The economic shock from the shutdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic were unprecedented. Never had state governors imposed stay-at-home orders that cut people off from their lives and livelihoods. Those costly policies were bad enough, but then came historic increases in deficit spending and money creation. While these may have been well-intentioned policies early on, their repercussions—amplified by misguided …
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When Uvea was 9, Oregon’s foster care agency couldn’t find a placement in-state, so it sent her to Montana—to a poorly supervised facility where she was drugged, physically restrained and verbally abused by facility staff. “Can I say the two words she called me?” Uvea asked a lawmaker during a later legislative hearing. “They made me feel very uncomfortable. She called …
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When the Houston Chronicle reported on the Biden administration’s plans for offshore wind in the Gulf of Mexico last fall, it illustrated the piece with an old photo of construction of the Deepwater Wind project off Block Island. An old photo—because now, less than six years later, Deepwater Wind, with a grand total of five turbines, is a disappointment. It cannot reliably produce …
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Americans have less money than they had last year—though taxes haven’t been raised. So what’s the problem? Inflation, which has increased at a 40-year high annual pace of 7.9%. It acts as a hidden tax because we don’t see it listed on our tax bills, but we sure see less money on our bank accounts. In fact, inflation-adjusted average hourly earnings …
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In recent years, there’s been a growing consensus that the “Success Sequence” is a key pathway to avoiding poverty. Unfortunately, this prevailing theory doesn’t fully account for circumstances beyond one’s control. We need a more holistic approach to poverty prevention and alleviation. Brookings Institution fellows Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill originally coined the “Success Sequence” in their book, Creating an Opportunity …
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An MSNBC headline reporting on a recent interview of a White House economic advisor Jared Bernstein claimed that America has a “booming economy.” But that’s not what most Americans think about the economic situation. The University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index for March, which gauges how consumers feel about the economy, fell to a decade low at 59.4. This is a 5.4% drop from …
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Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman once famously derided the idea that government can spend money at nobody’s expense. He cheekily called it: “the free lunch myth.” That’s true even in Tyler, Texas. Friedman’s point—which remains as true today as it was back then—is that government doesn’t have any money of its own, and so every dollar it spends on programs …
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Zero. That’s how many people were convicted by a federal jury in Rhode Island last year. The state’s federal judges handed out dozens of prison sentences, amounting to hundreds of years, yet not a single year of prison resulted from a jury verdict. So much for the vaunted Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial. Which, by the way, is …
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Here’s to the physicians, the globally recognized heroes of the COVID-19 pandemic. This National Physicians Week, let’s show our appreciation with more than “thank you” billboards and heartfelt commercials. Over the last two years, physicians have been revered as courageous warriors. While this recognition is warranted, a pat on the back is little in comparison to the gift that good …
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Last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill putting the brakes on critical race Theory (CRT) in the classroom. CRT is a familiar term to most college graduates: it’s a worldview rooted in cultural Marxism, critical theory, and postmodernist theories. Although you’d think an idea like this wouldn’t be found in a deep red state—and certainly not Texas—CRT is everywhere. It …
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