also discussed the effect this decision should have on the New York County criminal case currently pending against President-elect Trump before Judge Juan Merchan. We cited to a CNN report, which described the evidence used against Donald Trump at the trial of that matter: “Trump’s lawyers pointed to testimony at trial – including from White House officials Hope Hicks and Madeleine Westerhout – they argued should not have come before the jury…'[a]ll of Hicks’s testimony concerning events in 2018, when she was serving as the White House Communications Director, concerned official acts based on [Presidential] authority for which President Trump is entitled to absolute immunity,’ Trump’s attorneys argued. ‘[the Supreme Court’s ruling] specifically forbids prosecutors from offering ‘testimony’ from a President’s ‘advisers’ for the purpose of ‘probing the official act.’” Sure enough, as Chief Justice Roberts stated in the Presidential Immunity decision, “[a]llowing prosecutors to ask or suggest that the jury probe official acts for which the President is immune would thus raise a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the President’s policies and performance while in office. The prosaic tools on which the Government would have courts rely are an inadequate safeguard against the peculiar constitutional concerns implicated in the prosecution of a former President.” At the time, we stated that “Judge Merchan allowed testimony regarding Donald Trump’s official acts as President, acts which enjoy absolute immunity and which cannot be used against him, or even be entered into evidence in a criminal trial, a situation which could have been avoided had Judge Merchan delayed the trial until he’d received the guidance of the US Supreme Court.” Nonetheless, we predicted that Judge Merchan “will find a way to justify his actions once again, and let stand the unlawful conviction of former President Donald Trump.” You know how much we hate to say we were right…but…we were right. “This Court…finds that the evidence related to the [President-elect’s] claims relate entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections,” Judge Merchan wrote in his December 16, 2024 decision. “Further, even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence…as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence.” In so ruling, the Court denied Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his New York County conviction. Let us examine these findings, in light of the evidence admitted at the President-elect’s trial, and then compare that evidence to the acts granted absolute immunity by the US Supreme Court. In his decision, Judge Merchan discusses the testimony of Hope Hicks, who served as the Communications Director for the Trump White House. “Defendant argues that in her roles at the White House, any communications between Ms. Hicks and Defendant must receive absolute immunity…as Defendant’s ability to speak freely to Ms. Hicks was a core function of the Executive. According to Defendant, because Ms. Hicks wielded executive power on his behalf, authority that exists pursuant to Article II of the Constitution, any communications [President Trump] had with [Hicks] are subject to absolute immunity,” the Court wrote. Judge Merchan also noted that “[t]he People argue that the communications Defendant had with Ms. Hicks…constitute unofficial acts not entitled to any level of immunity.” In his inevitable agreement with the arguments presented by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office, Judge Merchan wrote “Defendant’s argument that any communication he had with Ms. Hicks is subject to absolute immunity by virtue of the position she held in the White House is mistaken…the President himself may speak in his unofficial capacity as a candidate or party leader, and certainly he can do so in his private capacity as well. Any argument that private conduct transforms into official conduct by communicating about the same to an individual with a particular title is without merit.” Thus, it is Judge Merchan’s position that the conversations Donald Trump had with his Communications Director are not entitled to immunity, even though those discussions were held at the White House, while Donald Trump was serving as President of the United States, merely because those discussions were not related to official Executive Branch activities. Sounds possibly reasonable – until you examine the Presidential Immunity decision more closely. In September, we wrote that “the statement made by Chief Justice Roberts in his majority opinion in the Presidential Immunity case [is significant]; ‘Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution…[t]estimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.’” This statement by Chief Justice Roberts points to a blanket immunity for ANY discussions had between the President and his advisors, regardless of the nature of those communications. Further, we noted that the Supreme Court issued the following warning: “[t]he government…contends that a jury could ‘consider’ evidence concerning the President’s official acts ‘for limited and specified purposes,’ and that such evidence would ‘be admissible.’” In rejecting that argument, Chief Justice Roberts states “[t]hat proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized. It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly – invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution […]