Chris Edwards My National Review op-ed today examines subsidies for wind power, solar power, lithium batteries, and electric vehicles (EVs). The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) included about $1 trillion in subsidies for these and other ostensibly green technologies. Next year, the Republicans will aim to cut these subsidies to trim deficits and level the playing field in the energy ...
David Inserra, Jennifer Huddleston, Jack Solowey, Travis Fisher, & Erec Smith The incoming Trump administration, the 119th Congress, and new policymakers in state legislatures face many issues they can and should tackle. Among the issues that have drawn policymakers’ attention is the rapid development of new technologies. Technology has heralded many advancements in our society. From greater expression, knowledge, community, ...
Andrew Gillen Note: This post updates last month’s post. The biggest changes from last month include: Split the HEA plan into two parts to account for the newly proposed hardship plan, and adding the latest batch of loans forgiven, $4.5B via the Public Service Loan Forgiveness plan. Mass student loan forgiveness is terrible policy (see this report for a comprehensive list ...
George Selgin Photo by Kanchanara@Unsplash This summer witnessed a major new plot twist in the Bitcoin saga. Originally conceived of as a revolutionary grass-roots alternative to established fiat currencies, including the US dollar, the twist has Bitcoin serving not to counter but to fortify the US dollar’s status as the world’s most popular exchange medium. Although it has somewhat earlier ...
Chelsea Follett This Thanksgiving comes in the wake of an emotional election that left some celebrating and others mourning. In such a charged political moment, it can be hard to focus on the big picture. Amid the continued effects of pandemic-era inflation, the ravages of natural disasters such as Hurricane Helene, intensifying culture wars, not to mention ongoing actual wars ...
David Inserra The Australian government pulled its misinformation bill after the revised version continued to face domestic backlash and international criticism for empowering the government to police online speech. The bill would have allowed the government to censor speech based on vague, contradictory standards that would all but guarantee biased enforcement by the government of the day. But before we ...
Jack Solowey When thinking of tech antitrust, the Biden administration’s quixotic campaign against the likes of Meta, Google, and Amazon probably comes to mind. But in addition to suits against big-name Internet platforms, the Justice Department filed an antitrust case this fall against a decidedly more retro network: Visa. According to the September 24, 2024 complaint, Visa’s debit card network ...
Clark Packard In anticipation of the Thanksgiving holiday this week, the Cato Institute published a new essay from Philip G. Hoxie entitled “Globalization Helps Feed the World.” Part of Cato’s ongoing Defending Globalization project, the essay documents how American farmers benefit from access to global export markets while trade exposure enhances the productivity of domestic farms and ranches. Likewise, Hoxie ...
Jeffrey A. Singer On November 25, the New York Times reported that President-elect Donald Trump intends to punish Americans by making them pay more for goods—including domestic manufacturing inputs—imported from Canada, China, and Mexico (our three largest trading partners) until the US wins the war on drugs. Trump ignores the fact that illicit drugs are largely smuggled by US citizens through ...
Marc Joffe Every time I look into a rail project on the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA’s) Capital Investment Grant (CIG) dashboard, I feel like I am peeling a new and unique onion. Each project seems semi-plausible at first, but once I delve into the details not shown in each project’s FTA profile, it becomes obvious that we’re looking at another ...