Our managing editor looks back on his Best of 2022.
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I've been at the

**Prospect** for almost a year, and I've enormously appreciated the
opportunity to write on important and often little-noticed stories about
power and politics. In that tradition, my best stories this year are an
eclectic bunch. I reported on stories from the Faroe Islands, on
Tennessee Republican politics, and on the science of refrigerants, as
well as writing arguments on judicial review, Medicare Advantage, and
tech unionization. I'm excited to see what comes in 2023.

The Best Tax System on Earth
<[link removed]>: I
traveled to the Faroe Islands, a semi-autonomous part of Denmark far out
in the North Atlantic, to report on their tax authority, which is so
good that most Faroese never have to think about it. The system
automatically collects data on all wage income for every employee, and
adjusts tax withholdings on the fly, so that ordinary workers don't
even have to file a tax return. That system, combined with the Faroes'
exceptionally clean tax code, means the authority has been able to cut
back staffing and spending while increasing audits of the wealthy and
business.

How Republican Rep. John Rose Found His Wife
<[link removed]>:
This article, co-written with Alex Sammon, was our most-read piece at
the

**Prospect** this year by a considerable margin. We discovered that Rose
met his future wife Chelsea Doss in 2008 when she was 18 and he was 41,
and possibly even earlier than that. At the time, Rose was chairman of
the board of directors at Tennessee Technical University, which Chelsea
attended and where she received a scholarship named after Rose's
parents. The two married in 2011 when she was 21 and he was 45.

The Case Against Judicial Review
<[link removed]>: A 6-3
supermajority of radical reactionaries on the Supreme Court does not
bode well for progressive politics. In our "Prospects: 2032" issue
looking over the policy horizon, I argued that the Supreme Court's
judicial review power is unconstitutional. With rare exceptions, the
Court has been a reliable defender of corporate power, patriarchy, and
racism for its entire history. And contrary to modern norms, its review
powers have been highly controversial for much of American history, and
both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt directly confronted the
Court's power to achieve justice.

American Government-by-Lawsuit Is a Disaster
<[link removed]>:
In a follow-up article, I took aim at American legal culture in general.
American politics is exceptionally litigious, and the result is that
access to justice is rationed by price. Lawsuits are cumbersome, slow,
inconsistent, and frequently decided by who can hire the most expensive
lawyers. This is no way to run a country.

Medicare Advantage Is a Massive Scam
<[link removed]>:
Medicare is being stealthily privatized through the Advantage program,
in which private insurance companies are paid to provide Medicare
coverage. The program has mountains of regulations to prevent
profiteering, which don't work-these companies have figured out
several ways to rig the system, and provide worse coverage for a higher
price. But those profits allow them to advertise and lobby heavily, and
if present trends continue, fairly soon almost every senior will be
enrolled in Advantage plans.

The Cure for Hate Speech Is Not More Speech
<[link removed]>:
In a review of

**It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic
Freedom** by Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth, I explored the
so-called crisis of free speech on American campuses. The authors argue
convincingly that free speech in itself can't override other academic
values like scholarly rigor-and by the same token, the best speech
does not automatically win in the "marketplace of ideas." Propaganda
works, and America would be wise to consider regulations to constrain
the power of the billionaire class over our collective discourse
commons.

Tech Company Workers Should Unionize Immediately
<[link removed]>:
Elon Musk's reign of terror at Twitter is only the most egregious
example of a culture of "bossism" that is taking root among Silicon
Valley elites. If tech workers don't want to be ground under the
bootheel of owners and executives eager to dominate and humiliate their
employees, they would be wise to organize themselves.

President Biden's Lonely Foreign Policy
<[link removed]>:
The war on terror has been perhaps the greatest unforced error in
American foreign-policy history-inspiring harsh criticism from the
paleocon right to the socialist left. So it's quite mysterious that
President Biden's actions to drastically restrict drone strikes, end
the war in Afghanistan, and pivot American attention somewhat away from
the Middle East have gotten little attention and less support, even from
his own party.

The Hank Hill Solution to Climate Change
<[link removed]>:
One of the most promising technologies for dealing with climate change
is the electric heat pump, which provides heating and cooling and is
vastly more efficient than a conventional furnace. But there's a
problem: Heat pumps require refrigerants, many of which are stupendously
powerful greenhouse gases. It's worth considering a return to one of
the original refrigerants-propane.

The Inflation Reduction Act's Quiet Revolution on Public Power
<[link removed]>:
The IRA expands the familiar tax credits for renewable-power production
and investment that the private sector has used for years, and makes
them permanent for a decade. But, in a lesser-known provision, it also
makes these credits available to public and nonprofit
institutions-which were previously ineligible because they pay no tax.
This "direct pay" provision is not just helpful for decarbonizing a
large part of the American electric grid, but also a major break with
decades of policy orthodoxy.

Europeans Have Far More Reproductive Freedom Than Americans
<[link removed]>:
American conservatives commonly point to European restrictions on
abortion to argue that

**actually**, their proposed abortion bans are similar to what one finds
in France or Germany. But in reality, while Europe does have some
facially restrictive rules on abortion access, they are not nearly so
punitive as Republican laws and contain generous exceptions. Meanwhile,
Europe's far superior health care systems enable most anyone who needs
an abortion to get one without having to fuss with payment or insurance.

Why Uvalde Cops Were Too Cowardly to Charge a Mass Shooter
<[link removed]>:
When Uvalde cops stood around for an hour while children were being
massacred, I wrote on the warped culture of American police. Cops are
routinely trained to be in a constant state of sheer terror-to view
every person as a potential threat, to be ready at any second to open
fire, and to prioritize their own safety above anything else. That's
not a good way to produce courageous protectors of public safety.

Finally, when I came on to the

**Prospect** this year, I also brought along my podcast Left Anchor.
Here are three of my favorite episodes:

The Crypto Shill Brigade
<[link removed]>: We talked
with economist Marshall Steinbaum and writer Jeet Heer about the plague
of crypto con artists and their enablers in culture and politics.

Stealing America Back From the Right
<[link removed]>: We
brought on writer Jamelle Bouie to talk about the brighter strands in
American history and how they might be used to confront the right's
attack on the Constitution and democracy.

Digging Into the Inflation Reduction Act
<[link removed]>:
The

**Prospect**'s executive editor David Dayen came on to discuss the
complex inner workings of the biggest climate bill in history.

~RYAN COOPER

READ MORE FROM RYAN COOPER >> 
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Follow Ryan on Twitter <[link removed]>

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