Articles

Let the Great Man of History Cook

Your correspondent is highly sympathetic to the proposition that lithium battery electric vehicles are, to use a highly oversimplistic and not-at-all-controversial term, a scam. While battery efficiency has been improving, there is good physics to suggest that there is a hard limit and they will never get to the point where they can afford as much range and convenience as gas cars.

Sep 6, 2024

The House Permitting Reform Bill Is Quite Good

Your correspondent is still in San Francisco for the Reboot Conference. And it looks like today's big policy news is tech related, which is that the draft of the House version of the permitting bill has been released.

Sep 5, 2024

Hello from San Francisco!

We apologize for yesterday's Briefing being missing, as a consequence of a plane with malfunctioning wifi. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sep 4, 2024

Did The Third Circuit Just Kill Section 230? (Plus Friday Essays)

This is Matt Stoller’s takeaway from a recent Third Circuit decision. We don’t have to tell you how far-reaching the implications could be if this ruling–which is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court–is confirmed.

Aug 29, 2024

A New Baby Bonus Proposal

In a recent article for American Compass, EPPC’s excellent family policy scholar Patrick T. Brown (you should read his newsletter) proposes an innovative and straightforward approach to supporting new parents: a $2,000-per-parent “baby bonus.”

Aug 28, 2024

Does SCOTUS Have It In For the Administrative State?

We all know about Loper Bright. But in a recent article at Commentary, Adam J. White argues that overturning Chevron is part of a broader pattern by the Supreme Court to rein in the administrative state and restore some resemblance between the current state of affairs and the separation of powers as envisaged in the Constitution.

Aug 27, 2024

An Overview of Research on AI in Education

AI as an Efficient Grader: One of the most promising applications of AI in education is its ability to grade short-answer questions. Recent studies have shown that advanced AI models like GPT-4 can grade almost as accurately as human teachers, but with significantly greater speed.

Aug 26, 2024

Why This Cardiac Care Proposal Misses a Beat

Like many on the right, on the center, and even on the sane left, I am an enormous admirer of Bjorn Lomborg. The Swedish statistician has made a name for himself by responding to the craziest claims and prescriptions of radical environmentalists regarding topics such as climate change, with sober analysis.

Aug 25, 2024

Don’t Forget The Disastrous Breton (Plus Friday Essays)

It’s easy (and correct) to simply be outraged at the arrogance of an EU bureaucrat having the audacity to comment on an American businessman hosting a conversation with an American political candidate on an American website.

Aug 22, 2024

Clearance Rates Are A Basic Indicator Of State Capacity

In the 1960s, police cleared (through arrest or exceptional means) around 90% of homicides. By 2020, that rate had fallen to about 54%. For other violent crimes like aggravated assault, clearance rates dropped from over 80% to under 50%. Property crimes have seen even steeper declines, with burglary clearances falling from over 50% in the 1960s to around 14% in 2020.

Aug 21, 2024

The Truth About Mpox

The time of Covid is the time everyone would like to forget. It’s just too traumatic. Thankfully, the Brownstone Institute was founded in the era of Covid to try to apply some of the lessons learned to public health.

Aug 20, 2024

A Newsletter That Is Not About The DNC Convention

EPPC’s Patrick T. Brown is one of the sharpest minds working on family policy in DC, and has been a day-one subscriber and supporter of PolicySphere (hi Patrick!). This is why you should follow him on X and subscribe to his weekly newsletter covering family policy.

Aug 19, 2024

The Xylazine Plague; Also, Introducing Our New Article Series 🇺🇸

Millennium Health is a drug testing company that monitors drug use for drug addiction treatment centers. They publish “Signals Reports” on emerging drug use trends based on urine drug test samples across the country.

Aug 18, 2024

Solved Policy Problems Are Solved (Plus Friday Essays)

We almost titled this “Don’t take the Good Lord’s children for wild ducks,” except nobody would have gotten the reference to the great midcentury French screenwriter and director Michel Audiard. An American phrase carrying the same meaning would be “Don’t ____ on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

Aug 15, 2024

Price Controls Are Bad

The Soviet Union implemented widespread price controls starting under Stalin in the late 1920s, which lasted until the end of the Soviet era. Price controls were intended to keep prices low and stable, especially for basic goods and food.

Aug 14, 2024

Religious Dads Are More Engaged (And That’s Important)

Yesterday, we learned two things. First, Vox.com still exists. Second, it has published a hit pieced about what it calls “The right’s plan to fix America: Patriarchy 2.0” full of innuendos and dark warnings about the right’s concerns about broken families and collapsing birth rates.

Aug 13, 2024

More On JD Vance’s Tax Credit Vision (Plus Trump’s Elon Interview)

In 2006 (we may as well say the dark ages), Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam wrote a book about how the Republicans should reach out to the working class. One of their ideas was a child tax credit.

Aug 12, 2024

Kamala’s ‘No Tax on Tips’ Caper

Your regular correspondent, Pascal Emmanuel Gobry, is out today with a (non-life-threatening, we are happy to say) surgery. He will be back soon, but the morning briefing will continue… written by PolicySphere’s mysterious special correspondent.

Aug 11, 2024

Tim Walz’s Extreme Environmental Record (Plus Friday Essays)

There seems to be a theme with Tim Walz: the demeanor of a moderate Midwestern dad, and a radical political record.

Aug 8, 2024

Farms Of All Sizes Feed The World

This is the title of a new article by David Bell at the Brownstone Institute, whose coverage of public health issues and agricultural issues has been consistently stellar.

Aug 7, 2024

Immunotherapy Could Cure Cancer, But The FDA May Be In The Way

We first heard of immunotherapy as a potential quasi-miracle cure for cancer in the 2010s, around the time Sean Parker launched a foundation to fund cancer immunotherapy.

Aug 6, 2024

The Policy Angle to Kamala Harris’ VP Pick You May Not Have Noticed

As you know, we try to stay away as much as possible from horse race politics news, here. (If you don’t trust us, read our latest article, which is on monetary policy!)

Aug 5, 2024

Le Black Monday

Your correspondent writes and edits this newsletter, but he is also the Founder and CEO of the company that publishes it, which means he has to do business things like raise money.

Aug 4, 2024

Rocket Man Bad (Plus Friday Essays)

Hey, remember how two astronauts are stranded on the ISS because of a bad Boeing return vehicle?

Aug 1, 2024

The Social Contract

One of the funniest meme creators on the Francophone version of X dot com goes by the pseudonym of Bouli. Bouli’s most famous meme is philosophical (appropriate for a Frenchman) and titled Le Contrat social, The Social Contract.

Jul 31, 2024

Opportunity Zones Considered Harmful

So-called “Opportunity Zones” have been a standby of conservative policy recommendations for troubled urban areas, going all the way back to the Reagan era. The TCJA created the OZ program to spur investment in low-income communities. 8,764 census tracts were designated as OZs in 2018. The way it works is that investors can defer and potentially reduce capital gains taxes by investing in Qualified Opportunity Funds (QOFs) that invest in OZs.

Jul 30, 2024

$35T

The national debt has officially hit $35 trillion. What is even more striking is that it reached $34 trillion just 209 days ago.

Jul 29, 2024

As KOSA Goes Up For A Vote, A Refresher

KOSA will get a floor vote in the Senate, likely this week. Its bipartisan sponsors are aiming to get the House to pass it and have it on the President’s desk before the August recess–a tight timeline.

Jul 28, 2024

More On The Construction Business And Housing Prices

It’s truly a privilege to write for such an elite group of subscribers. After yesterday’s article exploring the possibility of a link between the boom-and-bust nature of the construction business and housing prices, a subscriber who wishes to remain anonymous reached out.

Jul 25, 2024

Is The Cost Of Housing Driven By The Boom-And-Bust Cycle In The Construction Sector?

During his Convention speech, Republican Vice-Presidential nominee JD Vance had this to say about the rising cost of housing (from the text of the speech): “The absurd cost of housing is the result of SO MANY failures of America’s leadership class. And I can tell you exactly how it happened.

Jul 24, 2024

UBI: Still A Terrible Idea

Who should you trust: the Science, or your lying eyes? This is a question that seems to recur surprisingly often. Lots and lots of professionals in the “social sciences” are invested in a worldview that goes against most people’s common sense and day-to-day experience, and they tend to produce “science” that validates their worldview rather than common sense–but too often at the cost of, shall we say, “creativity” in how the data is selected or analyzed or presented.

Jul 23, 2024

The Crowdstrike Fiasco And The Regulation Angle

With all the political news over the weekend, some may have already forgotten what would otherwise be a neverending news item: the global outage of IT services that occurred on Friday, which is called the largest in history, freezing the operations of countless companies and banks, forcing all planes in the United States to land, causing an estimated $1 billion of damage and, perhaps worst of all, forcing your correspondent’s favorite bakery to revert to pen and paper for a day.

Jul 22, 2024

On How Policy Interacts With The World (Plus Links And Essays)

PolicySphere covers the tiny world of center and right-of-center policy professionals in Washington. It’s a tiny world, but an influential and important one and one whose nerdiness your correspondent finds infinitely fascinating.

Jul 18, 2024

The Trump/Vance View Of Social Security Versus The Traditional View

The Trump/Vance View Of Social Security Versus The Traditional View. One of the ways in which both Donald Trump and his new running mate JD Vance have diverged from traditional Republican orthodoxy has been entitlements.

Jul 17, 2024

The Regulation Stakes

Before your links of the day, a confession: we put together this daily email by reading many, if not most (or at least we try) of the material put out by think tanks, policy journals, policy wonks, and other media, about public policy in the United States, every day.

Jul 16, 2024

JD Vance on Policy

As you know, we here at PolicySphere try to cover as little political news as we can. We must make an exception, however, when it comes to the Republican Party’s new nominee for the office of Vice President of the United States, since J.D.

Jul 15, 2024

War Over The Republican Platform?

Happy Monday, whether you’re attending the Republican Convention, and Heritage’s Policy Fest, or not.

Jul 14, 2024

IRS Incompetence And Friday Essays

#TaxPolicy – “The Biden administration’s $60 billion expansion of the IRS has netted $1 billion in new revenue so far.” We believe in good government and were skeptical of conservative opposition to the Biden administration’s efforts to expand the IRS.

Jul 11, 2024

Young Families Are Fleeing America’s Big Cities

#FamilyPolicy – The pandemic and associated troubles caused many families, especially families with young children, to flee America’s big cities. Since then the phenomenon has gone unabated. This important new report from the Economic Innovation Group charts this phenomenon.

Jul 10, 2024

Oren Cass On Elite Failure And How To Address Populism

#Populism #Elites – In many ways, your correspondent founded PolicySphere in an attempt to get the various factions of the right to talk, and to talk productively and concretely. A man not averse to controversial statements is Oren Cass of American Compass.

Jul 9, 2024

Antitrust: How Far Is Too Far?

#Antitrust – At The Federalist Society, Mark Meador makes the case for enforcing the Robinson-Patman Act, a somewhat obscure piece of antitrust legislation designed to prevent predatory pricing behavior.

Jul 8, 2024

Trade And Immigration News

#Trade – New research from the Tax Foundation suggests that almost all of the Trump & Biden tariffs were passed on to consumers as higher prices. The Tax Foundation is a virulent opponent of tariffs so take it with a grain of salt, but this is still a legitimate concern that trade skeptics need to answer.

Jul 7, 2024

Loper Bright Is Already Having An Impact On Regulation

We hope you’re ready for the fireworks of Independence Day! There will be no Morning Briefing during the long weekend, so we now wish a Happy Birthday to America. May this great, exceptional nation endure as a Shining City on a Hill.

Jul 2, 2024

Left-Wing Educational Institutions Discriminate; Can The Right Offer An Alternative?

#DEI – We know the Supreme Court made race-based admissions preferences illegal for institutions of higher education. But we also know that in the past universities have tried to get around such prohibitions at the state level by using various proxies for race.

Jul 1, 2024

If You’re Looking For Titanium Airplane Parts, Don’t Go To China

#Economics – From the Committee to Unleash Prosperity: revised GDP numbers show that, once again, in Q1 2024, government spending outgrew personal consumption, which means that growth is fueled by (deficit-financed) government spending, not by the real economy.

Jun 30, 2024

Chevron! Chevron! Chevron!

By now you have certainly learned that the Supreme Court has done what many desired and few expected: it has overturned the Chevron doctrine. This is a massive change to administrative law in the United States, so we are doing a special edition of the Briefing with early links and analysis to help you make sense of what is going on.

Jun 27, 2024

An Apology And A Fresh Look At The Global Battle For EV Dominance

#ThinkTanks – A little inside baseball, but…Well, that’s why you subscribe, don’t you? American Compass, the think tank founded by Oren Cass to chart a course for post-Reagan-consensus conservative economics, has announced a reorganization.

Jun 26, 2024

Inflation Worries

Inflation seems to be the theme of the day #Inflation – American Action Forum President Douglas Holtz-Eakin on the Biden Administration’s incoherent response to inflation.

Jun 24, 2024

A Fresh Look At the Candidates’ Tax Policies

#TaxPolicy – The Tax Foundation, whose online content is always high quality and very clear, has put out a very well-done tracker of the 2024 Presidential Tax Plans.

Jun 23, 2024

You Should Check Your Newborn Child’s Arrest Record

#StateCapacity – So much of good government involves basic competence. For example, not doing this: before the government issues children new Social Security numbers, it doesn’t check whether that number has previously been linked to identity-related fraud. This can occur, because many criminals use randomly-generated SSNs.

Jun 20, 2024

Two Years After Dobbs, Conservatives Have Worked Harder To Support Women

Today of course we have a raft of SCOTUS decisions, which we will cover shortly.

Jun 19, 2024

Industrial Policy Minus DEI

#AmericanManufacturing #DEI – Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville has a plan to fix the CHIPS Act, by keeping the subsidies but eliminating onerous labor regulations, especially those concerning DEI.

Jun 18, 2024

Reports of the Petrodollar’s Death Have Been Exaggerated (For Now)

Reports of the Petrodollar’s Death Have Been Exaggerated (For Now)

Jun 17, 2024

Biden Amnesty

Biden Amnesty

Jun 16, 2024

Friday Essays And Morning Briefing

Friday Essays And Morning Briefing

Jun 13, 2024

JD Vance Talks Economics, Immigration, Trade, And More

JD Vance Talks Economics, Immigration, Trade, And More

Jun 12, 2024

Administrative State Delenda Est?

Administrative State Delenda Est?

Jun 11, 2024

Nukes And Nicotine

Nukes And Nicotine

Jun 10, 2024

The Biden War on Appliances; What Just Happened in France

The Biden War on Appliances; What Just Happened in France

Jun 9, 2024

On the Acceleration of Lawfare; Friday Essays

On the Acceleration of Lawfare; Friday Essays

Jun 6, 2024

Senate Dems’ Election-Year Contraception Fear-Mongering

Senate Dems’ Election-Year Contraception Fear-Mongering

Jun 5, 2024

The Fight Over The Future Of Conservative Fiscal Policy Continues

The Fight Over The Future Of Conservative Fiscal Policy Continues

Jun 4, 2024

Prominent Conservatives Fight Over Future Tax And Spending Policy

Prominent Conservatives Fight Over Future Tax And Spending Policy

Jun 3, 2024

Shock Report: The Biden Administration’s Quiet Mass Amnesty

Shock Report: The Biden Administration’s Quiet Mass Amnesty

Jun 2, 2024

Friday Essays And Stingy Boomers

Friday Essays And Stingy Boomers

May 30, 2024

Top To Bottom Incompetence On Immigration

Top To Bottom Incompetence On Immigration

May 29, 2024

The French Have A Cure For the Common Cold, But the FDA Doesn’t Want You To Have It

The French Have A Cure For the Common Cold, But the FDA Doesn’t Want You To Have It

May 28, 2024

Do Smartphones Really Cause Teen Depression? Also, Important New Inflation Paper

Do Smartphones Really Cause Teen Depression? Also, Important New Inflation Paper

May 27, 2024

Friday Essays And Links – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 24, 2024

Friday Essays And Links – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 24, 2025

May 23, 2024

The Science Is Fake And The Babies Are Gone – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 23, 2024

The Science Is Fake And The Babies Are Gone – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 23, 2025

May 22, 2024

Chinese Science Is Fake (But Don’t Worry, Ours Is Great) – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 22, 2024

Chinese Science Is Fake (But Don’t Worry, Ours Is Great) – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 22, 2025

May 21, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 21, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 21, 2025

May 20, 2024

Friday Essays And Links – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 17, 2024

Friday Essays And Links – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 17, 2025

May 16, 2024

Fake Science – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 16, 2024

Fake Science – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 16, 2025

May 15, 2024

The Scourge of Doxxing – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 15, 2024

The Scourge of Doxxing – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 15, 2025

May 14, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 14, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 14, 2025

May 13, 2024

UBI, Immigration, And AI – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 13, 2024

UBI, Immigration, And AI – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 13, 2025

May 12, 2024

Links And Friday Essays – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 10, 2024

Links And Friday Essays – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 10, 2025

May 9, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 9, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 9, 2025

May 8, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 7, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 7, 2025

May 6, 2024

Immigration Insanity – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 6, 2024

Immigration Insanity – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 6, 2025

May 5, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 3, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 3, 2025

May 2, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 2, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – May 2, 2025

May 1, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 30, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 30, 2025

Apr 29, 2024

2 Million Missing Workers – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 29, 2024

3 Million Missing Workers – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 29, 2024

Apr 28, 2024

Friday Essays, AI Hate Crime Hoax, And More – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 26, 2024

Friday Essays, AI Hate Crime Hoax, And More – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 26, 2025

Apr 25, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 25, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 25, 2025

Apr 24, 2024

Women’s Sports and Noncompetes – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 24, 2024

Women’s Sports and Noncompetes – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 24, 2025

Apr 23, 2024

GDP vs GDI And Other Economic Woes – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 23, 2024

GDP vs GDI And Other Economic Woes – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 23, 2025

Apr 22, 2024

NatCon Brussels, The Economy, Stoopid, Title IX, And More – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 22, 2024

NatCon Brussels, The Economy, Stoopid, Title IX, And More – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 22, 2025

Apr 21, 2024

Links And Friday Essays – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 19, 2024

Links And Friday Essays – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 19, 2025

Apr 18, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 18, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 18, 2025

Apr 17, 2024

NatCon Censorship – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 17, 2024

NatCon Censorship – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 17, 2025

Apr 16, 2024

DEI Madness and Disappearing Kidneys – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 16, 2024

DEI Madness and Disappearing Kidneys – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 16, 2025

Apr 15, 2024

Tax Week! – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 15, 2024

Tax Week! – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 15, 2025

Apr 14, 2024

Friday Essays And PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 12, 2024

Friday Essays And PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 12, 2025

Apr 11, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 11, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 11, 2025

Apr 10, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 10, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 10, 2025

Apr 9, 2024

Calling for Feedback, and Discussing “Light Touch” YIMBY – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 9, 2024

Calling for Feedback, and Discussing “Light Touch” YIMBY – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 9, 2025

Apr 8, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 8, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 8, 2025

Apr 7, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 5, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 5, 2025

Apr 4, 2024

AI and the Bible in Schools – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 4, 2024

AI and the Bible in Schools – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 4, 2025

Apr 3, 2024

Industrial Policy and the Digital Longhouse – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 3, 2024

Industrial Policy and the Digital Longhouse – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 3, 2025

Apr 2, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 2, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – April 2, 2025

Apr 1, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 28, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 28, 2025

Mar 28, 2024

Announcing PolicySphere Series And Infrastructure Week! – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 27, 2024

Announcing PolicySphere Series And Infrastructure Week! – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 27, 2025

Mar 27, 2024

Baltimore Bridge Collapse – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 26, 2024

Baltimore Bridge Collapse – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 26, 2025

Mar 26, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 25, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 25, 2025

Mar 25, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 22, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 22, 2025

Mar 22, 2024

Neuralink, Funding Deal, and Biden Waters Down EV Mandate – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 21, 2024

Neuralink, Funding Deal, and Biden Waters Down EV Mandate – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 21, 2025

Mar 21, 2024

Is It Discrimination If You Cannot Buy A Hermès Handbag? Also, Great Replacement Talk – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 20, 2024

Is It Discrimination If You Cannot Buy A Hermès Handbag? Also, Great Replacement Talk – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 20, 2025

Mar 20, 2024

Funding Deal? – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 19, 2024

Funding Deal? – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 19, 2025

Mar 19, 2024

How Do We Do Public Health Post-Pandemic? – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 18, 2024

How Do We Do Public Health Post-Pandemic? – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 18, 2025

Mar 18, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 15, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 15, 2025

Mar 15, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 14, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 14, 2025

Mar 14, 2024

Biden Budget and TikTok – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 13, 2024

Biden Budget and TikTok – PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 13, 2025

Mar 13, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 12, 2024

PolicySphere Morning Briefing – March 12, 2025

Mar 12, 2024