The wider public and American businesses are still coming to terms with the full implications of the other major piece of President Trump’s economic agenda: the tax-reform legislation passed in July. In a new AEI report, Barry K. Goodwin and Vincent H. Smith assess the legislation’s changes to US farm policy—and in particular its significant expansion of agricultural subsidies.
While Republicans traditionally embrace deregulation as another spur to economic growth, the Trump administration has displayed a worrying trend of using the administrative state as a political cudgel against businesses. In new research for AEI, Clay Calvert documents the serious First Amendment problems with the Federal Trade Commission’s use of antitrust law to interfere in social media platforms’ content moderation.
Another use of executive authority has been the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which proposes conditioning the receipt of federal funds on universities’ acceptance of new presidential standards. AEI’s higher education scholars are covering this from multiple angles. Beth Akers highlights the fundamental legal problems with the White House’s approach. And both Frederick M. Hess and Benjamin and Jenna Silber Storey suggest ways to turn the compact into a more constructive dialogue between higher education and the federal government.
On Monday, the president addressed Israel’s Knesset to mark the new ceasefire in Gaza. AEI Domestic Policy Studies Director Matthew Continetti analyzes the speech and describes the qualities that have made President Trump an effective peace broker in the Middle East.
