Are America’s School Boards Under Attack?

By Peyton Lofton — October 15, 2021

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Policy Papers

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Climate and Energy, Economy

The $3.5 Trillion Reconciliation Bill Won’t Make Natural Disasters Less Damaging Anytime Soon

October 7, 2021

The Democrats’ $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill contains the largest ever investment to combat the long-term impacts of climate change. It would also do little in the short-term to prevent the kinds of damage and lost lives America saw in the wake of the hurricanes and storms that wracked the country in the last month. This is a critical point that has been lost in much of the reporting about...

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Economy

End the Debt Ceiling

September 30, 2021

Congress is once again arguing over who should be responsible for lifting the federal debt ceiling, which is a statutory cap on how much the U.S. Treasury is authorized to borrow. The debt ceiling is also possibly the single worst policy on the books in Washington today. It sounds like it has something to do with enforcing fiscal responsibility but, in fact, works against this goal. Debate over...

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Governance

How Budget Reconciliation is Making Everything Worse in Washington

September 9, 2021

Congress is moving two ambitious domestic policy bills on two procedural tracks. And that small difference is a big deal. The $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, aimed at repairing and replacing physical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and waterways, is being advanced through (more or less) traditional legislative means. Alternatively, a $3.5 trillion social spending and climate...

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Governance, National Security

Where Did the Afghanistan “Intelligence” Come From?

August 26, 2021

A U.S. intelligence assessment from June 2021 estimated that the Taliban would capture Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, within six months of U.S. military withdrawal. In early August, American intelligence officials projected that the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan would occur in 30 to 90 days. Both estimates were catastrophically wrong. On August 15, two weeks before U.S. troops were...

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Economy, Governance, Social Policy

The 2020 Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force: Is It the Rosetta Stone for Biden’s 2021 Agenda and Beyond?

August 18, 2021

Was collaborating with Bernie Sanders merely a short-term maneuver for President Biden to secure support from progressives? Or was it a bellwether for the four years to follow? Here's what we...

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Social Policy

Police Reform: What’s the Holdup?

August 10, 2021

Earlier this summer, Senators Tim Scott (R-SC) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Representative Karen Bass (D-CA) appeared on the cusp of forging a bipartisan and bicameral agreement on reforming policing in America. But there are still a few outstanding issues, and one in particular—qualified immunity—appears to be the biggest hurdle left to clear. Qualified immunity has never been codified in law;...

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The Big Issues

Climate and Energy

The fight against climate change is a multi-decade challenge, and must be sustained across many presidencies and sessions of Congress. For any solution to stand a chance, it must be forged in the center.

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