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AEI's weekly digest of top commentary and scholarship on the issues that matter most

Supporting Our Allies

Mike Johnson and the Future of Republican Internationalism

April 27, 2024

Last week, Mike Johnson successfully orchestrated the passage of foreign aid for Israel, Taiwan, and Ukraine through the House of Representatives. Kori Schake suggests that the vote could be a foundational moment in the much-needed renewal of internationalism in the GOP.

 

 

On Thursday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Trump v. United States on the question of presidential immunity against prosecution for official acts. Jack Landman Goldsmith surveys the issues at stake and predicts how the court will resolve the case.

 

This week, President Joe Biden criticized the 2017 tax cuts for predominantly benefiting the wealthy and big corporations and stated his intention to let them expire next year. In the Wall Street Journal, Phil Gramm and Mike Solon demonstrate why not renewing the corporate tax cuts would hurt all Americans.

 

In 2022, as a share of gross domestic product, the US spent 56 percent more on health care than the next highest-spending country, and medical care to patients makes up an increasingly unsustainable 20 percent of the US economy. James Capretta makes the case for a free-market system change that incentivizes continuous productivity and quality improvement in patient care as the only viable solution.

 

The average American thinks they need over $1 million in savings to be financially secure in retirement, even though most retirees report they are living comfortably on far less. Andrew G. Biggs explains why politicians and conventional financial planning vastly overstate the income seniors need.

Human Capital Spillovers and Health: Does Living Around College Graduates Lengthen Life?

The COVID-19 pandemic underlined growing geographic disparities in health across the US, as the life expectancy gap between the healthiest and least healthy counties has grown to over a decade. This disparity is often associated with education levels, but the mechanisms of this effect remain disputed. In a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Edward L. Glaeser and coauthors provide a new comprehensive assessment of the effect of education on these geographic health disparities. They find that every 10 percentage point increase in an area’s share of college graduates decreases all-cause mortality by 7 percent, even when controlling for individual education level. Differences in health-related amenities, like hospital quality or pollution levels, account for only a small portion of this effect. Instead, differences in smoking and obesity explain the vast majority of the disparity, as higher-educated areas tend to have stricter smoking regulations and healthier social norms.

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK

Universities have an obligation to uphold students’ free speech rights—that much is true—but the primary reason students should attend an institution of higher learning is to learn something, not to express juvenile (and in this case, bigoted) political opinions. Violent antisemitic campus occupations not only defy any reasonable definition of free speech, they make it impossible for students to learn. Especially Jewish students.

Beth Akers and Joe Pitts