March 8, 2024
State of the Union – Biden’s Housing Proposals Would be Harmful, Not Helpful
President Biden in his State of the Union pitched a raft of proposals with the stated purpose of lowering costs for homebuyers and increasing the supply of rental units. As has been the case with dozens of housing acts passed by Congress over the last 75 years, hold onto your wallet when the federal government says it…
March 8, 2024
Jason Kelce, Family Man
In his tear-filled farewell speech, Jason Kelce brought his 13-year NFL career to a close by underlining what really mattered in life: marriage and family. The longtime Philadelphia Eagles player, who made the NFL Pro Bowl in each of the last five seasons after getting married to his wife, Kylie, in 2018, said in his retirement speech: It’s…
March 7, 2024
Jamaal Bowman’s Voting Rights Hypocrisy
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York, best known for pulling a fire alarm in the Capitol, has made voting rights a signature issue. A member of the uber-progressive “Squad” led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bowman has even engaged in a hunger strike and been arrested while protesting the Senate’s failure to suspend the filibuster rule to…
March 7, 2024
Growing Congressional Dysfunction Will Worsen Our Fiscal Problems
Few were surprised when deposed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) retired in December. While Republican leaders tend to exit quickly after losing committee gavels or leadership posts, the additional departure of other respected senior lawmakers in both parties is damaging legislative capacity on the Hill. Congress is losing the sort of policy-making veterans it needs to craft and pass important legislation. Their reasons for leaving vary and often include Congress’s general inability to pass needed legislation. That dysfunction is evident…
March 6, 2024
College or Trade School? How About Both?
For too long, our debates on post-secondary education have taken a binary form: either “college for everyone” or “learn a trade.” But in an era when career trajectories are no longer linear, and when technology is rapidly and unpredictably evolving, the ability to adapt and acquire new skills is essential. What we need instead is a…
March 6, 2024
It’s Time to Scrap the Federal Student Loan Program
It may come as a surprise, but the Biden administration has effectively abolished the federal student loan program. Well, at least if a “student loan program” is understood as one in which students borrow money and then eventually repay it. That program has been replaced by a perverse entitlement in which students borrow taxpayer funds,…
March 5, 2024
The Societal Cost of the Marriage Decline
Marriage rates are plummeting. More young people are delaying or avoiding dating altogether. Pew Research recently found that 1 in 4 40-year-old American adults have never been married. Parenthood is viewed with much greater apprehension among young people than it once was. Young women express growing reservations about starting families, and many believe marriage benefits them less than it…
March 5, 2024
A Conservative Vision for Education Reform
For two guys who just published a book about the need for a conservative vision for education policy, San Francisco has been a gift that keeps on giving. When we were writing the book, the school board, which adamantly refused to reopen schools for nearly a year, instead (unsuccessfully) devoted its energies to renaming dozens of schools — including those named for…
March 4, 2024
Teen Suicide and the Limits of Sociology
“No one, it appears, was free to just parent as they wanted to parent—free of the web of social ties that both gave their lives meaning and set firm constraints around expected behaviors.” This observation from a new book about the town of Poplar Grove—the fictional name for a real, wealthy community where there have…
March 4, 2024
As the family goes, so goes the state. Utah gets this
When it comes to realizing the nation’s most important ideals — from the American dream to the “pursuit of happiness” — Utah has a well-deserved reputation for leading out. The state has a pioneering record when it comes to maximizing the odds that poor kids make it in America and that its citizenry is happy. And the research…