Bonjour! Here’s your PolicySphere morning briefing! If you were forwarded this, here’s more about who we are and what we’re doing and, of course, don’t forget to sign up and tell your friends.
NEW ON POLICYSPHERE:
What just happened with the elections in France? Here’s our analysis.
We interviewed Avik Roy of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity on what it’s like to start your own think tank.
Our analysis of last week’s Biden Executive Order on the border.
#Constitution – Important news today: the publication of the new book by Friend of the Sphere, National Affairs founder and AEI Senior Fellow Yuval Levin: American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation―and Could Again. Levin believes that America’s Red and Blue tribes can actually be made to live together and share a country, and we can learn how. We should all hope he is right. Watch this space…
#PublicHealth – A very important public health advisory from R Street’s Jeffrey S. Smith: nicotine is good for you. Seriously. Smoking is probably, on balance, bad for you, but nicotine as such has many virtues. It is essentially a natural antidepressant and also good for ADHD-like symptoms.
#Immigration – The Biden Administration’s stealth amnesty continues, with a big jump in the number of people granted “temporary protected status.” Via
#Energy #Infrastructure – “We just broke ground on America’s first next-gen nuclear facility,” trumpets Bill Gates. Sort-of. They have begun work on the non-nuclear parts of the plant, because they still don’t have NRC approval for the actual nuclear plant…
#BigScience – Striking to see that this issue is getting more mainstream media attention… The Week has a report on “the alarming rise of fake science.” This is a policy issue, as most if not all of it will have been funded, directly or indirectly, from the public purse…
#Reg – Since 1993, federal regulations were officially considered “economically significant” if they were likely to have an annual effect of $100 million or more. The Biden Administration recently raised the threshold to $200 million. More.
#Chyna #Trade – The EU is set to reveal its increased tariffs on Chinese EVs today. This is striking news because retaliatory tariffs has hardly been part of the EU’s policymaking arsenal. Retaliatory tariffs are back. If even the most pro-trade bloc in the world responds to Chinese subsidies and dumping with retaliatory tariffs, what justification does the US have?
#Healthcare #Economy – Interesting column by economist Tej Parikh in the FT looking at the puzzle of the US’s outlier-high healthcare costs. Maybe the inefficiency is part of the point as it’s a jobs program. “One interpretation is that America’s healthcare system generates more jobs and spending — and hence, GDP — in part by being inefficient and ineffective in the first place.” Sad!
#TaxPolicy – Surprising finding from the Tax Foundation: it turns out exempting groceries from sales tax is not just inefficient, it’s regressive.
#Labor – The WSJ is very unhappy about President Biden’s renomination of NLRB chair Lauren McFerran.
Chart of the Day
Via AEI’s Kevin R. Kosar: Federal government procurement of advertising (Code R702). The 2024 figure, of course, will go up.
Meme of the Day
