Category: Uncategorized

New PPI Report Warns ‘Activist Tax’ is Being Driven by Both Trump and the Climate Left

Posted on by Alex Terr

The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today released a new report warning that New Jersey’s climate mandates are driving a policy-induced affordability crisis that functions as an “Activist Tax” on households, raising energy costs, straining the power grid, and threatening public support for emissions reduction. As electricity prices surge and clean energy projects stall, the report finds that politically driven mandates are colliding with economic reality in ways that disproportionately burden working families.

The report, titled “New Jersey: Ambitious Goals Meet Reality,” is the second in a PPI series examining how rigid climate mandates and technology-specific requirements can unintentionally impose higher costs on consumers, what the authors describe as an “Activist Tax,” when affordability and grid reliability are treated as secondary concerns.

“New Jersey has already picked the low-hanging fruit,” said Neel Brown, Managing Director at PPI. “What remains are the hardest and most expensive steps, and when policymakers ignore affordability, those costs become an ‘Activist Tax’ paid by working families. That’s how you lose public support for climate action altogether.”

Authored by Brown and John Kemp, an internationally recognized energy markets expert, the report finds that New Jersey’s strong emissions record reflects structural advantages, not recent policy mandates, meaning today’s high-cost requirements deliver diminishing climate returns while increasing the “Activist Tax” on residents.

Despite this strong baseline, the state’s current energy strategy is increasingly strained by rising costs, grid constraints, and stalled clean energy projects. With energy affordability a top focus for Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey faces a critical opportunity to recalibrate its approach before mounting pressures undermine both climate progress and political support.

Key findings from the report include:

  • Left- and right-wing ideological interventions are imposing an “Activist Tax” on New Jersey, with supply constrained by rigid climate mandates and Trump’s war on wind and renewable energy, driving up electricity prices and household energy bills.
  • Electricity prices in NJ surged nearly 20% in 2025, one of the highest increases in the nation, driven by capacity constraints and growing demand from data centers.
  • New Jersey’s emissions per capita (10 tons) and per economic output (137 tons per $1M GDP) are among the lowest in the country, largely due to urban density and a service-based economy, not new energy technologies.
  • The state’s 2050 climate mandates require an 82% cut in building emissions and a 62% cut in electricity generation emissions, calling for a sweeping transformation in home heating and power generation.
  • More than 90% of New Jersey’s electricity still comes from natural gas and nuclear, with minimal deployment of wind or solar. The planned 11 GW of offshore wind is delayed and uncertain following the Trump administration’s suspension of key federal leases.
  • The convergence of rising demand, shrinking supply, and surging costs is threatening the state’s climate timeline and eroding public support, especially among low- and moderate-income households.

The authors argue that rigid technology mandates, premature plant retirements, and politically motivated interventions have imposed what they call an “Activist Tax,” a policy-driven cost burden that ultimately falls on consumers. When affordability erodes, public support for climate policy erodes with it. The report urges policymakers to pivot toward outcome-based policies, prioritize clean, firm baseload power, and treat affordability as a core metric of climate success.

PPI’s analysis offers a roadmap for recalibrating the state’s climate strategy, emphasizing flexibility, affordability protections, and pragmatic planning to sustain momentum toward decarbonization.

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 @ppi.

###

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

New Jersey: Ambitious Goals Meet Reality

Posted on by Alex Terr

New Jersey’s official narrative on climate action highlights “remarkable progress” toward the legislated goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. However, a closer inspection of the data reveals that the state’s low per-capita emissions are fundamentally tied to its unique demographic and economic profile rather than a transition to a carbon-free energy grid.

New Jersey has some of the lowest emissions per person and relative to the size of its economy in the nation, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) (see Fig. 1). The state is by far the most densely populated (see Fig. 2), transit use is high, and car use below average, limiting transport emissions. Coal-fired generation has been phased out, and nearly all electricity comes from gas and nuclear, cutting emissions from the power sector (see Fig. 3). Electricity and gas prices are well above average (see Fig. 4), but consumption is low, ensuring total energy spending is among the lowest in the country (see Fig. 5). But like other states in the PJM Interconnection, New Jersey’s power prices have climbed significantly in 2024 and 2025 to the highest in real terms for six years, with further increases expected in 2026, driven by capacity shortages and growing demand from data centers.

Furthermore, the state’s economic output is dominated by professional services and finance, sectors that are not energy-intensive compared to heavy manufacturing. New Jersey’s emissions per $1 million of output (137 tons) are the seventh-lowest in the nation and 35% below the national average (See Fig. 6).

The state has been more successful than most in lowering emissions. Emissions were cut to 91 million metric tons in 2023 from 130 million in 2005. The decline was much faster (2.0% per year) than across the country as a whole (1.2% per year), as gas replaced coal and oil-fired generation and heating systems, while population growth has been slow.

Because of the successful coal generation phaseout and the demographic and economic efficiencies that are already in place, deeper emission reductions are inherently more challenging. The low-hanging fruit, in decarbonization terms, has already been picked. Accordingly, the state’s mandated energy transition is now on a direct collision course with working families’ need for affordable fuel and a reliable grid. Most critically, the transition is increasingly straining energy affordability for residents, as evidenced by a historic electricity rate increase of nearly 20% in 2025, fueled by surging demand from data centers and a constrained regional power market.

Read the full report.

Manno for Fordham Institute: The Education Research Handbook That Never Closes

Posted on by Alex Terr

If you’re a policymaker, district leader, or reporter trying to follow education research, it can feel like drinking from multiple fire hoses at once. One week brings a bold new claim about dual enrollment. Next week, there’s a re-analysis of charter school impacts or a skeptical take on short-term workforce credentials. Meanwhile, state and federal leaders are making billion-dollar bets on exactly these programs, often guided by partial evidence, dated syntheses, or the loudest advocates.

Into that gap steps a new tool with an ambitious mission. It’s called the Live Handbook of Education Policy Research, a digital, constantly updated reference edited by Tulane economist Douglas Harris and published by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP). It’s been described as a “Wikipedia of K–12 research.” But this one is written and vetted by leading scholars and aimed squarely at practitioners and policymakers.

The handbook’s purpose is straightforward but overdue. It will provide comprehensive, rigorous, objective, and useful reviews of research on major education policy topics. Comprehensive means the chapters pull together the most relevant work across methods and disciplines, rather than relying on a few favored studies. Rigorous means not all studies are treated as equal; authors weigh the strongest causal evidence more heavily. Objective means considering multiple perspectives and connecting the outcomes that researchers study with the educational values they embody, including the level of confidence one can have in the conclusions reached. Finally, useful means the chapters are written for a broad audience—policymakers, journalists, and practitioners—not just other academics.

Read more in Fordham Institute. 

PPI Celebrates Commerce Department Proposal on Mission Authorization and Offers Suggestions for Improvement and Implementation

Posted on by Alex Terr

WASHINGTON — The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) today filed formal comments with the Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commerce (OSC), praising its draft mission authorization proposal while urging additional tweaks to ensure the U.S. regulatory system is right-sized to encourage the domestic commercial space sector to compete globally.

As China expands its space footprint, outdated and opaque regulatory processes have hampered U.S. commercial space innovation. The OSC’s proposal is a welcome step toward a more predictable, streamlined system, argues Mary Guenther, Head of Space Policy at PPI. 

“This is a welcome step forward to provide regulatory clarity that will help ensure the government isn’t arbitrarily holding American space innovators back, especially as we see rapid advancements in China’s space capabilities,” said Guenther. “While the proposal is not perfect, it represents the best framework yet for advancing innovative U.S. commercial space leadership.”

Guenther outlines four key recommendations to strengthen the proposed regime:

  • Establish clear and efficient timelines, ideally a 60-day processing window with firm deadlines for both the government and applicants
  • Avoid mission-specific regulatory burdens, which add unnecessary red tape and should only be used to comply with international obligations or avoid significant harm to national security
  • Balance security with commercial flexibility, ensuring restrictions are imposed only in cases of “significant harm” to U.S. interests recognizing the national security benefits of a competitive, leading commercial space sector
  • Define an ongoing supervision process, ideally based on self-certification, to verify compliance with approved mission parameters

“Besides these changes to the proposal, it is imperative that the OSC is cautious about the implementation process of the new regime to maximize efficiency and clarity,” Guenther said. “In order for this process to run smoothly, OSC must receive adequate resources and staffing as well as authorizing legislation from Congress.”

Read and download the complete filing 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 @ppi.

###

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

 

PPI’s Filing with the Department of Commerce’s Office of Space Commerce Regarding the Draft Mission Authorization Proposal

Posted on by Alex Terr

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

OSC is prudent to propose standing up a mission authorization regime, as it’s clear that the commercial space industry’s expanding mission set is taxing the existing regulatory regime for space. There needs to be a clear, transparent, and light-touch process for missions not covered by existing regulatory processes to ensure the commercial space industry has the regulatory certainty it needs to continue growing. China’s space sector is gaining capabilities rapidly and, if our domestic industry has any hope of maintaining leadership, the regulatory system for commercial space must carefully balance the need for competitiveness with the need to protect national objectives.

The space community has had near-consensus on what an optimal mission authorization regime should look like for years now via the proposal put forward by the National Space Council’s User Advisory Group (UAG), but governmental proposals to date have not passed muster. Thankfully, the draft proposal put forward by OSC in response to Executive Order 14335 is a strong step forward that largely comports with the near-consensus recommendations. The regime set forth needs a few small tweaks, such as:

1. Clarifying timelines
2. Avoiding requirements specific to given mission types
3. Minding the push/pull commercial space regulatory regimes have with the national
security community
4. Laying out the process for ongoing supervision, preferably on a self-certification basis

Beyond specific tweaks to the proposal, OSC will also have to be cautious about implementation processes and will require additional funding and staffing to carry out this regime should it move forward. However, on the whole, this is a strong proposal that should move forward toward implementation.

Read the full comments.

Digital Competition Enforcement and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA)

Posted on by Alex Terr

Since the first version of AICOA was introduced in the Senate in 2021, much has happened in the digital tech sector. Decisions in a number of U.S. federal and state digital tech antitrust cases, the industry shakeup around the impact of AI, and the coming of age of the large players give us more clarity on the dynamics of competition. We have also observed the difficulties faced by competition in other countries in implementing laws governing the tech sector. 

Any new version of AICOA is likely to pick up where its predecessor left off, but on a much-changed playing field. From inception, AICOA was an awkward approach to competition oversight of the digital sector in the U.S. It rested on a mix of elements of antitrust enforcement and sector regulation that are not likely to best serve the goals of promoting competition, thus protecting consumer welfare and spurring innovation.

Without question, promoting competition on, and between, digital platforms is a critical goal. But the nuts and bolts of the best policies for achieving it deserve careful thought before digital competition legislation advances in Congress. For now, the concern remains that AICOA created unintended consequences for competition, consumers, and innovation. With that in mind and based on more recent learning, there are a few major issues to watch for in any new version of the bill.

First, AICOA set an arbitrary threshold for determining if a digital platform is covered under the law. As commentators observed at the time, arbitrary thresholds based on a fixed number of subscribers or users can foster perverse incentives for competitors to restrict their internal growth to avoid compliance. Other approaches to thresholds, such as those that are tied to some growth metric, also foster perverse incentives, as well as create a “moving target” that would make compliance difficult. 

Second, the large monopolization cases that are currently pending or that have been decided already in the courts since AICOA was introduced have important implications for any new version of the bill. Those cases are taking years to work through the courts, so one could see how lawmakers may seek to speed things up under a new version. If so, this would likely come at the expense of slowing down other legal matters in the courts, such as price fixing and harmful mergers that have a direct impact on consumer paychecks and pocketbooks.

Finally, the approach outlined under AICOA puts competition enforcement in the digital sector in the netherworld between antitrust enforcement and sector regulation. AICOA required the courts to engage in highly technical inquiries involving the security and functioning of a platform, data privacy and security issues, and the use of nonpublic data. These issues are more in the wheelhouse of an expert sector regulator than the courts. Moreover, the bill did not anticipate how cases brought under the antitrust laws would interact with AICOA, creating uncertainty around competition enforcement in the digital sector and, potentially, in other sectors.

In sum, the concerns that AICOA could have unintended consequences for competition, consumers, and innovation remain. More thought, based on recent developments, experiences in other countries, and the evolution of antitrust cases, is needed to explore the best policy approaches for promoting competition in the digital sector in the U.S.

Manno for Merion West: How the High School Diploma Can Restore Its Credibility

Posted on by Alex Terr

How does a wealthy nation like the United States, which spends more per K-12 and post-secondary student than almost any of its peers, end up with young adults who cannot reliably read a news article, interpret a workplace memo, or follow written instructions?

One answer is that the link between credentials and skills is broken. Over the last decade, as the country’s leaders have increasingly conflated graduation metrics with academic achievement, the number of diplomas climbed even as literacy plummeted.

As Mark Schneider, the former director of the federal Institute for Education Sciences (IES) and commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, observes, “But even as more money gets poured into our education system, student performance has not improved.”

To see what is being lost, it helps to be clear about what “literacy” means in practice. IES, the federal education research agency, distinguishes between task-based and skills-based definitions of literacy: the former emphasizes the everyday reading demands adults face at work, at home, and in the community, while the latter focuses on the underlying knowledge and abilities required to meet those demands, from basic word recognition to higher-level skills such as drawing appropriate inferences from continuous text.

Read more in Merion West.

Misguided Tech Legislation is Still a Bad Idea

Posted on by Alex Terr

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act (AICOA) may be emerging for another round of debate — and it’s still a very bad idea. 

In 2022, the Progressive Policy Institute issued reports showing that the original version of AICOA — a piece of legislation aimed to hobble America’s most successful tech companies — was bad for consumers, bad for innovation, and bad for the economy.  

Happily, the legislation did not become law back then, despite the impassioned warnings of its supporters. Meanwhile, the European Union did pass its version of anti-American-tech legislation, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), setting up a type of natural experiment. 

Since then, digital competition in the U.S. has only intensified. New AI companies have been sprouting left and right, led by startups such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks, xAI, Anysphere (owner of Cursor), and Perplexity AI. 

Moreover, the U.S. info/tech sector continues to outperform the rest of the economy. 

  • The U.S.info/tech sector has grown at a 7.5% rate over the past two years, roughly triple the pace of the rest of the U.S. economy. (This includes NAICS 51 AND NAICS 5415).
  • Prices in the U.S. info/tech sector have fallen over the past two years, while continuing to rise in the rest of the economy.
  • Even with the latest rounds of tech layoffs, employment in the info/tech sector, including ecommerce industries, is up almost 900,000 since 2019. That’s an 11.6% gain — more than double the rest of the U.S. private sector.

And what about Europe and its strict regulatory regime? There’s widespread agreement that Europe is lagging in AI and in innovation more generally. European firms account for only 6 out of the top 50 AI startups. The EU information and communication sector is growing at only a 1% annual rate, with no sign of any positive benefits from the DMA.

To be sure, some form of AI regulation is appropriate. But a slightly retooled version of AICOA will only hurt consumers and slow growth, without serving any useful purpose at all.

Jacoby for Washington Monthly: Germany’s Rearmament Is Stunning

Posted on by Alex Terr

The sign in the window of the German army’s storefront career center in downtown Berlin suggested it would be open all afternoon for inquiries about joining the armed forces, or Bundeswehr. But the doors were locked on a cold November day, with no lights on and no one inside. The same was true the next day when I tried again. “What kind of message does that send?” my friend, a former soldier who accompanied me, asked scornfully. “It’s like so much about the Bundeswehr these days—underfunded, undermanned, underequipped, and undervalued by the public, which still doesn’t really understand why Germany needs an army.”

Eighty years after the end of World War II, as Russia escalates attacks against Europe and the U.S. threatens to turn away from the transatlantic alliance, Germany is undergoing a historic shift. In 2022, then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a Zeitenwende—a “watershed moment”—and mandated a one-off infusion of €100 billion in defense spending, nearly doubling Germany’s previous annual allocation. The first thing his successor, Friedrich Merz, did after being elected last year was to amend the constitution’s “brake” on borrowing to pay for weapons and ammunition. Germany is now on track to spend €650 billion on the military over the next five years, more than doubling the amount disbursed in the previous five years.

Just days before I visited that closed army career center, Merz’s coalition government agreed to a new conscription law that could double the number of men ready to fight, growing the Bundeswehr from 180,000 to 260,000 soldiers and building the reserve force to 200,000. (Women aren’t required to comply with the new requirements but may volunteer.)

There is no longer any doubt that Germany is broadly committed to rearmament. A prospect that might once have provoked anxiety in Europe and North America is now broadly welcomed in the West. But that doesn’t make it easy for the German people, shaped by decades of post-World War II pacifism.

Read more in Washington Monthly. 

The Trump administration is not protecting freedom of speech

Posted on by Alex Terr

FACT: The Trump administration is not protecting freedom of speech.

THE NUMBERS: Some people denied U.S. visas –

People Year
Thierry Breton,Anna-Lena von Hollenberg, Josephine Ballon, Clare Melford, Imran Ahmed   December 2025
Wole Soyinka       October 2025
Patricia Lara 1986
Dario Fo 1980
John Lennon 1972
Gabriel Garcia Marquez 1971
Miriam Makeba 1968
Carlos Fuentes 1962
Charles Chaplin 1950
Pablo Neruda 1946

WHAT THEY MEAN: 

Thomas Jefferson’s Second Inaugural calls for confidence in truth, the weakness of error and deceit, and the public’s capacity to reason — given freedom of speech — from facts informed by principles to a correct judgment:

“Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts … the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties.”

In this age of troll farms, programmed bots, “influencers” subsidized by unfriendly powers, and other disinformation ops, sticking with Jefferson’s idealism takes nerve. The Trump administration hasn’t got it:  Over the holidays, its State Department banned five citizens of U.S. allies — a former EU Commissioner and four digital-monitor NGO officers — from entering the United States, based essentially on claims that they talk too much and say unwelcome things. A rundown, then some thoughts:

France: Thierry Breton, the former EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, because in 2024 he “ominously reminded [Twitter owner] Elon Musk of @X’s legal obligations” under the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

United Kingdom: Clare Melford of Global Disinformation Index, apparently for involvement in Canadian controversies over Native American residential schools. Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate gets a flag too, as a “key collaborator with the Biden administration’s effort [ed. note: non-existent] to weaponize the government against U.S. citizens,” for example, by publishing a list of 12 prominent anti-vaccine sites and their leaders, one of whom now has a Trump admin. job.

Germany: Anna-Lena von Hollenberg and Josephine Ballon of HateAid, a “digital watchdog” NGO based in Berlin, both of whom “cited threat of ‘disinformation’ from ‘right-wing extremists online’” and “support the U.K.’s Online Safety Act and EU’s Digital Services Act.”

In sum: An ex-EU official reminds a company of legal obligations (even if the law in question, in the PPI view, isn’t a very good one); an NGO works in good faith with a U.S. administration to identify and publicize disinformation ops; another lists anti-vaxx groups; a third gets involved in intra-Canadian disputes. The Department says that these (a) amount to an effort to “coerce U.S. platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints”, and that (b) the five individuals’ “entry, presence, or activities in the United States” therefore “have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences [ed. note: none specified] for the United States,” (c) making the visa bans a way to “combat” a “global censorship-industrial complex.”

What to say about this? The Trump administration isn’t in general much of a free-speech defender. At home, the White House, the Federal Communications Commission, the Departments of Justice, Education, Defense, etc., and other agencies all frequently threaten to withdraw U.S. media companies’ broadcast licenses for unfavorable press coverage, accuse Members of Congress of “sedition” for the obviously correct statement that American soldiers must refuse illegal orders, sue overseas journalists, try to micro-manage university curricula, etc. Looking abroad, December’s visa decisions are more in a series of decisions meant to show petulance and hostility toward America’s European allies, but the Europeans aren’t the only targets. A few weeks earlier in October, the administration reanimated a particularly unfortunate Cold War policy — keeping artists and writers with inconvenient or objectionable opinions out of the U.S. — by canceling the visa of 91-year-old Nigerian Nobelist Wole Soyinka, apparently to express resentment for Soyinka’s unflattering comparison of Mr. Trump to the late Ugandan president Idi Amin.

None of this, of course, means that NGO critiques of U.S. platforms are always right, nor that the administration is invariably wrong. But the U.S. and the European democracies are certainly targets of disinformation campaigns. Governments ought to be cooperating to expose and counter them, and it’s good that British and German NGOs are trying – very much in Jefferson’s spirit of trying to provide the public a “full hearing” – to identify and publicize their origins and objectives.  They sometimes do miss, and they may at times wrongly blame ‘platforms’ for larger policy problems.  But the appropriate response is to provide accurate facts and let the public decide, not try to stop Americans from hearing them.  And as to “serious adverse foreign policy consequences,” that looks like just blather.  The administration’s real complaint seems to be about the expression of opinions and factual points that it, or some of its friends, dislikes hearing. In any such case, Jefferson remains the right guide.

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.

Sec. Rubio announces visa bans, claims to be battling a “global censorship-industrial complex.”

… and Undersecretary of State Rogers tries to explain the particulars.

From the Monticello Foundation, Jefferson’s view that the truth is strong enough to defend itself.

… and the full Second Inaugural text.

More:

M. Breton’s European Commission bio.

… and a comment from Le Monde.

Homepages for HateAid, the Center for Countering Digital Hate, and the Global Disinformation Index.

“First as tragedy, then as farce”:

Then:

The Cold War-era visa denials, in contrast to the contemporary Soyinka case, usually at least reflected some sort of dispute over state policy or ideology, though in retrospect (and to lots of people at the time) they didn’t reflect well on the U.S. government. Typical examples: John Lennon for anti-war activism, Miriam Makeba for involvement in the U.S. “Black Power” movement, Gabriel García Márquez for sympathy for left-wing revolutionary movements, and Dario Fo for philosophical anarchism.

NPR looks back at the Nixon administration’s unsuccessful attempt to expel Lennon.

American Theater comments on the Dario Fo case.

Now:

The BBC and Nigeria’s National Post on Soyinka’s contemporary visa denial.

… for context, Uganda’s official Idi Amin bio.

… and a topical book rec. — Soyinka’s The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness (2000) reflects on African politics, relations with the United States and the diaspora, human rights, and reconciliation.

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.

Manno in National Affairs: Social Capital and Opportunity

Posted on by Alex Terr

As the old saying goes, it’s not just what you know but who you know. Relationships, not just knowledge and skills, play a decisive role in helping a young person transition from the classroom to a career. This perennial truth applies doubly in today’s rapidly shifting economy. Social capital — the value embedded in personal networks, mentors, and community connections — can be the key factor in whether a graduate finds a good job or struggles to get a foot in the door. Indeed, economic opportunity is rooted in the “who-you-know” network of relationships that provide young people with information and support as they pursue their careers.

Access to these networks, however, is profoundly unequal. Young people from affluent or well-connected backgrounds often enjoy a rich social-capital web of mentors, family friends, and alumni connections ready to help them land job interviews and internships — a form of social wealth. In contrast, their peers from disadvantaged communities or first-generation college students frequently face a social-capital gap that can impede their entry into the workforce, even when they have comparable academic credentials — a form of social poverty.

Thus, it is fair to say that social capital, or the lack thereof, shapes young Americans’ workforce entry and broader life outcomes. If we want Americans from all walks of life to have more social capital and opportunity, we must first examine the role of relationships in workforce readiness. We should then consider examples of schools, colleges, and employers that are innovating to build students’ and workers’ social capital, especially among those who start with fewer connections. Such an inquiry will demonstrate to policymakers, education leaders, and workforce stakeholders why investing in social networks is vital for equality and opportunity — and how to do it.

Read more in National Affairs.

Trump Plays Warlord at America’s Expense

Posted on by Alex Terr

Now-former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a brutal dictator whose dreadful politics and policies, largely inherited from his equally autocratic predecessor Hugo Chavez, ran his country into the ground. The U.S. military operation that captured Maduro once again demonstrated the tactical and operational proficiency of the American armed forces. But neither Maduro’s autocratic governance nor the audacity and skill of the U.S. military in executing assigned tasks are the primary issue at hand here: at the whim of one man and with no real explanation or apparent rationale, the United States has launched an unwise and illegitimate military intervention that only undermines American interests and international security. 

Here are five reasons why:

A clear and overt act of war. President Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro represents unprovoked aggression against a nation that has not declared war against the United States nor engaged in hostilities against it. Maduro and his regime may be corrupt, repressive, and possess relatively minor ties to international cocaine trafficking, but in no real sense could the United States be said to have been in armed conflict with Venezuela before last weekend’s raid. President George H.W. Bush’s 1989 invasion of Panama, Operation Just Cause, does not offer a parallel: Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega declared a state of war existed between his nation and the United States five days before the invasion; the next day, an American serviceman was killed by Panamanian military personnel. 

In short, President Trump ordered the sort of aggressive action American statesmen have sought, however imperfectly, to banish from the conduct of international affairs since at least the days of Woodrow Wilson.

Illegitimate at home and abroad. Neither consulting nor seeking support from Congress at home or relevant nations and international organizations overseas, President Trump’s Venezuela raid lacks basic domestic and international legitimacy. 

  • Unlike President George W. Bush in Iraq in 2002, he has neither sought nor received authorization from Congress to use military force against Venezuela. 
  • Unlike President Barack Obama in Libya in 2011, he has not received authorization from the United Nations Security Council for military operations in Venezuela. 
  • Unlike President Bill Clinton in Kosovo in 1999, he does not have the support of a relevant regional organization (NATO, in the Kosovo case) for his intervention. 
  • And unlike President Obama’s intervention against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2014, he does not have the support of Venezuela’s immediate neighbors for military operations against the Maduro regime — indeed, Trump already appears to be threatening similar interventions against neighboring Colombia and other nations in the Western Hemisphere. 

The lack of any sort of domestic or international authorization for Trump’s act of war against Venezuela isn’t just a matter of legality — though it is, of course, that as well. Neither Trump nor his administration have offered either the American public or the rest of the world much in the way of explanation or rationale for their use of force in Venezuela. (By contrast, the Bush administration spent months making a case for the invasion of Iraq to both the American people and the world.) Instead, they have displayed contempt for the principle of democracy at home and what the Declaration of Independence called “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind” abroad. 

Taking America to war on a personal whim. As with his other domestic and foreign policies — most notably tariffs — Trump has taken the United States to war on little more than his own personal whim, whittling the notion of “national security” down to meaninglessness in the process. He has, as noted, refused to make a clear or compelling case for this act of war against Venezuela to either the American people or the world, and has gone on to threaten the sovereignty of America’s ally, Denmark, and its longtime security partner, Colombia, as well as neighboring Mexico and Cuba. Trump clearly believes the U.S. military can be deployed anywhere at his own personal whim without providing any justification to anyone — he kept Congressional Democrats in the dark, for instance, about the Venezuela operation before agreeing to a briefing several days after the fact.

These are the actions and attitudes of an aspiring strongman with no respect for America’s republican principles, not a responsible political leader in a democracy. 

No plan for what’s next. The Trump administration has no apparent plan for what it aims to achieve in a post-Maduro Venezuela, making the Bush administration’s negligent post-war planning for Iraq in 2002 and 2003 look like a masterpiece of advanced preparation by comparison. Though the U.S. military had only snatched Maduro and left the “Chavista” regime that has ruled the country since 1999 largely intact, Trump proclaimed that the United States would now “run” Venezuela despite the fact that the Trump administration lacks a foreign policy apparatus beyond a few critical personnel like Secretary of State-slash-National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and peripatetic presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff. Trump himself dismissed Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado as a potential Maduro successor because, according to anonymous White House officials, she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump imagines is his due.

The plan, such as it is, appears to be to threaten Venezuela’s new leadership with further military action if it does not give in to Trump’s unclear demands (which seem to include some sort of seizure of the nation’s considerable oil assets) — a gangster-style approach to foreign policy if there ever was one.

One giant leap toward a world where might makes right. Like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, President Trump clearly believes the world can and should be carved up into spheres of influence to be ruthlessly dominated by great powers as they see fit, with supposedly lesser nations forced to bow to the whims of more powerful ones. His special military operation in Venezuela and subsequent threats to other Caribbean nations (to say nothing of American ally Denmark) reflect this belief — and stand in direct contradiction to the sort of world American leaders have sought to create, however fitfully, for at least the past century. As Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and their successors understood, the law of the jungle does not make for a stable, secure, or prosperous world. 

Indeed, in Ukraine alone, the United States and its European allies have spent hundreds of billions of dollars — and some 50,000 Ukrainians have given their lives — to defend the notion of national sovereignty and the right of nations to choose their own destiny that Trump has blatantly violated in Venezuela. In effect, then, President Trump has given a green light to similar great power aggression around the world, from Putin’s war against Ukraine to a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan and beyond.  

With his Venezuela raid, Trump has swung open the door to a world run on the principles of gangsterism — and America will come to regret it.

Manno for American Thinker: Opportunity and Social Wealth

Posted on by Alex Terr

If Adam Smith were alive today, he might be compelled to write a third book that would extend his arguments in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations more directly to an issue Americans need to recover.

The topic would be social wealth, or the web of relationships that turns individual talent into broad-based opportunity — what sociologists today call social capital.

In today’s economy, what you know matters. But who you know — and who knows you — also matters. Both form the basis for an individual’s personal and vocational identity. All are necessary for the pursuit of opportunity. In short, Knowledge + Networks + Identity = Opportunity.

Read more in American Thinker. 

Marshall for The Hill: Republicans Are Still Clueless on Health Care

Posted on by Max Sherrill

No issue seems to befuddle Republicans more than health care. Last week, they failed for the umpteenth time to produce a convincing plan to make health coverage more affordable for working Americans.

The Republican-controlled Senate blocked a Democratic bill to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for health insurance beefed up during the pandemic to help working families pay their premiums. The Republican alternative also failed to get enough votes to avoid a filibuster.

House Republicans this week likewise rejected bipartisan proposals to scale back and better target the premium subsidies. Instead, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) cobbled together a modest grab bag of proposals that bore scant resemblance to Senate Republicans’ bill.

Keep reading in The Hill.

Manno for Work Shift: Workforce Pell’s Stress Test: Can Faster Credentials Also Be Accountable?

Posted on by Alyssa Brown

Workforce Pell isn’t just a multiyear, bipartisan effort that’s now a policy footnote in President Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill. It’s a national stress test. And at bottom, it’s a debate about two scarce commodities in federal policy: time and trust.

For decades, federal student aid has been organized around the rhythms of higher education: 15-week semesters, credit hours, and degree pathways that move at an academic pace even when the labor market demands speed.

Workforce Pell brings Pell Grants into a different world, one of short, job-focused programs designed to turn training into wages quickly, often for adults who can’t afford to wait.

But speed is the easy part. The hard part is building credibility by protecting students and taxpayers without smothering the innovation Workforce Pell should unlock. If the new Pell option is too loose, it risks financing low-value programs, replaying the worst chapters of short-term training. If it’s too rigid, it buries legitimate pathways under paperwork and delay.

Continue reading in Work Shift. 

New PPI Analysis Examines Strengths and Shortcomings in 2026 Defense Authorization Bill

Posted on by Alex Terr

A new analysis from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) finds that the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) reflects growing bipartisan concern in Congress about the Trump administration’s defense posture. The legislation includes meaningful provisions to uphold U.S. commitments to allies, safeguard key weapons programs, and reinforce industrial capacity. Yet despite these efforts, the NDAA ultimately exposes the limits of congressional resistance to strategic retrenchment, with several guardrails weakened by loopholes and critical omissions that undermine America’s ability to meet current and future security challenges.

The analysis, “Inching in the Right Direction: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in the NDAA,” authored by Mary Guenther, Head of Space Policy; Tamar Jacoby, Director of the New Ukraine Project; Peter Juul, Director of National Security Policy, and Justin Littleford, Deputy Political Director, reflects that while the NDAA implements many provisions that protect America’s interests across the globe and in space, the recently passed legislation contains many policies that hinder U.S. strategic influence abroad.

“The NDAA is a small step in the right direction to buck the Trump Administration’s reckless, un-American national security policy,” said Juul. “But in too many places, Congress relies on paperwork and weak oversight instead of making the strong policy and funding decisions needed to rebuke Trump and keep America secure.”

Key findings from the analysis include:

  • A Mixed Record on Weapons Programs Funding: The legislation protects the E-7 Wedgetail program, increases funding for submarine construction, and expands multiyear munitions contracts. However, it cancels the Navy’s Constellation-class frigate, underfunds the F/A-XX fighter, and revives an unnecessary nuclear cruise missile program.
  • A Continued Agreement to Protect American Allies: The NDAA blocks troop withdrawals from Europe and South Korea, reinforces NATO commitments, restores funding for the Baltic Security Initiative and expands Indo-Pacific defense cooperation.
  • Ukraine Support Reduced to Symbolism: Despite strong language prohibiting U.S. recognition of Russian sovereignty over occupied Ukrainian territory and new safeguards to prevent the diversion of weapons meant for Kyiv, the NDAA sharply reduces military aid to Ukraine, so much so that it may allow Putin to win the conflict handily.
  • More Progress for Space Innovation, with Much More to Be Done: The legislation proposes restoring funding for commercial remote sensing and creates an acquisition career path within the Space Force. But it fails to reauthorize the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR/STTR) program, a critical omission that threatens early-stage defense and space innovation.
  • A Revamped But Faulty Pentagon: While the NDAA limits meddling with the military’s combatant command structure, creates a new position for international defense cooperation, and cuts unnecessary or burdensome regulations, it also allows for military equipment to be used in American deportation missions, an increased reliance on artificial intelligence,, and excludes our European allies from defense cooperation.

“The hulking legislation shows that Congress can use some of its powers to create a structured national security strategy for next year,” said Jacoby. “But it also highlights a troubling gap between intent and real-world outcomes, especially for Ukraine, where underfunding and half-measures fall far short of what the moment demands.”

Read and download the analysis 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 @ppi.

###

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