This conversation between Brink Lindsey & Damon Linker, very smart, thoughtful gentlemen affiliated with The Niskanen Center @niskanencenter.bsky.social, is great. Discussions & ideas like theirs are essential if liberal democracy is to survive populist assault. open.substack.com/pub/brinklin...
Bullying Anthropic won’t fix the government’s real problem: it shouldn’t be so dependent on private firms in the first place.
Read Gabe Menchaca: hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/hegseths-w...
Housing policy is family policy.
Read more from Grace Olson and Danielle Bissett here: www.niskanencenter.org/we-can-build...
Too often, we’re given a false choice: build new infrastructure or save nature.
But programs from the Colorado River to the Mississippi prove we can have it both ways.
That's just one of the ideas @rohanaras.bsky.social and @awjustus.bsky.social have on how Congress can address housing and transportation costs in one fell swoop. thehill.com/opinion/cong...
Dallas permitted more housing than all of California in multiple months of 2024.
Dallas should get more infrastructure support.
Cutting consulting contracts could save taxpayers more than $65 billion.
But government agencies must hire top talent to do it.
New piece in The Hill—Congress should consider housing jointly with transportation in Surface Reauth:
- Reward places that accept growth with needed transpo investment
- Prioritize projects that improve access to daily needs
- Improve project delivery
thehill.com/opinion/cong...
In @thehill.com with @rohanaras.bsky.social today where we argue that surface transportation policy is not complete without considering housing. thehill.com/opinion/cong...
The H-2A visa program, the only legal pathway for temporary agricultural labor, excludes:
✖️dairy
✖️year-round livestock
✖️meatpacking
For many law-abiding plants, there is no feasible way to quickly replace the workers they have lost.
@thedispatchmedia.bsky.social: thedispatch.com/article/immi...
An Austin or Minneapolis-scale YIMBY victory in California would cut poverty by as much as the Child Tax Credit
Already in Minneapolis, *unsubsidized market rate apartments are affordable at federal LIHTC rents*
bsky.app/profile/nisk...
Liberals need to confront what angry electorates are telling them, not flinch and dismiss the critics.
damonlinker.substack.com/p/how-not-to...
Liberals need to confront what angry electorates are telling them, not flinch and dismiss the critics.
And then they need to harness the power of liberalism to restore the country. hypertext.niskanencenter.org/p/lets-bake-...
@DamonLinker says that defenders of liberalism cannot prevail “by telling hundreds of millions of voters...that they’re deluded to feel the way they do about the performance of institutions that dominate and structure the societies they live in.”
damonlinker.substack.com/p/how-not-to...
Brink Lindsey says voters were responding to something real and alarming.
Meanwhile, @johnnythin.bsky.social, @michaelrstrain.bsky.social, Jonathan Rauch warn against giving too much ground to the postliberal critique.
To what extent was the U.S. already in crisis before the rise in populism we've seen over the past few years?
It's a serious debate among defenders of the liberal-democratic order. Recent responses to Brink Lindsey's new book have brought it to the forefront. ⬇️
“ We need meaning, purpose, status, and belonging, and our current capitalist consumer's way of life isn't very good at providing that.”
Brink Lindsey on the “triple crisis of capitalism." ↓
Read @musaalgharbi.bsky.social on how we get there and what's holding us back. www.niskanencenter.org/on-crime-and...
This should be the North Star of criminal justice reform.
30+ states have now adopted policies to boost housing production. Which means exciting opportunities for researchers to study these policies' effectiveness. Some guidance from me, via @niskanencenter.bsky.social, on how to design good state policy evaluations:
www.niskanencenter.org/how-to-evalu...
Read/listen to @henrymjtonks.bsky.social and Geoff Kabaservice's whole conversation on the Vital Center podcast! www.niskanencenter.org/reevaluating...
"We remember the 1980s as this optimistic time, when, in fact, there was a profound sense of anxiety around declining U.S. industrial competitiveness."
Digital tech influences minds, democracies, and cultures.
Where's the counter-movement? It's coming.
When the monopolist owns the megaphone, the playbook breaks.
Today, the tools we'd use to organize resistance are controlled by the forces we need to resist. We're forced onto digital terrain owned by the people we're trying to rein in.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3RC...
The Gilded Age robber barons were ruthless. They bought legislators and hired strikebreakers. But they couldn't control what farmers thought about them. Tarbell exposed Standard Oil. Sinclair's Jungle changed federal law. The media was too diffuse to control.
That's no longer true.
The system needing reform is the same system that prevents reformers from organizing.
Super pumped to publish a new essay for @niskanencenter.bsky.social on why the fourth industrial revolution resists political response… and why we should build capacity anyway.
Loved contributing to this series. Thank you for the opportunity!
Here is my collaboration with Will Raderman @niskanencenter.bsky.social to look into states that have adopted enhanced wage records and how that data can help UI agencies, as well as training and education efforts for workers. www.niskanencenter.org/the-case-for...
