Both parties need to get used to the fact that the Senate is essentially tied, which means that cross-partisan deals will be needed to move legislation. This is a good thing, according to Yuval Levin.
President Joe Biden's first two trade moves — tightening "Buy American" rules and pledging stronger enforcement of the protectionist Jones Act — will have deleterious economic consequences, writes Claude Barfield. They also fly in the face of the president’s much-proclaimed goal to shore up economic relations with US allies.
Advocates for expanding the current child tax credit — by removing work requirements and time limits on how long benefits are paid — are gambling that this policy won't revive the rejection of work and acceptance of government benefits that characterized the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program before the 1996 welfare reform, explains Matt Weidinger.
Lyman Stone explains that the consequences of low fertility today will echo through Americans’ increasingly empty homes for decades to come, leaving millions more people isolated and adrift from wider society as they age.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) released a proposal that would provide child allowances of $350 per month for each child under age 6 and $250 for each child age 6–18. This proposal moves in the wrong direction because it risks incentivizing behavior that impedes intergenerational mobility, writes Scott Winship.
The new leadership in the Defense Department and Congress should agree on a budget that sets defense spending on a trajectory of 3–5 percent real growth, write Elaine McCusker and John Ferrari. Although there are no “easy buttons,” a counterintuitive force-focused approach that prioritizes size and training of the force over force structure and innovation over invention could mitigate previous budget-reduction consequences.
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