The Mercatus Center seeks to support scholars, thinkers, writers, and doers addressing the challenge of sustaining liberal democratic pluralism and institutions. What insights and solutions can help us better understand and improve upon how we can coexist and live together peacefully amidst deep divides and differences? This effort requires an interdisciplinary, cross-ideological effort from scholars and practitioners committed to fostering a pluralism that advances a truly liberal cosmopolitan society.
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January 18, 2022 | Urban Economics
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In 2021, Veterans Services USA, a nonprofit organization, applied for a rezoning of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to Veterans Services USA, the hotel closed after functioning at less than 40 percent capacity in 2019, and the organization saw a new use for it. They sought to renovate the building, operate floors 2 through 6 as a hotel, and rent floors 7 through 11 as housing for low-income veterans. Planning staff agreed that the changes were an upgrade and met an important need, and the planning commission voted six to four in favor of approval. However, unhappy institutional neighbors, including Oral Roberts University and Walmart, were able to block the plan by using an obscure state law.
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January 18, 2022 | Occupational Regulation and Licensure
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In the United States, once people have been convicted of a crime—or, in many cases, even arrested for a crime—those people are marked for life in a way that allows states to deny them the right to earn a living in the profession of their choosing. Instead of preparing those who have made mistakes for a productive return to society, the criminal justice system prepares them for a life of unemployment, underemployment, dependency, and, in many cases, stints in and out of jail.
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January 19, 2022 | Export-Import Bank
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With the arrival of each new presidential administration, the Ex-Im Bank seeks to remain relevant. Long criticized as the “Bank of Boeing” given its focus on backstopping the aircraft maker, the Ex-Im Bank convinced the Trump administration—and has now convinced the Biden administration—that it has strategic relevance. Congress apparently agrees, having handed the agency a seven-year reauthorization in 2019 and having confirmed a quorum for its board of directors so that the bank could get to work on what it and the Trump White House had claimed was a $40 billion backlog of projects.
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