On Donald Trump’s watch, America is losing what is probably the most important new manufacturing opportunity in the world--the global race to produce affordable electric vehicles that people want to drive. The United States currently accounts for just 20 percent of global electric vehicle production, far behind China. Jumpstarting U.S. production and purchase of Electric…
Publications
The U.S. economy almost certainly has a problem with rising market power. A bevy of recent economic studies show that concentration in many sectors of the economy has increased over the past 20-30 years. These increases in concentration have been convincingly linked to such economic ills as rising prices, weak productivity growth, stagnant real wages,…
Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised a massive infrastructure program financed primarily by the private sector. Trump’s 2018 budget proposed leveraging $200 billion in direct federal spending into $1 trillion in infrastructure investment through private sector incentives. However, President Trump recently retreated from this campaign pledge that private sector funding would be a…
Press
In 1901, a Colorado Springs dentist named Frederick McKay noticed many of his patients had peculiarly mottled brown teeth -- but far fewer cavities than the norm. The cause, Dr. McKay determined after years of investigation, was high levels of natural fluoride in the town’s water. His discovery eventually led to the widespread fluoridation of…
As Congress begins to turn toward tax policies to help clean energy manufacturing, electric vehicle tax credits aimed directly at more affordable vehicles are gaining speed, just as a previous Forbes column and a Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) white paper urged several months ago. The question now is will EV advocates in Congress, the U.S.…
After the president’s budget was released on Monday, House Budget Committee Chairman John Yarmuth (D-KY) called it “A Budget for a Declining America.” Unfortunately, that might be an understatement. The Trump administration's Fiscal Year 2020 budget proposal is a compilation of the worst ideas to come out of the Republican Party over the last decade. It would dismantle public investments that…
Blog
For many Americans, one traffic ticket could be all it takes to derail their financial security — and perhaps even their livelihood. Loathe to raise taxes, many states and cities are increasingly relying on fines and fees — whether for traffic offenses, court costs or misdemeanors such as littering — to fill their coffers. The amounts demanded are often exorbitant, and…
Unlike such polarizing issues as health care, immigration and climate change, repairing and updating our economic infrastructure is something both parties say they are for. Yet somehow our political leaders can’t get the job done. President Trump often complains about the shabby state of America’s airports, highways and railways. “The only one to fix the…
Republicans despise federal micromanagement, but that hasn’t kept Rep. Don Young of Alaska from hopping aboard the Washington-Knows-Best Express. He recently introduced a bill mandating that freight trains have a minimum of two crew members on board trains at all times. While Young justifies his bill on safety grounds, the bill also appears to reflect…
