Scott Lincicome Though grocery inflation has moderated in recent months, Bloomberg recently reported that food prices remain at the top of Americans’ inflation concerns. Unsurprisingly, this issue has become a major theme of the 2024 presidential election, with Joe Biden and Donald Trump—and Democrats and Republicans in Congress—pointing fingers at each other and making their case before American voters. Yet, as I wrote in my column this week at The Dispatch, few people in Washington actually seem interested in lowering grocery prices—instead, some have been actively trying to increa ..read more

Adam N. Michel President Biden’s Treasury Department has been the key driver of the Organisation for Economic Co‐​operation and Development’s (OECD’s) project to create a global tax system that raises the cost of international investment and taxes the most profitable American companies. As the global tax begins to be implemented around the world, it has become clear that the administration negotiated a bad deal for American businesses, their employees, and the US Treasury. The administration and some Democrats in Congress are now trying to shift blame to Republicans, claiming that by ..read more

Nicholas Anthony Last week I wrote that if Congress truly cares about the Constitution, it should step in and reform the sweeping financial surveillance that is now the norm. Unfortunately, Representative Sean Casten (D‑IL) answered that call by doubling down and attempting to further restrict financial privacy in the United States with the introduction of the “Blockchain Integrity Act.” In short, the Blockchain Integrity Act would first establish a two‐​year moratorium that prohibits financial institutions from going anywhere near cryptocurrency that has been routed through a  ..read more

Jeffrey A. Singer Casual readers might misinterpret reports of yesterday’s decision by the federal Canadian government to make it illegal to consume illicit drugs in public spaces in British Columbia to mean that the federal government has just squelched the province’s three‐​year drug decriminalization. That is not the case. In 2023, lawmakers in Ottawa exempted British Columbia from federal drug prohibition laws, permitting the province to begin a three‐​year pilot program decriminalizing the possession of all illicit drugs for personal use. Advocates of the idea argued decriminalizati ..read more

Jeffrey A. Singer The iron law of prohibition—the harder the law enforcement, the harder the drug—is the reason why, in recent years, fentanyl has replaced heroin, the veterinary tranquilizer xylazine began being added to fentanyl to make more potent and deadly tranq, and, more recently, the synthetic opioid isotonitazene (“iso” or “tony”) has made its debut in the dangerous black market that prohibition fuels. As policymakers keep doubling down on law enforcement strategies to prosecute the futile war on drugs, they provide greater incentives for drug trafficking organizations to create new ..read more

Bryan Caplan If you read the endnotes for Build, Baby, Build, you’ll learn about all of the papers I could find on the connection between fertility and housing prices/​housing regulation. I’m afraid the total is only three: Simon, Curtis, and Robert Tamura. 2009. “Do Higher Rents Discourage Fertility?” Regional Science and Urban Economics 39: 33–42. Mulder, Clara, and Francesco Billari. 2010. “Homeownership Regimes and Low Fertility.” Housing Studies 25: 527–41. Shoag, Daniel, and Lauren Russell. 2018. “Land Use Regulations and Fertility Rates.” In One Hundred Years of Zon ..read more

Colin Grabow Washington State Ferries (WSF) has certainly seen better days. With over 3,500 canceled sailings last year and just 15 of its 21 vessels reliably operating, a recent Seattle Times editorial described the ferry system as “in crisis” and characterized its fleet as “antiquated” and “depleted.” Such language is apt. With 11 of the system’s ferries at least 40 years old and WSF five short of the 26 vessels it considers ideal, new vessels are badly needed. Unfortunately, none are projected to arrive until 2028 at the earliest. The extended delivery timeline is sufficient ..read more

Marc Joffe Two bills in the California State Legislature propose to transfer wealth from social media companies to local news providers. Although the rhetoric behind these bills sounds worthy, their ultimate effect will be to lower the barrier between the state and a free press envisioned in the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The narrative underlying these bills is well known to media consumers: internet behemoths have sucked the life out of local journalism, depriving residents of information about local governments and community organizations. By taxing firms like Google and M ..read more

Romina Boccia and Ivane Nachkebia This Thursday, Cato is hosting the Social Security Symposium: A Global Perspective from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. (EST). You can join us in person at the Cato headquarters in Washington DC (breakfast and lunch will be served) or tune in online. We hope to see you there! Social Security, the largest federal government program, is unsustainable as currently structured. Social Security consists of Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI). Unless stated otherwise, Social Security will refer to OASI in this document. This fact sh ..read more

Colleen Hroncich “Startling Insights From a New Preschool Study” blares the headline from a SciTechDaily article on a new review of early childhood education research. The article is attributed to the Teachers College at Columbia University, home of two of the study’s authors. But is this really startling given that most studies show mixed results at best? The new report, “Unsettled science on longer‐​run effects of early education,” notes that most of the positive enthusiasm for taxpayer support of preschool comes from two projects in the 1960s and 1970s. The Abecedarian Presc ..read more