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June 29, 2023

Investing in Ideas, Influencing Policy: A Guide to Think Tank Effectiveness

Executive SummaryAs donors evaluate think tank investments, this paper proposes a series of features that distinguish independent autonomous public policy think tanks and their effectiveness in influencing public policy choices. With careful consideration to the process outlined in thisreport, donors may direct think tank funding toward those with high impact. It will discuss and exemplify…

June 24, 2023

City Can No Longer Afford Life-Long Subsidies for Lucky NYCHA Tenants

If the definition of insanity involves doing the same thing repeatedly and hoping for a different result, maybe the long-troubled New York City Housing Authority, the nation’s largest, isn’t entirely insane after all.  Rather than pouring yet more money into repairs of the crumbling Fulton and Elliot-Chelsea Houses, among the nation’s oldest public-housing projects, NYCHA…

June 14, 2023

Housing in America: A Profectus Roundtable

As economic dynamism in America continues to shift the geography of economic opportunity, housing has become a top concern for a growing number of Americans. It’s clear that some areas are struggling to maintain or build enough housing to meet demand. With costs rising and preferences changing, we asked a group of experts for their…

May 31, 2023

Sending the Wrong Signals

The New York City Council has added another misguided new progressive policy to those, like bail reform and safe drug-injection sites, that make life worse for the poor in the name of helping them. By a vote of 41 to seven—and in the face of Mayor Eric Adams’s opposition—the council voted last week to pass…

May 23, 2023

Public Housing Should Have Work Rules, Too

Thanks to the debt-ceiling showdown, Republicans appear to have a fighting chance to add a work requirement for those receiving SNAP (food stamp) and Medicaid benefits. They should also turn their attention to another major federal program that fosters dependency and discourages work: housing assistance. Local experiments across the country suggest that requiring those in…

May 19, 2023

Guilty Until Proven Innocent: America Today

With the expiration of the Covid-era rule justifying the expulsion of illegal border-crossers on public health grounds, the Biden Administration, to the dismay of progressives, has gone Trumpish. Absent “Title 42,” Citizen and Immigration Services will now “presume individuals who entered the United States unlawfully are ineligible for asylum.”   This turnabout brings us back to…

May 12, 2023

Follow the Money as Hochul Floats Tobacco Ban While Pushing Legal Marijuana

Governor Hochul has floated the idea of banning all sales of tobacco products in New York State, even as she urges New Yorkers to purchase and partake of now-legal cannabis. It’s not easy to see these as consistent views — both, after all, have been shown to be products hazardous to your health.  Yet a…

May 8, 2023

An Inspiration to Freethinkers

Some of us still subscribe to the view that we didn’t leave the Democratic Party; it left us. For such apostates and freethinkers, Fred Siegel was an inspiration and a role model (though I never asked him directly about his party affiliation). His writing was the product of careful observation by one of the best-read people in…

May 1, 2023

Here’s How Hochul Can Salvage Her Goal of More Affordable Housing in NY

Notably missing from the budget the Legislature is passing is a proposal Gov. Kathy Hochul had marked as a top priority: spurring cities and towns to build 800,000 new housing units. It wasn’t fundamentally a bad idea. You don’t have to be an economist to know that if housing prices are too damn high, increasing the…

September 2, 2021

Is Civil Society Becoming a Luxury Good?

Key Points Read the PDF.