What is the primary source of social dysfunction in America today? Responding to an important recent study about family formation, Yuval Levin identifies significant changes in how we should think about social breakdown and obstacles to human flourishing. Levin argues that whereas it was common knowledge that "exorbitant human desires" were responsible for social breakdown, what afflicts us now is "more like an absence of energy and drive leaving people languishing and enervated."

As part of AEI's "Sketching a new conservative education agenda" series, Robert Pondiscio and Tracey Schirra propose that "teacher codes of conduct" present a way for schools to make sure students are exposed to diverse viewpoints.

James C. Capretta welcomes the competition of ideas to the field of government cost estimates. Despite presidential criticism of nongovernmental estimates, Capretta posits that more scholars tracking federal spending plans will lead to better estimates and more accountability.

Since 1997, Congress has created four independent commissions to test the Pentagon's operations. But Mackenzie Eaglen and Roger Zakheim argue that America is in urgent need of a new commission to address old problems, such as redundancies, and new threats, such as the Chinese military.

AEI tech scholar Jim Harper contends that in Fourth Amendment cases, the Supreme Court tends to overemphasize "the reasonableness of privacy preferences rather than the reasonableness of government searches." This is particularly true — and unfortunate — in cases involving modern technology, which can be used to record citizens day and night.