Increasingly voices on the left and the right have embraced protectionist policies to promote jobs as ends in themselves, even at the expense of economic growth and broader prosperity. In the Wall Street Journal, AEI scholar and former Sen. Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux demonstrate the costs these misguided policies impose on Americans as taxpayers and consumers.

Protectionism is not the only misguided economic policy going mainstream in this campaign: No-strings-attached welfare programs like an expanded child tax credit have similarly gained traction. Matt Weidinger examines Vice President Kamala Harris’s long track record of supporting policies that pay people not to work.

The dependency and irresponsibility that these subsidy-based policies cause have contributed to a broader crisis of elite legitimacy in American politics. Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies Director Yuval Levin argues that America’s leaders must regain self-restraint if they are to win back the public’s trust.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Chevron deference provides an opportunity for our institutions to do just that. By vindicating Congress’s lawmaking power against the administrative state, AEI’s Laurence H. Silberman Chair Adam J. White shows how the decision is a transformative step in restoring “the Founders’ ideal of good, constitutional government.”

One of the most important policy areas where Congress must reassert itself is net neutrality. AEI scholar Daniel Lyons, an expert on internet regulation, explores how the major-questions doctrine and the end of Chevron deference cast doubt on the Biden administration’s attempt to reimpose the policy by administrative fiat.