American Federalism Today: Perspectives on Political and Economic Governance
Michael J. Boskin, 

CITY JOURNAL

Nullification and Ultimate Authority
​One need not endorse nullification to recognize a serious problem with relying only on the federal government to protect the reserved authority of states.
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Constitutional Tensions
Burke, a Man For All Seasons

How Congress Lost, Part II: The Constitutional Presidency

How Congress Lost, Part III: Hamiltonian Energy and the Washington Administration

How Congress Lost, Part IV: Washington, Foreign Policy, and the Emergence of Presidential Governance

• The political battles over public credit in 1790–92 demonstrated the potential for strong presidential leadership over domestic affairs. The foreign policy crises of 1793–96 likewise strengthened presidential leadership.
• When Britain and France went to war in 1793, Americans disagreed about how the United States should maintain neutrality. The pro-British faction ultimately triumphed because of institutional advantages inherent to the executive branch.
• Partial to Alexander Hamilton’s pro-British sensibilities, George Washington used the executive branch’s unitary power to set the political agenda in ways that empowered Hamilton.
• James Madison and his allies in the House failed to stop these initiatives, indicating that by 1796, the executive branch was the most dominant one.

Read the full pdf.

FIXING CONGRESS

In a new essay for National Affairs, Howard Husock explores the causes and consequences of this educational failure.

IS CONGRESS BROKEN

THE BROKEN BRANCH

The Confidence Gap: 40 Years Later
Karlyn Bowman | Forbes

The Spotlight Is on Speaker Johnson: We Need a Budget Now.
Elaine McCusker | Hill

A Bipartisan Tool to Improve America’s Fiscal Future

Making Tough Fiscal Choices to Protect Future Generations

Sounding the Alarm: Examining the Need for a Fiscal Commission
Rob Portman | House Committee on the Budget
Former Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) testified before the House Committee on the Budget on the need for a fiscal commission to tackle the federal debt crisis.

The Urgent 21st-Century Upgrades Congress Needs to Do Its Job
Kevin R. Kosar | Hill
Voters would be wise to tell Congress to rebuild itself for the 21st century and get on with the public’s business.
Full Story

Jay Cost introduces the factors behind this legislative degeneration in the first of a multi-report series.

JAY COST PART II

Why Rising Powers Resist Alliances, 
An in-depth exploration of the article, "China and the Alliance Allergy of Rising Powers,"

• In the long term, dynamism is unlikely to emerge from efforts to circumvent or suppress the melee of democratic politics. Rather, advocates for innovation should direct their energy toward building balanced governance institutions—focusing on the right capacities, expertise, and incentives.

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Philip Wallach’s Why Congress 

Put the People Back in the People’s House
Kevin R. Kosar and John Maxwell Hamilton | RealClearPolitics
Policy debates in Washington need to be re-centered. This can be achieved by congressional committees, which have jurisdiction over policymaking, bringing average voters into their deliberations.
Full Story

Kevin Corinth and Jeff Larrimore investigate Americans’ income growth across five generations, from the Lost Generation to Generation Z. Using a posttax, post-transfer income measure derived from the Current Population Survey, the authors find that each of the past four generations have been better off than the previous, with millennials ages 36–40 having 18 percent higher median household income than their parents did. While Corinth and Larrimore’s analysis suggests that intergenerational income growth has slowed, this is largely a product of stalled growth in working hours. As a result, this research demonstrates that intergenerational real market income growth remains robust.

Medicare Is Central to Fixing Health Care and the Federal Budget
James C. Capretta | Hill
If the program changed to encourage cost reduction through competition and consumer choice, the entire system would benefit from a renewed focus on efficiency in the provision of service to patients.
Full Story

Wasteful Local Stimulus Funding Could Mark The End Of Competitive Federalism
by Paul E. Peterson, Carlos Lastra-Anadon via The Hill
A fiscal flood of biblical proportions — $1.3 trillion — is descending upon state and local governments via four pieces of congressional legislation enacted in the name of COVID relief. No less than $738 billion is scheduled to be spent in the current fiscal year. The Biden administration and congressional progressives are promising trillions more. The vast transfer of funds to lower tiers of government threatens the U. S. federal system as we know it.

​Congress Overwhelmed: The Decline in Congressional Capacity and Prospects for Reform
 Congress today is falling short. Fewer bills, worse oversight, and more dysfunction. But why? In a new volume of essays, the contributors investigate an underappreciated reason Congress is struggling: It doesn’t have the internal capacity to do what our constitutional system requires of it. Leading scholars chronicle the institutional decline of Congress and the decades-long neglect of its own internal investments in the knowledge and expertise necessary to perform as a first-rate legislature. Today’s legislators and congressional committees have fewer — and less expert and experienced — staff than the executive branch or K Street. This leaves them at the mercy of lobbyists and the administrative bureaucracy.  READ MORE
Our overwhelmed Congress
Do we need Congress?
House must take the first step to modernize how Congress works

China Has a Few Things to Teach the U.S. Economy 
– Noah Smith, Bloomberg

In search of responsible republican government, part 2: The parties as a solution
 
Jay Cost | September 2019 
 

• Although political parties have long been in disrepute, they can help make our government more responsive to the public interest.
  
  
• A party’s purpose is to win elections for its members, but depending on how party rules are structured, parties can advance or hinder republican government.
  
  
• Changes to nominating procedures, campaign finance, and internal party rules could make the parties work more effectively for the national good.

In search of responsible republican government, part 1: The institutional problem
 Jay Cost | AEI | August 6, 2019

Restoring Congress: The parties are a solution
 Jay Cost | NationalReview.com | June 17, 2019

Updates To The Budget Calculator
via Budget Matters, America Off Balance
We are happy to announce we have updated the America Off Balance Budget Calculator to reflect the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) recent update to their 10-year budget and economic projections.
 

Congress must grow to check the administrative state 
James C. Capretta | RealClearPolicy 
 
James Capretta explores the rise of the administrative state and the corresponding decline in power of the legislative branch, explaining that Congress' persistent failure to properly fulfill the role of checking the executive branch in recent years, is one reason the nation's politics are out of balance. Capretta argues that Congress could begin to reassert itself by building stronger institutional support for the development of specific legislative responses to emerging issues and problems. The legislative branch has steadily lost power to the executive branch because it does not have the capacity to develop and implement legislative policies that can competently address the many challenges that present themselves in a modern economy. House and Senate members need more help from true experts to fulfill their constitutional roles. 
 
 
The 'administrative state' needs to follow the rule of law by Congress
Peter J. Wallison | The Hill  
 
Rules and regulations by federal agencies, which many now call the administrative state, are quickly supplanting Congress as the principal source of the rules that American citizens and businesses have to obey. Peter Wallison argues that the power of the administrative state must be reined in if we are to remain a nation where the rule of law prevails. The actions of administrative agencies such as the Justice Department must not go beyond what Congress authorized, and the courts should enforce this limit.