Category: Uncategorized

Ritz for Forbes: Trump Is Leaving His Successor A Social Security Time Bomb

Posted on by Alex Terr

America’s next president, and the class of senators elected this November, seem all but guaranteed to face the politically perilous task of addressing Social Security’s imminent insolvency before the end of their term. For that, they can thank President Trump.

On Tuesday, the program’s trustees confirmed that its Old Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund is now set to run out of money in 2032 — one year earlier than they previously projected. If policymakers fail to act before then, more than 70 million beneficiaries will face an automatic 22% benefit cut.

Why did the deadline for action move up? Largely because of Trump’s costly tax cuts. The president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act created a large new deduction for seniors, which put a major dent in one of Social Security’s major revenue sources — the income taxes on benefits paid by higher-income beneficiaries. His restrictionist immigration policy has also reduced revenue coming into the program from payroll taxes paid by foreign-born workers.

Social Security had, of course, been running unsustainable annual budget deficits long before Donald Trump took office. But his actions ensured the clock will run out on this once-in-a-generation budget time bomb before the end of his successor’s first term, and likely when they’ll be in the midst of a re-election campaign.

Read more in Forbes

Toward A New Birth of Patriotism: A Statement from the American Identity Project Advisory Group

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

In 1776, the authors of the Declaration of Independence proclaimed a new republic founded upon revolutionary ideas about individual liberty and political equality. Two hundred and fifty years later, however, many Americans — particularly young Americans — seem disillusioned with the world’s longest-running experiment in representative democracy.

Polling shows a sharp generational divide on questions of patriotism and democracy. A 2025 poll found only 36% of young adults said they are “extremely” or “very” proud to be an American (compared with 65% of those over age 65). In a 2023 poll, nearly one-third of youth agreed that “Democracy is no longer a viable system, and Americans should explore alternative forms of government” (compared to only 5% of those over 65).

There is, of course, a great deal of variation among America’s 50 million young people, and the twin challenges of instilling a love of country and democracy show up differently across class lines. Polling of the broader public finds that college-educated Americans, who are materially blessed, paradoxically express lower levels of patriotism toward their country than working-class Americans. At the same time, low-income and working-class Americans are much less likely to say that democracy is the best form of government.

What explains the loss of enthusiasm for America and its democracy, and what can be done about it? The best empirical evidence suggests a braided cord of explanations.

In an era of deindustrialization, leaders have failed to deliver on the core American promise of social mobility. In 2025, 70% of Americans reported they no longer believe that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead;5 and another survey found skepticism about the American Dream runs particularly high among young Americans. In addition, many Americans have been fed up with the inability of leaders to control the nation’s borders. Unlawful immigration generates a sense of social disorder and chaos and violates a deeply-felt belief that borders have moral significance because a nation’s people owe more to one another than they do to people from other countries. So too, elite failure to prevent the collapse of financial markets and to extricate Americans from foreign wars has further eroded people’s confidence in America and its democracy.

In addition, young Americans have grown up in an age of rising illiberalism on the political right and left. They have witnessed leaders on the right who have resisted the peaceful transfer of power, and articulated a disturbing vision of an America defined mostly by blood and soil. Meanwhile, on the left, many suggest it is acceptable to shout down speakers; that racial and ethnic identities are more important than a shared American identity; that America is defined less by the vision enunciated in 1776 than by white supremacy and the importation of enslaved people in 1619; and that America is more often a force for evil than good in the world. Finally, America’s education system has become so focused on particular identities, “global citizenship,” and careerism that it has failed to convey to young people the extraordinary nature of their civic inheritance. Young people of privilege, facing intense pressure to attend certain schools, secure plum jobs, and adopt certain opinions, lose sight of how fortunate they are to live in the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. Our schools and colleges dwell so heavily on negative aspects of the American story that an astonishing four in 10 Gen Z respondents are more likely to describe the Founders as “villains” than as “heroes.”

Read the full statement from the American Identity Project’s Advisory Group here.

A U.S. “B-2” tourist visa for the World Cup costs $435

Posted on by Alex Terr

FACT: A U.S. “B-2” tourist visa for the World Cup costs $435.

THE NUMBERS: International visitor arrivals in the United States –

2025 68.3 million
2024 72.3 million
2023 66.3 million
2022 50.8 million
2021 22.3 million
2020 (pandemic) 19.2 million
2019 79.4 million
2014-2018 average 77.3 million

International Trade Administration, International Visitor Arrivals Program

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

The World Cup’s beloved preliminary rituals reach their close this afternoon: the local pols and FIFA eminences denouncing one another as cheapskates and money-grabbers, the irate fans yelling about $1,000-and-up tickets for even the earliest group-stage matches, the confusing and arbitrary stadium name-changes, etc. The first match, Mexico v. South Africa, kicks off tomorrow afternoon on Mexico City’s hybrid-turf pitch, and from then until the July 19th final at “New York-New Jersey Stadium,” the 48 qualifiers play 104 matches — 78 in the U.S., 13 apiece in Canada and Mexico. Administration economists predict the Cup will bring a mini-boom. As you wait for the kickoff, some background on the clash between their hopes and other policies –

Background: The World Bank says tourism supports about $10 trillion in output worldwide — about 9% of global GDP — as travelers take 2 billion annual trips across borders. For the U.S. specifically, the Commerce Department reported about 76 million foreign visitors a year in the 2010s, including two to four million coming for sports events, and calculated the impact at ~3% of U.S. GDP.

If this is still correct, tourism and travel would account for about $900 billion of the $30 trillion U.S. economy, and in principle the Cup matches might add a lot this summer. Few sports events other than the Olympics match the Cup’s blend of global reach and commercial appeal, and both the U.S. government and FIFA expect it will attract 5 to 7 million extra visitors. This spring, the State Department estimated a $17.2 billion GDP boost — like temporarily adding a small island economy like the Bahamas or Jamaica to the U.S. — and 185,000 extra jobs. FIFA’s more cautious estimate assumes (a) international fans will make up 40 percent of match attendees, (b) most will attend multiple matches, and (c) they will stay roughly 12 days while spending about $416 per day. With all this, they get $9.6 billion in extra U.S. GDP and $7.6 billion in tourism-related activity. So in normal times, a noticeable jolt to an economy that needs it. But these times aren’t very normal, and the American tourist economy may need more help than the Cup can give. Three points:

1. Tourism depressed and falling: During the COVID-19 pandemic the U.S’s count of international visitors shriveled, hitting a low of 19 million in 2020 and not getting back above 60 million until 2023. It had mostly rebounded by 2024 — though even then still 5 million below a typical 2010s count — but fell back last year as potential visitors, especially Canadians, reacted against Trump administration tariffs, visa fees, travel bans, and general rhetoric by staying home or going somewhere else. The 2025 count was only 68 million, and the early months of 2026 are about the same. So even if the U.S. government or FIFA predictions pan out, the overall result would not be a boom, but rather a tourism level like that of 2024.

2. Cup trips are getting very expensive. Meanwhile, the early predictions may have been a bit optimistic, as Cup costs started high and have been rising all year. Match tickets are pricy — at the extreme end, a “Category 1” price for the final match hit $10,000 by April and reached $16,000 by May (Disgruntled fan group Football Supporters Europe: “A monumental betrayal of the tradition of the World Cup, ignoring the contribution of supporters to the spectacle it is,” amplified by FIFA “bait advertising” and “pressure-selling tactics”.) Travel costs then spiked in spring, as the Iran war and Strait of Hormuz closure drove up fuel prices. Three Lions fans hoping to see England’s first Cup win since 1966 would have paid $285 for a standard Heathrow-to-JFK economy fare if they booked in February; by April, prices were at $628, plus extra new $10-to-$50 bag charges. As to lodging, hotels around the NY/NJ final venue have lots of rooms but are expensive, and even the special Manhattan-to-stadium train costs over $100. Other venues are squeezed for space — Kansas City, host to Argentina’s group-round matches, has a stadium seating more than 76,000 spectators, but only around 36,000 metro-area hotel rooms.

3. And policy is making travel more difficult. Meanwhile, new visa fees and country-by-country rules make travel to the U.S. more expensive, and often harder, than it was a year ago. Brazilians hoping for the sixth Cup and Argentines confidently expecting a repeat of their overtime 2022 win; excited fans of first-time entry Uzbekistan traveling from Samarkand; Paraguayans checking in for tomorrow’s 15-hour flight from Asuncion for the Albirroja’s Friday match v. the USMNT in Los Angeles — all must navigate the “B-2” tourist visa labyrinth. The initial DS-160 form expressing interest in such a visa costs a nonrefundable $185. Then comes the real work: securing an in-person interview, often requiring months in high-demand countries; then more paperwork on the purpose of travel, financial capacity, intent to return home, etc.; and finally, if the Consulate says yes, another $250 tacked on as of late 2025 under the grim title “visa integrity fee”.  On top of this, fans from Algeria, Cabo Verde, Cote D’Ivoire, Senegal, and Tunisia must now post new “visa bonds” of $5,000 to $15,000, and citizens of two qualified World Cup teams — Haiti and Iran — usually can’t get visas at all.

Even with all the expense and paperwork, the Cup will attract visitors and provide a bump. Maybe less, though, than the administration and FIFA guessed a few months back. For lots of fans, TV and streaming video may be looking like a reasonable second-best.

Special Note: Research and drafting for this week’s Trade Fact by PPI Spring Fellow Madeline Tong. Ms. Tong is a graduating senior at Georgetown University, concentrating in philosophy and economics.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

  • Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
  • Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
  • Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
  • Offer a positive alternative.

World Cup:

From FIFA, World Cup central.

… the U.S. National Team and its first “Group D” rival Paraguay.

… top-seed France.

… and defending champ Argentina.

Pre-Cup friendlies:

FIFA makes stadiums change their names.

Euro-fans complain about ticket prices.

New York pols blast the New Jersey transit authority, jawbone the ticket price for the 35-minute Manhattan-to-stadium train down from $150 to $98.

Elimination rounds:

The World Bank assesses tourism in the global economy.

The Commerce Department’s Inbound International Tourists Arrival site has arrival counts by country since 2013.

Politico on last year’s sharp drop in Canadian tourism, the heavy economic impact on Las Vegas, and the political implications for mid-term U.S. elections.

The Trump admin. predicts a Cup-related mini-boom.

… and FIFA is a bit more cautious.

Finals:

Which is the real “football”? Trick question, there are five, and they’re all “real.” The name itself comes from an 18th and early 19th-century British game expressively termed “mob football”. This was apparently a highly informal, few-rules version of “capture the flag” with hundreds of players, with the “footwork” much more about “putting the boot in” than flashy shooting and dribbling. Modern “football” games all descend from high-minded Victorian efforts to develop lower-casualty alternatives:

* “Soccer”: As the “FIFA” acronym (“Federation Internationale de Football Association”) reminds everyone, World Cup matches are technically “Association Football” games. The quasi-acronym “soccer” is not a provincial Americanism, but the short form of “association.” Top sport for Europe, the U.K., and Latin America.

* “Rugby football”: Invented around the same time as soccer at the school of the same name, “rugby” is the top or near-top sport in South Africa, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands.

* “Gridiron football”: The U.S. and Canadian game, named for the field’s yard-line layout, with rules standardized during Theodore Roosevelt’s early 20th-century presidency. TR wanted to reduce arbitrary violence and encourage respect for rules in college sports. Careful what you wish for.

* “Aussie rules football”: Somewhere between the rugby and gridiron versions, Australia only, invented in Melbourne in the 1850s.

* “Gaelic football”: The Irish version, apparently close to Aussie rules except for requiring some basketball-like hand dribbling.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

Read the full email and sign up for the Trade Fact of the Week.

Kahlenberg for Washington Monthly: A Liberal Without the Elitism: Robert Coles, RIP

Posted on by Alex Terr

Renowned child psychiatrist Robert Coles, who died June 4, is being lauded as a moral giant and a voice of liberal conscience, which he surely was. But the Harvard professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Children of Crisis was much more than that. He was a liberal without elitism—someone as concerned with the fate of working-class white people as he was with disadvantaged Black Americans. His life illuminates a better path for today’s Democratic Party.

In the early 1980s, as an undergraduate at Harvard, I was mesmerized by Coles’ lectures in his course, “The Literature of Social Reflection,” in which we read Charles Dickens, Ralph Ellison, George Orwell, and Flannery O’Connor. Other students and I were particularly taken by Coles’s moving eyewitness account of school desegregation in the South. Coles lectured about his interactions with a courageous six-year-old Black girl, Ruby Bridges, who helped integrate the New Orleans schools in the face of virulent white hostility. Astonishingly, Coles said, Ruby reacted to taunts and death threats from hateful white segregationists by silently praying for them. The turn-the-other-cheek ethos of Christianity and the power of nonviolent resistance were familiar to all of us cocky undergraduates. But this wasn’t Gandhi or King, but a six-year-old.

The course that Coles taught, dubbed “Guilt 101,” was easy for campus cynics to ridicule, but students flocked to it. I well remember the class during which a member of The Harvard Lampoon burst into the room and, as part of an initiation rite, began imitating the professor’s intense style of lecturing. Coles asked the student to leave, which he did, and then the scholar stood, in pained silence, clearly distressed. After a few moments, a student yelled out from the back row, “We love you, Doc.” Four hundred students jumped to their feet and began to clap furiously.

We Harvard students did love him, but he challenged us, not just academically but by confronting the standard liberalism of Harvard students. I learned this during long conversations with him as part of my research for an undergraduate thesis on Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 presidential campaign. Coles served as an informal adviser to RFK and was fascinated, as so many were, by how Kennedy simultaneously connected with Black Americans, who appreciated his passionate support for civil rights, and with working-class whites, some of whom backed Alabama Governor George Wallace for president four years earlier when he made a surprisingly strong but little remembered candidacy against Lyndon B. Johnson in selected Democratic primaries. Kennedy did this by appealing to shared economic interests. Coles told the candidate, “There is something going on here that has to do with real class politics.” Kennedy appealed to lower-middle-income whites, Coles told me, because they thought, “This guy isn’t going to use us to show those rich Harvard-types what a great guy he is [by labeling us as backward]. He may be for them [African Americans], but he’s for us, too.”

Read more in Washington Monthly

Why New York City doesn’t need muni broadband

Posted on by Alex Terr

Politicians of all political stripes can be tempted to invest government funds in enterprises that directly compete with the private sector. PPI believes that such spending is rarely a good idea, especially in the highly competitive area of broadband communications. Too often, well-intentioned municipalities blindly go down the road of believing that they can build (and maintain) a complex network and provide broadband to their residents at a fraction of the cost of existing private companies. Unfortunately, past experience shows that this road is littered with wasted public resources and unhappy consumers.

That’s why we took a skeptical look at a new report from New York City’s Public Advocate, Jumaane D. Williams — one of three citywide elected officials in America’s largest city. In the report, Williams uses a purported crisis in broadband availability and affordability to call for New York to build a multi-billion-dollar “high-speed, low-cost citywide municipal internet service akin to a public utility.”

But such a costly project would be a mistake for New York City and its new mayor, Zohran Mamdani. As we show below, a closer  examination of official data shows that virtually every location in the city is already served by multiple high-speed internet providers, with average prices falling or stable in a broadband marketplace that is more competitive than it has ever been. It’s hard to see what would be gained by the costly and ongoing expense of a duplicative government-owned network in the city when networks are already deployed, and prices are dropping. The city has much more important fiscal priorities than laying out billions of dollars for unneeded infrastructure that would take many years to build. Moreover, the transition to this municipal broadband network, as outlined in the report, would disrupt an existing digital equity program that is already (and successfully) providing broadband services to hundreds of thousands of low-income households in New York.

Let’s start with the data. Inexplicably, the Public Advocate report uses out-of-date affordability and availability data in its effort to justify an expensive citywide municipal broadband network and backbone. However, more recent data undercuts the Report’s justifications and conclusions. Specifically, the “2025 Report on the Availability, Reliability, and Cost of High-Speed Broadband Services in New York State,” issued by the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC), provides a more up-to-date picture of broadband affordability and availability in the city. Table 1 describes the availability of high-speed internet service in NYC, meaning at least 100 Mbps download and at least 10 Mbps upload. When taking into account recent deployment data, the first column shows nearly every location in the city is “served”, defined as at least two internet service providers with at least one provider offering high-speed internet service. 

The second column shows that virtually every location in the city has more than one high-speed internet provider using wired or fixed wireless. In other words, almost everyone in NYC has a choice of high-speed internet providers. This hardly matches the broadband availability crisis painted by the Public Advocate’s report.

The more recent data also show the price of broadband in NYC is roughly in line with the rest of New York state. The first column of Table 2 reports the average price of 100Mbps internet in the five boroughs and compares it to the median of all New York state counties. We see very little difference. Indeed, the average price of broadband is falling in 4 out of 5 boroughs, and effectively flat in the fifth. The average price of high-speed internet in the Bronx, the poorest borough, has gone down by 12% over the past two years. That’s an achievement which should be lauded!  When the data is considered,  there’s no sign of a market failure or crisis that would justify spending billions of taxpayer dollars to create another broadband network in the city.

Table 1: High Speed Internet Service in New York City
Percent of locations served* Percent of locations with more than one high-speed wired or fixed wireless provider Number of providers in the county
Bronx 99.86  96.5 11
Brooklyn 99.96  95.9 12
Manhattan 99.31  93.5 11
Queens 99.95  97.1 11
Staten Island 98.60  98.7 4
Average of all New York State counties 97.38  68.2
Data: 2025 Report on the Availability, Reliability, and Cost of High-Speed Broadband Services in New York State
* Served = any location with at least two internet service providers and at least one such provider offers high-speed internet with at least 100 Mbps download and at least 10 Mbps upload.
Table 2. Broadband Prices in NYC
Average price*  Percent change over the past two years
Bronx $           69.79  -12%
Brooklyn $           69.03  -8%
Manhattan $           55.59  -3%
Queens $           62.71  -7%
Staten Island $           66.24  1%
Median of all NYS counties $           68.74 
Data: 2025 Report on the Availability, Reliability, and Cost of High-Speed Broadband Services in New York State
*For the stand-alone internet service with download speed closest to 100 Mbps

The Public Advocate’s report fails to grapple with the real cost of building out a city-wide muni broadband network, in a city with 8.3 million residents, one of the most complex underground infrastructure systems in the world, and no municipal utility to piggyback on. The report acknowledges the fiber backbone will cost more than $2.1 billion, based on an outdated January 2020 estimate. But that estimate predates the massive post-pandemic inflation in construction costs. Moreover, no discussion of the city’s debt capacity or capital budget constraints appears.

The Public Advocate’s report holds up Chattanooga’s muni broadband as a replicable model, but the comparison is deeply misleading. Chattanooga is a mid-sized city with a pre-existing municipal electric utility, suburban density, and a far simpler regulatory environment than New York City. 

In addition, the report wants to abandon “Big Apple Connect” — a program provided by Spectrum and Optimum and funded by the City to provide free internet to about 300,000 qualified residents in New York City Housing Authority buildings at a modest cost to the city government.  There is no indication that this program fails to deliver; yet, the report wants to close it down. NYC Mesh, the report’s preferred alternative to Big Apple Connect, is a volunteer-run organization with only 2,500 members after more than a decade of operation. It’s hard to imagine how to scale that up.

Too often, well-intentioned state (and federal) policymakers jeopardize a good program or project with a self-destructive devotion to another countervailing objective. One of the biggest disappointments of the Biden Administration was the BEAD program, enacted in 2021 to provide $42 billion in funding to fill in gaps in broadband coverage across the country, and especially rural regions. But when Biden left office at the beginning of 2025, not a single home had been wired with BEAD funds, in large part because well-meaning regulators loaded extra requirements onto the program. 

The New York City Public Advocate’s report would lead the citizens of New York City down the same sort of problematic path. Building an unnecessary municipal broadband system in the most crowded city in the country is a recipe for an expensive financial (and political) disaster. 

PPI: Next President Must Save Social Security After Trump Policies Accelerated Insolvency

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON (June 9, 2026) — Social Security’s trustees released their annual report today showing that the program’s Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is projected to be depleted by 2032 – one year earlier than last year’s report. If policymakers don’t act before then, monthly benefits will automatically be cut by 22% in 2032 and those cuts will deepen to more than one-third by the end of the century.

In response, Ben Ritz, Vice President of Policy Development at the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), issued the following statement:

“Today’s trustees report confirms that Donald Trump’s reckless tax and immigration policies have significantly increased Social Security’s shortfall and accelerated its insolvency.

“Now, for the first time in a generation, Social Security’s trustees project the program’s primary trust fund will be depleted during the next presidential administration. The next president, and the class of U.S. Senators elected in November, will have to address the crisis Donald Trump is passing onto them before the end of their term.

“Candidates must start seriously considering how they will protect vulnerable retirees from steep benefit cuts without imposing an undue debt or tax burden on working Americans. They cannot afford to kick the can down the road yet again.”

PPI previously proposed a sweeping package of reforms to strengthen Social Security’s future while making it fairer, more sustainable, and more pro-work as part of a comprehensive budget blueprint.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @PPI.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

PPI Calls for the Federal Reserve to Stop Higher Banking Fees

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON (June 5, 2026) — This week, the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) filed an amicus brief in the case Linney’s Pizza, LLC v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Paul Weinstein Jr., Senior Fellow at PPI, stated that “Attempts to force the Fed to further reduce interchange fees, while well-meaning, would, based on recent economic studies, provide no financial relief to consumers and instead could lead to higher banking fees.”

Last fall, PPI released a study by former Undersecretary for Commerce Robert Shapiro that showed the Federal Reserve’s cap on debit card interchange fees failed to deliver promised savings for consumers, and instead reduced access to free checking, led to higher maintenance and overdraft fees, and pushed billions of dollars in spending toward higher fee credit cards.

Read the full brief here.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @PPI.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

Marshall for The Hill: The Democrats’ Choice: Polarize From the Left or Win the Middle

Posted on by Max Sherrill

President Trump’s shambolic mess of a second term is getting sucked into a political sinkhole. Polls show he is now underwater even among white working-class voters, the molten core of his populist insurgency.

This follows eroding support over the past year among independents, working-class Hispanics and young voters. Trump can still count on a solid MAGA base to vote out Republicans who don’t blindly obey his orders. But most Americans have turned thumbs down on his inflationary tariffs, capricious military attacks and brazen corruption.

No wonder Democrats are feeling upbeat about the midterm elections. Whatever gains they make, however, will likely prove fleeting unless the party finally tackles its strategic imperative since Trump crashed the political stage in 2016: reconnecting with America’s non-college majority.

Keep reading in The Hill.

Ainsley on Talking Progress: Industrial Heartlands: Shifting the Tide through Local Leadership

Posted on by Alex Terr

How can structural transformation in former industrial regions be managed in a way that fosters economic resilience, climate action, and democratic trust?

In the fifth episode of our “Talking Progress” series, we put the spotlight on the crucial role of local governance. Looking at the Industrial Heartlands in both the US and Germany, we explore how local governments shape the day-to-day lives of citizens, and why delivering reliable answers on the ground is the most effective remedy against the populist radical-right.

Guenther and Perez Quinn for the Baltimore Sun: Proposed cuts to satellite funding are a threat to science

Posted on by Alex Terr

This World Environment Day, we should look up to the skies and say thank you to the nearly 1,500 hardworking Earth observation satellites that help us understand our changing planet. 

There are things about Earth that we can only see and study from the vantage of space. Through world-renowned agencies like NASA, NOAA and the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the U.S. heavily invests in remote sensing technologies, cutting-edge missions and world-class scientists, including at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel. As a result, data from space is interwoven into all aspects of our lives, from the air we breathe to the water we drink and the food we eat.

Over half of the information we rely on to understand Earth’s climate — including cloud cover and water vapor levels — comes from space. This vantage point gives us insight into the amount of tree cover and whether a wildfire is starting more efficiently than we could relying solely on ground instruments.

Earth observations also play a key role in “science diplomacy” — in other words, by supporting partnerships between nations centered on scientific exchanges that improve lives. The United States is typically the nation of choice for these partnerships because of our advanced space capabilities.

Read more in the Baltimore Sun

Net-Zero Deadlines Could Cost New Mexico Families, PPI Finds

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON (June 4, 2026) — The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a new report, “The New Mexico Dilemma: Balancing Net-Zero Ambitions with Energy Realities,” warning that the state’s aggressive net-zero timeline could undermine grid reliability and energy affordability unless it is paired with firm, fully-scaled, carbon-free power. Authored by Neel Brown, Managing Director at PPI, and John Kemp, an internationally recognized expert on energy markets and systems, the report calls on policymakers to prioritize technology-neutral, outcome-based strategies over fixed net-zero dates.

New Mexico is the nation’s second-largest oil producer and fourth-largest gas producer, and the oil and gas industry is the state’s largest private-sector funder and a major driver of state budget revenues. The state is pursuing a 100% clean grid by 2045 and net-zero emissions by 2050, goals set by executive order in 2019 but never codified by the legislature. Unlike energy-producing peers such as Pennsylvania and Illinois, New Mexico has no nuclear generation and very little hydropower to supply carbon-free baseload, raising the risk that retiring gas generation too quickly could create capacity shortfalls, price spikes, and lost industrial investment.

The report finds the state has cut carbon emissions by 21% since the goals were set, primarily by switching from coal to natural gas, far short of the 45% reduction targeted for 2030. New Mexico also maintains some of the strictest methane rules in the country, requiring operators to capture 98% of natural gas waste and banning routine venting and flaring. Its emissions intensity is half that of Texas.

The authors note that New Mexico is not facing the demand surges and price shocks straining other states. Both grids serving the state, the Southwest Power Pool and WECC-Southwest, hold ample reserve margins expected to remain healthy through 2030. Residential electricity prices have fallen in real terms since 2019 and have risen just 3.7% over the past year, less than half the national average increase.

To protect that advantage, the report recommends three priorities:

  1. Adopt technology-neutral, outcome-based policies focused on reducing atmospheric carbon rather than banning specific fuels
  2. Invest in clean firm power such as geothermal, battery storage, and advanced nuclear to backstop wind and solar
  3. Protect consumer affordability by using the newly established $210 million Community Benefit Fund to keep transition costs from falling on rural and low-income ratepayers

“New Mexico has a rare opportunity to cut emissions without sacrificing reliability or affordability, but only if policy follows the realities on the ground,” said Neel Brown. “Arbitrary deadlines are not a substitute for firm, carbon-free power that is actually built and running.”

Read and download the report here.

Founded in 1989, PPI is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform based in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving America beyond ideological and partisan deadlock. Find an expert and learn more about PPI by visiting progressivepolicy.org. Follow us at @ppi.

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Media Contact: Ian O’Keefe – iokeefe@ppionline.org

The New Mexico Dilemma: Balancing Net-Zero Ambitions with Energy Realities

Posted on by Alex Terr

New Mexico is the nation’s second-largest oil producer and fourth-largest gas producer. The oil and gas industry is the state’s largest private sector funder and a massive driver of state budget revenues. Currently, the state is pursuing an aggressive 100% clean grid by 2045 and net-zero emissions by 2050. These goals were established by executive orders in 2019, but not enacted by the legislature. Unlike other energy-producing states like Pennsylvania and Illinois, New Mexico has no nuclear generation and very little hydropower for carbon-free baseload generation. The state’s push for retiring gas generation without firm-power replacements that are fully scaled risks capacity shortfalls, price spikes, and driving industrial investments to other states.

The good news is that New Mexico is not facing the dramatic spikes in energy demand and prices that many other states are experiencing. However, doubling down on climate goals without regard for the on-the-ground realities could throw the state into a world of energy scarcity and high prices.

A reasoned and pragmatic approach to lowering carbon emissions should take precedence over arbitrary net-zero dates that do not prioritize the realities of New Mexico’s economic drivers, jobs, energy costs, and grid reliability.

Read the full report

Manno for Daita K12: The Expectations Trap: Teachers Need Clarity

Posted on by Alex Terr

America’s teacher workforce problem is usually described in familiar terms, including pay, burnout, vacancies, long hours, and keeping talented educators in classrooms.

But a new Walton Family Foundation-Gallup report, Teaching for Tomorrow: Closing the Expectations Gap, points to another problem hiding in plain sight.

Based on a representative sample of more than 2,000 public K-12 teachers, it finds that many teachers believe they’re asked to meet expectations that are unclear, unrealistic, or disconnected from conditions in their schools. Teachers are more likely to be engaged, satisfied, and willing to stay in the classroom when they believe the expectations placed on them are realistic and clearly communicated.

That may sound obvious. But in schools, the obvious can get buried under mandates, initiatives, curriculum changes, accountability goals, technology shifts, and improvement plans.

Read more in Daita K12

831 data centers are under construction in the United States

Posted on by Alex Terr

FACT: 831 data centers are under construction in the United States.

THE NUMBERS: Taiwanese GDP growth* –

Actual, Q1 2026 14.60%
Taiwan government full-year forecast (May 2026) 9.60%
21st-century average rate 3.10%

* Taiwan Directorate-General for Budget, Accounting, and Statistics for 2026 figures; IMF World Economic Outlook database for 21st-century average.

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

The Chinese calendar’s twelve animals and five elements, rotating on their 60-year cycle, converge to make 2026 a “Fire Horse” year. Horses are said to embody energy and independence; fire, passion and inspiration. Writing in Taipei-based CommonWealth Magazine, Judy Lin says such a year:

“Brings a surge of intensity, momentum, and transformative change. This once-in-60-
years combination amplifies courage and restlessness, rewarding bold action while
testing focus and restraint.” 

Taiwan’s stat people provide data support for Ms. Lin’s high-energy forecast: their laconic GDP release last Friday reports that — precisely as she was writing up the zodiac outlook — the Taiwanese economy was growing at a rate of 14.6%, and predicted 9.6% over the full year. Setting aside an anomalous 10.5% rebound after the financial crisis in 2010, that would be Taiwan’s biggest growth surge in 40 years and triple the island’s 21st-century average.

What has happened? The background is the worldwide, and particularly American, surge of investment into AI data centers. Some samples:

* McKinsey estimates $7 trillion going into data centers over the next five years, with 40% of it spent in the United States. The global total would account for about 1% of the world’s likely $690 trillion in GDP over these years, and the ~$2.8 trillion U.S. investment would be about 1.6% of U.S. GDP.

* UNCTAD says data center-building accounted for a fifth of the $1.6 trillion in “greenfield” FDI investment last year.

* DataCenterMap, which counts the number of actually operating data centers, reports 11,534 live worldwide, including 4,312 in the United States, and Bloomberg NEF says Americans are building 831 new ones.

In sum, lots of construction projects, huge amounts of money spent to build them, and as data centers prepare to go live, they quickly fill up with AI chips, server racks, motherboards, graphics processing units, cooling systems, CPUs, and the like. The world’s largest centers for production of these things are the three Science Park complexes Taiwan launched in the 1970s – Hsinchu, Southern Taiwan, Central Taiwan — which now serve as home bases for semiconductor and IT hardware manufacturers of the TSMC, UMC, MediaTek, Foxconn, etc. type.  For the past two years, they have been sending a torrent of this stuff from Taiwan – a recent Air Cargo News report suggests likely 1,500 tons of semiconductors and AI server racks arriving by plane daily, along with ships loaded with power distribution units, heavy cooling systems, and fiber-optics – to the new data centers Bloomberg describes.

U.S. trade data are a window on the scale of this flow. They show total imports from Taiwan more than tripling from $88 billion in 2023 to a likely total above $300 billion this year, and Taiwan overtaking Korea, Germany, Japan, and now China to trail only Canada and Mexico as a U.S. import source. Two quick tables:

1. U.S. goods imports 2023-2026

2023 2024 2025 Jan.-March 2026
Mexico $473 billion $506 billion $535 billion $138 billion
Canada $418 $412 $383   $92
Taiwan   $88 $116 $201   $67
China $427 $439 $308   $61
Vietnam $113 $137 $194   $56
Japan $147 $148 $146   $34
Germany $159 $160 $156   $34
Korea $116 $132 $125   $36
India   $84   $87 $103   $23
UK   $64   $68   $65   $16

Census, Goods Trade by Country

2. Imports from Taiwan by product type, 2023-2026

                          2023                                   2024                                        2025                           Jan.-March 2026
Total  $88 billion    $116 billion      $201 billion         $67 billion
Computer components                                $14                                     $26                                           $85                                                     $37
Semiconductors                               $22                                      $37                                           $58                                                    $13 
Optical/magnetic media                                $2                                       $3                                            $4                                                    $2 
All else                               $50                                     $50                                            $52                                                  $15

USITC Dataweb, NAICS classifications

This explains the Fire Horse-style “intensity” and “momentum” in Taiwan’s economic data. On the U.S. side, IT goods have been so far mostly exempted from the tariff binge that has weighed down auto production, retail, chemical industries, and construction. So even as U.S. macro-econ data take on an alarmingly ‘stagflationary’ look – high inflation, low hiring, falling GDP growth, and collapsing consumer confidence – the data-center construction boom continues to offset at least some of the drag.

Big events, of course, raise complex questions: “transformative change” in social life and employment, the local impacts of these hundreds of construction projects on traffic, utility prices, and land use. If calendar animals and elements are of use, 2027 is a “Fire Goat” year, thought still to involve some intensity and momentum, but temper them with more reflection and creativity. For a look at what these might entail, close the horoscope tab and see PPI President Will Marshall’s thoughtful guide to policy on data centers and AI.

FURTHER READING

PPI’s four principles for response to tariffs and economic isolationism:

  • Defend the Constitution and oppose rule by decree;
  • Connect tariff policy to growth, work, prices and family budgets, and living standards;
  • Stand by America’s neighbors and allies;
  • Offer a positive alternative.

Fire Horse:

Zodiac animals and elements explained, from the U.S.-based Asia Society.

… and Taiwan’s CommonWealth Magazine explains the “Fire Horse” year.

The AI future:

PPI President Will Marshall on the road forward for AI and data center construction.

For a long read, Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas reflects on technology and society, human and artificial intelligence, common good, exclusion and communion, through a “Babel v. Jerusalem” lens.

Data on data centers:

McKinsey estimates the scale of worldwide data center investment and offers ideas for U.S. states.

UNCTAD on data centers as the top driver of foreign direct investment worldwide last year.

DataCenterMap.com counts data centers by country.

And Bloomberg NEF monitors data center building in the U.S.

Taiwan’s boom:

“TECRO” — the Taipei Economic & Cultural Relations Office — is Taiwan’s de facto Embassy
in DC.

The Directorate-General for Budget, Accounting, and Statistics has the most recent GDP growth
report.

And some growth context, using the IMF’s April 2026 “World Economic Outlook” 2025 growth estimates, supplemented for the U.S.by last Thursday’s downbeat BEA report on first-quarter growth:

Taiwan (Taiwanese government) 9.60%
China 4.40%
ASEAN-5 4.10%
WORLD 2.60%
United States 2.30%
Korea 1.90%
U.S. (actual Q1 2026) 1.60%
European Union 1.30%
Japan 0.70%

And the sci/tech background:

Taiwan’s National Science and Technology Council

A Japanese/Taiwanese academic looks at Taiwan’s science parks as a successful industrial strategy model.

… and the Hsinchu Science Park.

ABOUT ED

Ed Gresser is Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets at PPI.

Ed returns to PPI after working for the think tank from 2001-2011. He most recently served as the Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for Trade Policy and Economics at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). In this position, he led USTR’s economic research unit from 2015-2021, and chaired the 21-agency Trade Policy Staff Committee.

Ed began his career on Capitol Hill before serving USTR as Policy Advisor to USTR Charlene Barshefsky from 1998 to 2001. He then led PPI’s Trade and Global Markets Project from 2001 to 2011. After PPI, he co-founded and directed the independent think tank ProgressiveEconomy until rejoining USTR in 2015. In 2013, the Washington International Trade Association presented him with its Lighthouse Award, awarded annually to an individual or group for significant contributions to trade policy.

Ed is the author of Freedom from Want: American Liberalism and the Global Economy (2007). He has published in a variety of journals and newspapers, and his research has been cited by leading academics and international organizations including the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund. He is a graduate of Stanford University and holds a Master’s Degree in International Affairs from Columbia Universities and a certificate from the Averell Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union.

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Brief of Amicus Curiae Progressive Policy Institute in Support of Appellee

Posted on by Alex Terr

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), based in Washington, D.C., is a catalyst for policy innovation and political reform. Its mission is to create radically pragmatic ideas for moving the United States beyond ideological and partisan deadlock.

The Board of Governors for the Federal Reserve System and the Proposed Intervenors analyze the Durbin Amendment, using its text and other tools of statutory interpretation, to show that the Board complied with the congressional intent and the Administrative Procedures Act when crafting the interchange fee standard in Regulation II. Amicus endorses but does not replicate that analysis. Instead, consistent with PPI’s mission and expertise, this brief focuses on the broad economic and security harms that would result from adopting Appellant’s position.

Read the full Amicus Curiae