July 2, 2023
New York’s Quality of Life Budget: Focus on Improving Conditions for Everyday People First
With no little fanfare, the City Council passed legislation requiring New Yorkers to separate their food waste for composting. Unmentioned amidst the claims for environmental progress was the fact that, even in a less aggressive plan included in Mayor Adams’ budget, the city would have to add 158 collection trucks to its sanitation fleet, at a…
June 30, 2023
Democrats Call Biden’s Economy “Savage” in Attempt to Revive Child Tax Credit
With unemployment near record lows and President Joe Biden running for reelection, some Democrats recently offered an unexpected take on the U.S. economy: It stinks, especially for low-income families. During a recent Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) thundered that parents are currently “scraping by … in this savage economy,” burdened with “some of the lowest…
June 30, 2023
House Republican Plan Penalizes Marriage
We just got more bad news about marriage. A record-high 25% of 40-year-olds in the United States were never married in 2021, according to sobering new statistics from the Pew Research Center. That statistic compares to just 6% of never-married 40-year-olds in 1980, underscoring marriage’s falling fortunes in recent decades. Digging further into the Pew data reveals that this retreat from…
June 30, 2023
The U.S. Could Learn a Lot from This School in the U.K.
Last month, I took advantage of a trip to the U.K. to spend a day observing at London’s legendary Michaela School, which serves about 800 students ages eleven to 18, a short distance from Wembley Stadium. Katharine Birbalsingh, who has gained fame in her country (some say infamy) as “Britain’s strictest headmistress,” invited me for an entire day…
June 30, 2023
It’s Time to End Legacy Admissions
The Supreme Court’s decision in the UNC and Harvard cases was received, as most news is these days, in two quite different ways on the two sides of our political aisle. But one theme seemed to resonate with both supporters and opponents of affirmative action: that in the spirit of ending unfair admissions practices, elite…
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 28, 2023
Yes, College Is Still a Good Investment
A four-year degree still pays dividends—but now’s a great time for young people to snap up some on-the-job experience, too. Another graduation season is in the books. Some students have finished high school and are thinking about their next steps while others have just finished college and are wondering if it was worth it. They…
June 28, 2023
Is ‘Bidenomics’ Even a Thing, Really?
The White House is saying that President Biden’s speech today in Chicago will be on the subject of “Bidenomics.” The choice to use that term is a meaningful one, according to the Financial Times: Biden’s move reflects growing confidence inside the White House that he can gain more political credit for his sweeping economic legislation, which has pumped…
June 27, 2023
House Republican Plan Penalizes Marriage
If there was something liberals used to hate most about welfare reform, it was policies that promoted more work and smaller welfare caseloads. For example, during debate about 1996 reforms, Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) asked what would happen to families if they didn’t meet proposed work requirements: “Do we put them on trains and send them out West?” Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) said those reforms “can only encourage a…