Today, instead of your usual headline essay, we'd like to point you to two essays we published today on PolicySphere—one somewhat facetious, one dead serious.

The first, somewhat (but not entirely) facetious essay is a proposal on how to ensure that kids get all the benefits of the internet and information technology without the risk, and it's simple: simply create entirely separate internets for children.

Incidentally, we are thinking of creating a "Modest Proposal" series where we publish arguments for policies somewhat outside the Overton Window. Good idea, bad idea? Let us know, either via email or on X.

The second and much more serious one lays out the political consequences of cutting Medicaid. The demographics of the Republican Party have changed, and Trump won voters on Medicaid.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Healthcare — Lest you think that our warnings about the political consequences of cutting Medicaid mean we are some sort of closet supporters of socialized healthcare, we will also flag this good piece by American Action Forum's Michael Baker on rationing in single-payer systems. He points out that wait times in these systems are "a feature, not a bug": they're there to manage the rationing.

#PressOneForEnglish — "President Trump is planning to sign an executive order that would for the first time make English the official language of the U.S.," the WSJ reports. This is so obvious and needed. It's also good politics.

#LGBT #MilitaryReadiness — Statement from DoD: "Service members who have a current diagnosis or history of, or exhibit symptoms consistent with, gender dysphoria are disqualified from military service."

#RonPaulForever — Elon Musk wants DOGE to "audit the Fed." Your correspondent would have no a priori problem with this idea, were it not for the fact that we have never seen an "audit the Fed" person explain why they feel that the Fed's current, legally-mandated, external and internal audits are insufficient. Maybe they are! Make your case! Nicolas Cachanosky thinks passing an "audit the Fed" bill would generate too much heat and not enough light, and has an interesting compromise proposal, which would be to strengthen the powers of the Fed's inspector general.

#Immigration — Over at CIS, Jason Richwine points out that there is no so-called tech worker shortage.

#Immigration #SelfDeportation — Interesting: DHS is implementing a requirement that aliens unlawfully present register with the Federal government. The goal there is to encourage more self-deportation. CIS' Andrew R. Arthur has more.

#Tax — Good article from the Tax Foundation's Alex Muresianu on "no tax on tips" pointing out the obvious challenges, like, how do you define it, and how do you minimize the budget impact.

#Tax — Get your wonk on. Tax Foundation (again!) has a very good briefing on LIFO, which stands for "last-in, first-out", which is a method of inventory accounting. The reason this matters to tax is because the corporate income tax falls on corporate profits, but defining what counts as profit is actually a complicated matter, as you know if you've studied financial analysis, or accounting, or law. In theory, profits is just revenues minus costs. In practice, defining revenues and costs can be complicated. "Inventory is one type of cost. There are several methods available for companies to account for their inventory when calculating taxable income. The last-in, first-out (LIFO) method allows companies to deduct the cost of their most recent unit of inventory acquired when they make a sale." Companies can currently use LIFO to calculate their tax liability, however several budget proposals contemplate repealing LIFO. Alex Muresianu and Alex Durante of Tax Foundation think that's a bad idea and explain why.

#Crypto #Tax — In more tax news, interesting release from ATR on the tax treatment of crypto, always a thorny issue. The IRS has a rule that "expands the definition of a broker to include software developers working in crypto, imposing burdensome reporting requirements on those developers and other participants in decentralized finance." The probem is that this "rule goes beyond targeting actual brokers and attempts to capture all those in decentralized finance, a clear power-grab by regulators to invade taxpayers’ privacy," ATR believes.

#Science — Which countries have the most scientific papers retracted? China leads the pack by far, followed by India, according to a new study by Nature.

Friday Essays

Excellent essay by Tal Fortgang over at City Journal arguing that universities should just expel campus radicals.

Another excellent essay at City Journal, this time by Chris Rufo, arguing for how the right should rewrite the rules of cancel culture.

Very interesting essay from Benjamin Ogilvie at Commonplace. Taking note of the fact that the American campus, oddly for anyone who remembers the pre-zoomer days, has become a dating desert, he has some ideas on how universities might rekindle the romance.

Brian Chau is a very smart pro-AI activist and his in-depth analysis of JD Vance's speech at the AI Action Summit is worth your time if you care about these issues.

The Economist's magazine has a profile of the ever-interesting Tyler Cowen.