November 3, 2023
The Biden AI Executive Order: Dark Brandon or Uncle Joe?
President Biden’s executive order this week on artificial intelligence (AI) brings to mind his split media personality, which consists of the avuncular “Uncle Joe” and the more Machiavellian “Dark Brandon.” This bifurcated political personality has the advantage of keeping his opponents guessing, but in the case of the EO, it creates a policy jumble that is going…
October 31, 2023
Lawmakers Continue Trying to Revive Pandemic-Style Benefits
In 2008, Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama, famously issued Rahm’s rule: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that [is] it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Lawmakers applied Rahm’s rule liberally during the pandemic, providing record stimulus…
October 27, 2023
Food Insecurity in the US and Inflation
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has released its annual report on household food security—a survey that measures whether US households have “access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle.” The report documented the largest yearly increase in food insecurity since the Great Recession—increasing from 10.2 to 12.8 percent of all US households…
October 26, 2023
New Report Sheds Light on Expansive Biden Student Loan Forgiveness Scheme
Last week, the Urban Institute published a new report examining, in detail, the implications of President Biden’s latest scheme to forgive as much student debt as possible before the next election cycle: the SAVE repayment plan. This report brings much needed clarity to the question of exactly how Biden’s misguided attempts to forgive student debt through executive…
October 20, 2023
Value Needs to be the Next Buzzword in Higher Education
For a long time, advocates and policymakers in the higher education space were fixated on improving “access” to higher education. As a society, we recognized that higher education was a powerful tool for promoting social mobility, and helping people born into lower-income households advance financially and pursue fulfilling careers. We also realized that higher education…
October 12, 2023
Now the Administration Is Legislating on Welfare, Too
Last week the Department of Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule related to the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. TANF is the cash welfare block grant Congress created in the 1996 welfare reform law, which was central to that legislation’s efforts to promote more work and less welfare receipt. For a capital already familiar with…
October 11, 2023
CHANGING THE OFFICIAL POVERTY MEASURE WOULD HELP RICH STATES AND HURT POOR STATES
Earlier this year, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report recommended elevating the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) to the “nation’s headline poverty statistic,” and noted that the Office of Management and Budget could christen the SPM as the new official poverty measure. This action would require no Congressional input. The two interactive maps below report…
October 5, 2023
Do 60 Percent Of American Workers Have Insecure Jobs?
American Compass has a new survey out in which it finds, among other results, that “only 40 percent of workers have secure jobs.” This is the latest attempt by the outfit to portray the American economy as in dire need of “rebuilding.” The report summarizing the findings is titled, “Labor Market Not Yet Working for…
October 2, 2023
Shopping for Colleges Just Got a Little Easier for Some Students
Shopping for college can be a nightmare. As the market for consumer products has gotten easier, more transparent, and faster than ever before (read: Amazon), the market for college degrees has only gotten more and more opaque. The prices listed on college websites aren’t paid by pretty much anyone, and in order to find out…
September 26, 2023
The Gas Tax Should Not Be Eliminated
Last week, Republican Presidential candidate and former Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC) released an economic plan that would eliminate the federal excise taxes on gas and diesel. Her goal is to “help families struggling with record high gas prices.” A laudable goal, but it would be poor policy. Under current law, the federal government levies a $0.184 per…