• President Donald Trump is reportedly leaning toward tolerating this week’s budget deal — a House vote is slated for Thursday — but that doesn’t mean he’s acquiescing to the deal’s lackluster allocation of border-barrier funding. According to The Daily Caller, “Trump said Tuesday that he is ‘looking over all aspects’ of the border security deal dreamed up by a bipartisan congressional committee to avoid another partial government shutdown.” Marc Thiessen proposes utilizing the sequester.

• “The national debt surpassed $22 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, a milestone that experts warned is further proof the country is on an unsustainable financial path that could jeopardize the economic security of every American,” USA Today reports. The piece editorializes that “the national debt has been rising at a faster rate following the passage of President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax-cut package,” but runaway entitlement and welfare programs are and will continue to be the primary driver of debt, which, unfortunately, neither party will address. Erick Erickson rightly says, “More so than climate change, the national debt is a national security issue.”

• Bipartisanship and conservation are good, but when is enough federal land enough? “The Senate on Tuesday passed the most sweeping conservation legislation in a decade, protecting millions of acres of land and hundreds of miles of wild rivers across the country and establishing four new national monuments honoring heroes including Civil War soldiers and a civil rights icon. The 662-page measure, which passed 92 to 8, represented an old-fashioned approach to dealmaking that has largely disappeared on Capitol Hill.” (The Washington Post)

• The new governor of California, Democrat Gavin Newsom, is partially diverting from his predecessor’s agenda by constraining high-speed rail. This week he stated, “Let’s be real. The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A.” He’s right, but the decision is also antithetical to the Democrat Party’s “Green New Deal.”

• “After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigation into the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia,” NBC News reports. Yet “House Democrats plan a vast probe of President Trump and Russia — with a heavy focus on money laundering — that will include multiple committees and dramatic public hearings, and could last into 2020,” Axios reveals. No matter how many times they fail, Democrats will keep hunting for a crime.

• More Comey corruption: “Over two years after the fact, newly released FBI emails obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirm that James Comey’s FBI attempted to work out a quid pro quo deal with the Obama State Department to help minimize the Hillary Clinton private email server scandal just weeks before the 2016 election.” (The Daily Wire)

• Troll level: Master: “Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday that the Senate will vote on the Green New Deal resolution,” National Review reports. “‘I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal. And we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate. Give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal,’ McConnell said with a sly smile during a Tuesday press conference.” Ironically, its sponsors fiercely object.

• According to CBS Miami, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo “blamed budget shortfalls on the state of Florida. He said New Yorkers are fleeing to the sunshine state to save big time on taxes.” Census Bureau data affirms this. American Legislative Exchange Council chief economist Jonathan Williams, in a piece titled “Americans continue their march to low-tax states,” says, “Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Arizona led the way this past year in overall population growth as a percentage of population. Once again, Texas and Florida were the big winners in overall population gains, with the Lone Star State gaining more than 379,000 residents from 2017-18 and the Sunshine State posting a gain of more than 322,000. The big net losers from the report were New York, which lost a total of 48,510 residents, and Illinois, which lost 45,116.”

• There is noteworthy disapproval in New York regarding Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s abortion fixation. Current polling shows that his approval rating is at a career-low 43% — a month-over-month drop of eight percentage points. Even worse, his “excellent” or “good” performance rating is at a paltry 35%, whereas 64% of respondents call his performance “fair” or “poor.” Tony Perkins says, “Contrast that with President Trump, who, after doubling down on the culture of life, is enjoying the highest approval rating (52 percent) since 2017.” (The Federalist)

• Following 35 hours of deliberations by a Brooklyn federal jury, former drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman “now faces life in a maximum-security federal prison,” the New York Post reports. El Chapo was a serial prison escapee in Mexico who raked in billions of dollars via drug trafficking. Sen. Ted Cruz recommends funneling that money toward a border barrier.

• Policy: “The Social Security 2100 Act doesn’t live up to the rhetoric,” Andrew Biggs contends in National Review. Read more on “Why Social Security Expansion May Stiff the Poor.”

• Policy: “Twenty-nine states have reformed their civil-forfeiture laws since 2014. Fifteen states now require a criminal conviction for most or all forfeiture cases. And the recent skirmish over forfeiture laws here in Mississippi — a ‘law and order’ state by any measure — illustrated that the voting public does not believe there is a contradiction between upholding due process and enforcing the law.” (National Review)

For more of today’s editors’ choice headlines, visit In Our Sights.