Wheeling, WV Correspondent — Realignment can create clearer coalitions and coherent majorities. It can also rearrange the same conflict into new lines. We now have a year of evidence and it's not encouraging on the functional half. Unified control produced one large bill and then a forty-three-day shutdown, the longest ever recorded, resolved by an … Continue reading Did the political realignment produce more functional governance, or new forms of polarization?
politics
Should the United States maintain its current network of security commitments in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, or begin a more explicit process of prioritization?
Dayton, OH Correspondent — Commitments exceed comfortable capacity measured against simultaneous requirements in multiple theatres. The production numbers are still the argument. Artillery expansion took three years to approach the consumption rate of a single conflict, and the interceptor stocks used in the Middle East this year are on multi-year replacement schedules. Prioritisation is recognition … Continue reading Should the United States maintain its current network of security commitments in Europe and the Indo-Pacific, or begin a more explicit process of prioritization?
How can the administrative state be made more responsive to elected officials without introducing new forms of politicization into technical decisions?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — Responsiveness requires clearer statutory direction, stronger oversight of policy priorities, and consequences for refusing to implement lawful policy. The risk is that technical judgments become subordinated to preference. The workable separation is elected control of ends with integrity in means. What makes this question unusually live is that it may … Continue reading How can the administrative state be made more responsive to elected officials without introducing new forms of politicization into technical decisions?
Is the current trajectory of federal debt and interest costs compatible with sustained economic growth and long-term geopolitical leadership?
Owatonna, MN Correspondent — Rising interest costs reduce fiscal space for investment, defence, and future emergencies. Net interest passed a trillion dollars this year and exceeds defence spending. That's not a projection anymore. Sustained growth is still possible. The trajectory makes it harder and raises the odds of an eventual adjustment that itself slows growth. … Continue reading Is the current trajectory of federal debt and interest costs compatible with sustained economic growth and long-term geopolitical leadership?
How should the United States balance stricter border enforcement with the practical need for legal pathways that match labor-market demand?
Clermont, FL Correspondent — Strict enforcement without workable channels produces repeated waves. Channels without enforcement produce the same inflows under different paperwork. The enforcement half is now demonstrated rather than theoretical. Crossings are at levels not seen in decades and interior removals ran to several hundred thousand this year. So the question has narrowed usefully. … Continue reading How should the United States balance stricter border enforcement with the practical need for legal pathways that match labor-market demand?
After a full year, did the administration demonstrate that significant policy change is possible within the existing administrative structure, or that institutional inertia remains dominant?
Dayton, Ohio Correspondent — A year in, the answer has more evidence behind it than it did in March. Direction changed fast where the law already left room — enforcement choices, permitting emphasis, regulatory pauses. That's changing the process sheet and it matters. The machinery is a different story. What the year actually demonstrated is … Continue reading After a full year, did the administration demonstrate that significant policy change is possible within the existing administrative structure, or that institutional inertia remains dominant?
The reconciliation bill signed today adds substantially to the deficit path. Does that undercut the efficiency effort, or are the two separate files?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — They're separate files and they're being scored on the same page, which is the problem. Waste and fraud are real and worth attacking on their own terms. Nothing in that argument depends on the deficit, and the case for going after a hundred-billion-dollar fraud loss stands whether the budget is … Continue reading The reconciliation bill signed today adds substantially to the deficit path. Does that undercut the efficiency effort, or are the two separate files?
Twelve days after American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and a ceasefire that is holding, what should the posture be now — and does the strike settle the nuclear clock or only reset it?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — The argument we were all having about whether to impose a cost is over. A cost was imposed on the twenty-second and the fuse got moved. Moved is not removed, and that's the whole file now. What I want is an honest answer to a narrow question: where is the enriched … Continue reading Twelve days after American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and a ceasefire that is holding, what should the posture be now — and does the strike settle the nuclear clock or only reset it?
Should federal research and student-aid dollars be withheld from specific universities this year on viewpoint and discipline grounds, or is firm-by-firm litigation the better tool?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — This stopped being hypothetical in the spring. Money has already been withheld at scale from named institutions and the litigation is already running alongside it. So the real question is whether the version being executed is the one any of us would have designed, and I'd say partly. Withholding on a … Continue reading Should federal research and student-aid dollars be withheld from specific universities this year on viewpoint and discipline grounds, or is firm-by-firm litigation the better tool?
The tax and reconciliation bill was signed today. Did Congress write a durable code, or a stack of expiring provisions that will be relitigated in 2027?
Gastonia, NC Correspondent — We can stop arguing about how it should be written. It was signed this morning, and the answer is both. The core is permanent. The rates and brackets don't expire, and full expensing was made permanent. Those are real and they're what a lender models. Everything the campaign was actually about … Continue reading The tax and reconciliation bill was signed today. Did Congress write a durable code, or a stack of expiring provisions that will be relitigated in 2027?
