We’ve been hearing a lot lately about government benefits fraud, and the Trump administration has appointed Vice President J.D. Vance to head a new “White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.”

Government benefits fraud is an enormous problem. It plagues all federal benefits programs to one degree or another, like Medicare and Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security Disability, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Government loan programs are also susceptible to fraud.

Politicians of both parties routinely promise to cut down on “fraud, waste and abuse,” and this sounds good to voters because we know in a government that spends this much money, there must be an awful lot of fraud.

Fraud is a misuse of taxpayer dollars, so of course cutting down on fraud is good. So, we cheer the Trump administration’s efforts to identify fraud and prosecute fraudsters. Go get ‘em.

But the problem is that fraud is inherent in government, because incentives in government are completely different than in the private sector. You can’t “run government like a business” because government isn’t anything like a business.

In a recent hearing, one expert witness estimated that the public sector experiences fraud at a rate of about 20 percent, compared with about 3 percent in the private sector. The private sector does a great job of preventing and identifying fraud because in the private sector saving money is good. Saving money leads to some combination of more profit for shareholders, more jobs and higher salaries for employees, lower prices for customers, and more money to invest in growth. Everyone involved is incentivized to prevent fraud.

But in government, the incentives are the opposite. No one in the chain is incentivized to prevent fraud. In government, the more money you send out the door, the better. The more you spend, the more you get. The bigger your budget, the more employees you supervise, the more influence you wield and the more indispensable your program becomes. Everyone is happy.

And if you delay or refuse to send that check to that recipient, they get angry. They complain. Maybe to their member of Congress. And now the politician is mad at you.

Government programs generally operate under a “pay and chase” approach. Government writes the check, pays the benefit, or issues the loan first, and then if the public becomes aware of massive fraud, government reluctantly goes into chase mode.

In the private sector, there are up-front screens to prevent fraud in the first place, rather than pay and chase. Because the incentives are completely different.

The real problem is big government. The bigger the government, the more opportunities there are for fraud.

That’s why at IPI we argue for limited government, not better government. Better government is nice, sure, but also not very likely.

Today, many so-called conservatives have fallen for the temptation that big government is great as long as they are running it. But that’s a mistake.

The Founders designed a system of limited government, because limited government prevents a multitude of sins.

American law has long recognized that punishment should reflect the harm caused. A man who steals a $50 power tool from a hardware store is a thief. A man who cuts communications lines at a federal building faces felony charges. Yet someone who severs a fiber-optic cable serving 911 dispatch centers, hospitals and first responders in pursuit of scrap copper may face little more than a misdemeanor, if he is charged at all. That is a legal failure.

The data are alarming. Between June 2024 and June 2025, there were 15,540 reported theft and vandalism incidents targeting America's communications networks, disrupting service for more than 9.5 million customers. Nearly 9,800 occurred in the first half of 2025 alone, double the previous six months. This is an accelerating crime wave.

Copper runs through the veins of our communications infrastructure. As prices have climbed near record highs, fueled by demand from renewable energy projects, data centers and AI infrastructure, thieves have read the market signal. What they find in a buried conduit or along a utility pole may fetch a few hundred dollars at a scrapyard. What they leave behind, to paraphrase FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, is destruction measured in millions of dollars and lives endangered.

The examples are everywhere. In Tucson, Ariz., thieves targeting underground cables knocked out streetlights, creating hazards for drivers and pedestrians. In Los Angeles, copper theft disabled landline communications at fire stations. In Virginia Beach, attacks caused more than $1 million in infrastructure damage. In Kansas City, individuals were charged with cutting cables tied directly to emergency communications. In Pierce County, Wash., thieves used heavy equipment to haul away $55,000 in copper wire and fiber cable.

The damage vastly exceeds the value of the material stolen, making standard theft statutes almost absurd. In a study released last fall, Dr. Edward Lopez examined the true societal costs of these outages. He found that in just six months, communications infrastructure theft and vandalism imposed costs on Americans ranging from $38 million to $188 million. Texas alone bore $18 million.

Federal law imposes up to 10 years in prison on anyone who willfully damages or destroys a communications facility operated or controlled by the federal government. But the same act against a privately owned broadband network is usually punished according to the scrap value of the copper stolen. The severed fiber, interrupted 911 service, disconnected hospital or school without distance learning is largely invisible to the law.

That must change. Communications networks are at least as essential as highways and bridges. State legislatures should treat attacks on privately owned communications infrastructure with the same gravity as attacks on public utilities and government property.

If punishment is supposed to reflect harm, penalties for attacking communications infrastructure should reflect the full cost. Until they do, thieves will continue to conclude that the copper is worth the risk. We should prove them wrong.

A deeply troubling threshold has been crossed. In recent weeks, the national debt (debt held by the public) of the United States has exceeded our gross domestic product (GDP). In other words, we owe more than we produce. This is the first time since World War II that national debt has exceeded GDP.

I’m guessing you haven’t heard anything about it, since neither of our political parties seems the slightest bit interested.

The U.S. incurred massive federal debt during World War II to, literally, save the world. Today, we’re doing it to protect sugar farmers from competition so they can pollute the Everglades, so that transgender prisoners can get taxpayer subsidized gender surgery, and so that people who don’t want to work can live off taxpayers through welfare and disability programs.

Not quite as noble a cause.

Our debt is increasing because we spend more than we take in—a lot more.

For fiscal year 2026, the Congressional Budget Office projects a total deficit of $1.9 trillion, with $7.4 trillion in outlays and $5.6 trillion in revenues. That means the federal government is spending roughly one-third more than it takes in. Map that onto your personal finances and see if you can sleep at night.

All other things being equal, you’d like to be the country that dictates terms to the rest of the world. The United States gets to do that because of the size and strength of our economy. It gives us room to maneuver, and the ability to exert leverage on other countries. It funds a powerful military. History demonstrates that a U.S.-led world order is the best world order. It’s something no one can take from us, but it’s something that we ourselves can abandon.

We know this can’t go on without causing problems. Arguably, it already is, since interest on the debt is now larger than our defense budget, and larger than Medicare. The only federal budget item larger than interest on the debt is Social Security outlays—but at the pace we are going, interest payments will surpass Social Security as well. The opportunity cost of spending $1 trillion a year in interest alone is staggering.

If something can’t go on forever, it will stop. Economist Herb Stein wrote this in the Wall Street Journal in May 1985. Obviously, the debt has become dramatically larger since then, both in real terms and as a percent of GDP.  When will the size of U.S. debt become a real problem? Stein almost certain thought it would have long before now. The truth is, we don’t know when. But these things tend to sneak up on you.

In Hemmingway’s “The Sun Also Rises,” Mike Campbell is asked about his money troubles:
“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.
“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually and then suddenly.”

Ahead of us on the highway, we know the bridge is out. We don’t know where, but we are speeding heedlessly toward it.  

Washington has developed a reliable tell for when an industry wants something it cannot justify on the merits: It puts “AI” in the title.

That is bad for serious debates over artificial intelligence, and it cheapens policy discussions by turning “AI” into a buzzword or sales gimmick.

The instinct is understandable. AI is the defining technology story of the moment, and policymakers are eager to be seen as responsive. That creates an opening, and savvy advocates have not been slow to exploit it. The result is a growing list of proposals that invoke AI while advancing objectives that long predate the current AI debate.

Spectrum policy — the rules governing the allocation, licensing and use of radiofrequency spectrum — is now squarely in this territory. It deserves more careful treatment.

The core facts are clear, even if they are routinely obscured. Somewhere between 80% and 90% of mobile data traffic already travels over Wi-Fi — unlicensed local wireless networks, not licensed cellular networks. Wi-Fi carries roughly 10 times more data than all licensed cellular networks combined. And the architecture of the AI services consumers and businesses are adopting — cloud-dependent, fixed-connection-friendly, built around short prompts and returned responses rather than continuous high-bandwidth streams — does not obviously change that calculus. These facts should be the starting point for any serious analysis.

Given that reality, proposals to reallocate 6 GHz spectrum away from unlicensed use toward exclusive licensed access deserve scrutiny. The 6 GHz band supports the Wi-Fi networks doing much of the heavy lifting in the American wireless data ecosystem. Shrinking that resource in the name of preparing for an AI-driven traffic surge would be an odd response to demand that, based on today’s evidence, is more likely to flow over Wi-Fi than cellular networks.

If anything, forward-looking spectrum policy should look upward, to the Lower 7 GHz band, which sits directly above the current Wi-Fi allocation and could provide meaningful additional unlicensed capacity without displacing what already works.

The enterprise AI story is similarly complex. Private 5G networks, largely running on CBRS spectrum, are increasingly used by manufacturers and industrial operators building AI-powered facilities. Satellite connectivity is attracting serious capital for applications such as drone logistics, where terrestrial infrastructure may be unavailable or unreliable. The AI future will not be dominated by a single spectrum technology. It will rely on heterogeneous networks, unlicensed bands and competitive alternatives.

Licensed spectrum remains important to American AI leadership. But importance is not exclusivity, and proximity to AI is not necessity. Policymakers allocating scarce spectrum resources should ground decisions in data: where AI traffic flows, which connectivity models markets are building and what consumers and businesses need.

Saying “AI” loudly is no substitute for answering those questions.

Aspirational Americans are being priced out of homes. A recent poll found that 65% of Americans believe they will not be able to purchase a home “in the foreseeable future.” Singles who want to put down roots and families who want to grow are growing discouraged about their prospects. So when the Senate passed a bipartisan housing bill 89-10 in March, there was reason for cautious optimism. Congress seemed ready to legislate, for a change.

But the Senate included a harmful provision that would stymie the construction of new homes.

Buried in an otherwise constructive package that streamlines environmental reviews, modernizes manufactured housing rules, and updates multifamily financing tools is a provision bearing the unmistakable fingerprints of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her colleagues in the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It mandates that institutional investors must sell build-to-rent homes within seven years of construction.

Every five- or six-years Congress must reauthorize the major federal surface transportation programs, including rail, highways and infrastructure, public transit and major transportation safety programs. And 2026 is the next reauthorization deadline.

The last reauthorization was the bloated “infrastructure bill” passed in 2021 during the Biden administration. That legislation, originally targeted for around $700 billion, ended up a massive $1.2 trillion monstrosity, including green energy project giveaways, ridiculous sums for broadband buildout, and conditions dictated by labor unions and other progressive interest groups. It helped drive the “Bidenflation” that cost American households billions of dollars that they have never gotten back.

It’s crucial that the 2021 mistake not become the baseline for this year’s reauthorization. Congress must find savings everywhere possible and certainly should not tack on further unnecessary spending and giveaways to special interests.

But they might.

Something called the Railway Safety Act has been hanging around Congress ever since the 2023 train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Because rail is heavily unionized, it was no surprise that Democrats have tried to use the tragedy to benefit labor unions, but then Republican Senator J.D. Vance saw it as an opportunity to burnish his populist bona fides, and has remained stubbornly supportive as vice president.

We learned during the Covid-19 pandemic that we had underestimated the importance of our supply chains, and that supply chain infrastructure should be a priority. But the Railway Safety Act would inhibit freight rail safety by requiring union-mandated crew sizes and other regulations instead of allowing railroads to adopt new technology to make railways safer.

The provisions of the Railway Safety Act, whether they appear in surface transportation reauthorization or in a giant omnibus reconciliation package, would slow down investment in modernizing our freight rail system and improving its resiliency.

Adding additional regulations and mandates have been estimated to cost the economy an estimated $30 billion in lost GDP. While it’s critical for Congress to reduce the inflated infrastructure spending level of the Biden administration, it’s even more important to not impose additional costs on a struggling economy. No one is happy with the economy right now, including voters who supported Republicans in 2024 hoping for a return to the pre-Covid Trump economy. It hasn’t shown up yet, and it certainly won’t show up if Republicans put additional pressures on the supply chain.

The Surface Transportation Reauthorization is being consider in committee this week in Washington. The draft legislation thankfully does not contain the harmful provisions of the Railway Safety Act, but proponents will attempt to add an amendment to the draft language. For the sake of the economy, here’s hoping wiser heads prevail.

The ability of Americans to engage freely and fairly in international commerce is a critical element in the American economy. Since our founding, the United States has leveraged our rich natural resources and our unique ingenuity to compete globally. But our continued ability to compete is now under direct threat from the European Union (EU).

The EU is attempting to impose sweeping, extraterritorial regulations on U.S. companies through the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), alongside its recently adopted AI Act. Together, these overreaching rules risk constraining the growth of artificial intelligence, raising costs for American firms, and slowing the cutting-edge research and deployment that has been a hallmark of America’s global technological advantage for decades.

Under the CSDDD, American companies could be forced to conduct expansive human-rights and environmental due diligence well beyond their direct operations simply to access the European market. These obligations would spike operational expenses and regulatory compliance burdens and could force some companies to lay off staff or scale back operations.

The requirements mandated by the CSDDD go far beyond U.S. law, substitute European policy preferences for American democratic decision-making, and impose legal uncertainty that discourages innovation.

It’s almost as if the CSDDD was specifically designed to hinder America’s competitive advantages over Europe.

Businesses in the natural resources and manufacturing sectors are the most at risk from Europe’s regulatory agenda. Agriculture, energy, mining, timber, and advanced manufacturing form the backbone of the U.S. economy; however, they are all under threat if CSDDD takes effect. These sectors are also essential for fueling the growth of advanced technologies, including AI, cloud computing, and data center infrastructure. Maintaining and, in some cases, expanding access to these supplies is critical to the economic survival of many communities across the country.

AI has the potential to improve lives through medical breakthroughs, safer infrastructure, smarter logistics, and more efficient energy use. Yet, by saddling U.S. innovators with vague, expansive obligations, Brussels risks slowing the very technologies that could deliver environmental and social benefits for people worldwide. Beyond the expansive compliance requirements imposed by the CSDDD, European AI regulations may force U.S. companies to face additional obligations due to the immense resources required to generate, store, and process high-volume, high-impact data necessary for AI systems. It will chill investment, delay deployment, and divert resources from innovation to bureaucratic compliance.

The stakes are particularly high for America’s energy-intensive AI infrastructure. Maintaining a robust U.S. energy supply is essential to the continued growth of data centers, computing hubs, and next-generation digital infrastructure, to say nothing of energy affordability. Foreign sustainability regimes with extraterritorial reach like CSDDD pose significant risks to the United States’ competitiveness and technological leadership.

This is not cooperation; it is regulatory overreach. In fact, the trade agreement framework reached between the U.S. and EU back in August explicitly states that the Europeans would address American concerns about CSDDD. Yet as it currently stands, EU politicians are pressing forward with this extraterritorial regulation, violating an agreement they made with President Trump.

That’s why Members of Congress like Rep. Andy Barr (R-KY) are cautioning against CSDDD which would force America to import “Europe’s green energy regulatory framework” that could harm the “all of the above energy approach needed to win the AI race.” With little hope of changing the direction EU politicians are going, it’s time for Congress to act on legislation to protect U.S. businesses from having to adhere to CSDDD. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) and Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) have such legislation in the works and policymakers should prioritize its passage before European laws begin to harm American companies.

Leadership in AI will not be achieved by importing Europe’s regulatory model. It will be secured by unleashing American ingenuity, backed by reliable energy, clear rules, and a regulatory system accountable to the American people—not foreign bureaucracies.

Every few years, some brave souls in Congress propose immigration reform — and every time it happens, critics react with the same knee-jerk accusation: “Amnesty!” But this radioactive charge is inaccurate when lobbed against the Dignity Act (H.R. 4393), a bipartisan proposal that gives Congress a chance to do what it seems to have forgotten how to do — legislate to solve a problem.

Calling the Dignity Act “amnesty” is not just wrong — it reveals a misunderstanding of what amnesty is. This isn’t semantics — it’s political history. A brief look at two of the most famous American amnesties — Jimmy Carter’s pardon of Vietnam draft dodgers and Ronald Reagan’s 1986 immigration law — makes the distinction clear.

Start with Carter. In 1977, on his first full day in office, he issued a blanket pardon to those who had evaded the Vietnam draft. It was unconditional. No fines, no penalties, no requirements to “make things right.” The pardon applied regardless of whether individuals had been prosecuted or even admitted wrongdoing. 

A fight is underway for the economic future of the United States, and some of our own politicians are siding with global competitors over domestic interests.

Artificial intelligence — and the data center infrastructure that powers it — represents the defining economic opportunity of this generation. JPMorgan recently reported that in the first half of 2025, “AI-related capital expenditures” contributed 1.1% to GDP growth, more than consumer spending contributed to overall expansion.

The nation that builds the most robust AI infrastructure will anchor the industries, jobs and wealth creation of the next half-century. That nation should be the United States. The question is whether policymakers—and those who influence them—will allow that future to take shape.

A damning new report from the American Energy Institute should be required reading for every member of Congress, state legislator, and local official. The report exposes more than $39 million in foreign funding flowing from European billionaires and foundations based in Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Denmark into a coordinated network of activist groups whose mission is to block American data center construction.

A fight is underway for the economic future of the United States, and some of our own politicians are siding with global competitors over domestic interests.

Artificial intelligence—and the data center infrastructure that powers it—represents the defining economic opportunity of this generation. JPMorgan recently reported that in the first half of 2025, “AI-related capital expenditures” contributed 1.1% to GDP growth, more than consumer spending contributed to overall expansion.

The nation that builds the most robust AI infrastructure will anchor the industries, jobs and wealth creation of the next half-century. That nation should be the United States. The question is whether policymakers—and those who influence them—will allow that future to take shape.

A new report from the American Energy Institute should be required reading for members of Congress, state legislators and local officials. It documents more than $39 million in foreign funding—from billionaires and foundations in Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Denmark—flowing into a coordinated network of activist groups working to block U.S. data center construction.

These are not isolated local protests. They represent a manufactured opposition campaign funded from abroad, with the goal of shifting America’s AI future elsewhere.

Foreign interests, watching the United States on the cusp of further technological leadership, are spending tens of millions of dollars to ensure we stumble. Meanwhile, some elected officials—wittingly or not—are amplifying that effort by calling for moratoriums, imposing regulatory hurdles and lending credibility to what is presented as a grassroots movement.

Before calling for a pause on data center construction, policymakers should ask a simple question: Who benefits? Not American workers who would build and operate these facilities. Not communities that would attract investment and tax revenue. Not the broader economy that stands to gain from the next wave of industrial growth.

The beneficiaries are America’s competitors—countries eager to capture the economic activity and strategic advantages that hesitation leaves behind.

A deeper concern is that some organizations traditionally associated with free markets and limited government have aligned, intentionally or not, with this foreign-backed campaign. Framing opposition in terms of property rights, local control or energy concerns may sound principled, but it can serve the same end as foreign-funded efforts to stall development.

Advocates of free markets should be wary of any movement that, however inadvertently, advances the goals of foreign interests seeking to constrain U.S. economic growth.

The debate over data centers is not merely environmental; it is strategic. Either the United States builds the infrastructure needed to lead in artificial intelligence, or it cedes that ground. There is no neutral position. Delays do not stop development—they redirect it.

Every moratorium, lawsuit or zoning fight tied to foreign-funded activism risks pushing investment and capability elsewhere.

Policymakers owe the public transparency about who is shaping the opposition they choose to support. Americans for Public Trust has warned that foreign actors are exploiting disclosure loopholes to influence domestic debates—raising concerns about transparency, accountability and sovereignty.

The United States has earned its place at the forefront of AI. Maintaining that position will require the political will to resist well-funded foreign interference. America’s economic future should not be outsourced.

Today’s TechByte was written by Bartlett Cleland, Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation

The Trump administration has reworked the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program with an eye toward greater efficiency and less top-down regulation. As a result, states are projected to come in roughly $21 billion under budget on broadband deployment. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is actively soliciting ideas for how those funds should be used.

If the administration wants an easy political win and a solution to a real problem, the funds should be used to radically modernize our air traffic control systems.

Policymakers should seize the moment and invest in something the country desperately needs — something that would deliver real, tangible benefits to the flying public and the broader economy.

The FAA’s own administrator, Bryan Bedford, has been blunt: Roughly 80% of FAA infrastructure is considered obsolete or unsustainable. Controllers are still using paper flight strips and radar systems that date to the Vietnam War era.

The $5 billion Congress appropriates annually for ATC operations sounds substantial until you learn that 85% to 90% of it goes to sustaining legacy systems — patching roofs, repairing elevators, and keeping aging equipment limping along.

Congress did take a meaningful step last year, allocating $12.5 billion in the reconciliation bill toward ATC modernization. Fiber optics are beginning to replace copper wire. Radar upgrades are being compressed from a 20-year timeline into a few years.

The early results are encouraging. But by official FAA estimates, an additional $19 billion is needed to fully complete the job — to build a genuinely modern, integrated national airspace system rather than an expensive patch on a broken one.

This is where BEAD’s leftover $21 billion could make a real impact.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee and has long championed both infrastructure investment and Texas’ status as one of the nation’s busiest aviation hubs, is well positioned to recognize the strategic alignment here.

Texas is home to two of the nation’s largest airports — Dallas Fort Worth and Houston Bush Intercontinental — and its economy runs on the efficient movement of people and commerce. ATC modernization would be a huge benefit for Texans.

The legal question of whether this use fits within the BEAD statute’s framework is one that the NTIA will need to address carefully. The statute is written broadly enough to accommodate creative interpretation, and the administration has already demonstrated it is willing to read BEAD’s parameters with fresh eyes.

A next-generation ATC system — replacing copper with fiber, analog with digital, fragmented local computers with integrated national architecture — looks a great deal like the kind of advanced communications infrastructure BEAD was designed to fund.

Ironically, it’s easier to make the case that the federal government should be ensuring airline safety than subsidizing broadband deployment.

The BEAD funding was part of the massive infrastructure legislation, and our airline infrastructure is in dire need of investment. And unlike many government spending programs, ATC modernization has a defined scope and measurable milestones. This is not a slush fund — it’s a known project with a known price tag.

The alternative uses being floated for BEAD’s unused funds range from the reasonable to the fanciful: broadband adoption programs, rural mobile coverage, returning funds to the Treasury, and various state-level wish lists.

Some of those ideas have merit. But none of them represent the kind of once-in-a-generation infrastructure opportunity that a modern ATC system would deliver — one that improves safety for millions of air travelers daily, reduces delays that cost the economy billions annually, and positions the United States to lead in the airspace of the future.

The Trump administration’s 2027 budget request is going to include millions of dollars in additional ATC funding, but the BEAD funds are already there, waiting to be invested. That’s the beauty of budget reform — eliminating waste and finding savings can free up funds for other critical public needs.

Random observations on this most ominous of days—Tax Day.

So much for broader, flatter, simpler. President Trump’s (and Congress’) 2017 tax reform included significant simplification of the tax code, lowering rates and broadening and flattening the base. All that was great.

But the 2025 tax bill backslid on 2017. Free-market tax philosophy since 1980 has stressed making the tax code as simple, flat and broad as possible, and not using the tax code to create loopholes for favored political constituencies.

In 2025, special tax favors narrowed the tax base and added more complications. No tax on tips, convoluted rules on the taxation of Social Security benefits and other changes made taxes more complicated, raising compliance costs.

American-style tax rates, European-style government spending. Europeans receive a high level of government services and pay high tax rates for it. In the U.S., we are trending toward European level spending but keeping our tax rates at lower levels more typical for the U.S.

Steady revenue, increasing spending. But the problem isn’t our low tax rates. In the postwar era, federal revenue has remained surprisingly consistent, around 18% of GDP, regardless of changes in tax policy. The problem is, in 2025 the federal government spent 23% of GDP. In 2020, the feds spent an astonishing 35.3% of GDP, the highest level since 1945.

The result is that interest payments servicing our national debt in 2026 will exceed $1 trillion dollars for the first time in American history.

Who pays the taxes? For 2025, the top 10% of income earners will pay 60% of all federal income taxes. Meanwhile, 44% of U.S. households will pay zero in federal income taxes. The U.S. has the most progressive, i.e. most distorted, tax system in the developed world.

All but the top 10% of income earners will pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

What constitutes the top 10% of income earners? For individual earners, $149,000 puts you in the top 10%. For households, it’s $251,000. (These are national averages and vary by both the location and age of earners).

Many Americans profit from the tax code. The lowest 20% of income earners have a negative federal tax liability, which means they receive income from the tax code. This happens because of refundable tax credits such as the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, Obamacare tax credits, etc. For some households, the refundable tax credits even offset their payroll tax liability. Most tax fraud involves tax returns that fraudulently claim refundable tax credits.

Happy Tax Day!

On Wednesday, April 1, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on President Trump’s attempt to change birthright citizenship policy through executive order. We’ll be listening to the oral arguments here, and so can you.

There are two issues. The first is the procedural question: Can a president change the interpretation and application of the Constitution through executive order?

Now, the almost immediate answer is going to be an emphatic “no,” but it’s a bit more complicated than that. Each branch of the federal government has an obligation to interpret the Constitution. Officials in each branch take an oath to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.”  And since the executive branch is tasked with enforcing the 14th Amendment, it’s not crazy for the executive branch to interpret its constitutional obligations as it enforces them.

On the other hand, the “major questions doctrine” that this Supreme Court has thankfully been applying to disputes means major changes in federal policy should be decided by the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. It wouldn’t be a surprise for the Court to conclude that this applies to the interpretation and application of the 14th Amendment.

The Court can, and probably will, limit itself to the procedural issue, since that’s the only question the Court must address in this case. The Court often decides only the minimally necessary questions posed to it.

So, the Court probably won’t choose to settle the question of birthright citizenship, though it could. This would leave the debate open, in theory to be settled by Congress or in a future Supreme Court decision.

The best solution is a clarifying amendment to the Constitution. No one thinks it was the intention of the 14th Amendment to provide citizenship to birth tourists, who cross the border for no other purpose than to bestow U.S. citizenship on their newborn. We know this happens, and it isn’t just illegals crossing the southern border—it’s also wealthy couples from South America, Europe and Asia who return home with trinkets from Disney World and citizenship for their newborn.

IPI will be proposing a clarifying amendment on birthright citizenship as part of our Renewing America 250 set of proposed constitutional amendments later this year. In our view, it’s long past time to update elements in our system left over from the horse and buggy days when it took weeks for Congress to convene, and to deal with current problems not previously anticipated, including birthright citizenship.

This week courts have given us two different and contradictory verdicts about intermediary liability.

In a case going all the way back to 2018, Cox Communications, the cable and broadband company, was accused of failing to live up to its legal obligation to limit music piracy.

To simplify, Cox had an obligation to cancel the accounts of users who had been warned multiple times about engaging in music piracy, but Cox did not. Cox of course had a financial interest in not cancelling users accounts.

So Cox was sued by the major music labels, and the labels won in lower courts. But this week the Supreme Court continued its skepticism of intermediary liability by finding that Cox was not liable, because Cox did not “actively encourage infringement.”

According to the New York Times, “in its opinion released on Wednesday, the court said a company was not liable for “merely providing a service to the general public with knowledge that it will be used by some to infringe copyrights.”

Writing for the court, Justice Clarence Thomas said a provider like Cox was liable “only if it intended that the provided service be used for infringement” and if it, for instance, “actively encourages infringement.”

So, an intermediary has to intend for something to happen, and actively encourage that thing to happen, in order to incur liability.

The Court’s unanimous 9-0 decision is of course definitive, even if it seems to fly in the face of some provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA).

At IPI, we’ve never been comfortable with intermediary liability, even though we’re also uncomfortable with copyright piracy.

But that leads us to two other cases this week, where in Los Angeles on Wednesday, a jury decided in favor of a plaintiff who had claimed that Meta and YouTube hooked her with addictive features — a verdict validating a novel legal strategy holding the companies accountable for personal injury. And a day earlier in New Mexico, a jury found Meta liable for failing to safeguard users of its apps from child predators.

So, let’s get this straight: Intermediaries are not liable for their users’ illegal activity unless they intend it and actively encourage it, but they are liable for harm to their users, including self-harm, even if they don’t intend it and don’t actively encourage it.

Now, of course the details of the cases are different, and details matter.

Still, the Supreme Court is not a fan of intermediary liability, and that’s a good thing. Which means if Meta and Google appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, there is a reasonable chance that they will succeed.

The tragedy unfolding this week at New York’s LaGuardia Airport hints at human error. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on early reports, but in this case we have audio of the air traffic controller saying, “I messed up.”

Nothing but complete sympathy here for everyone involved, including the air traffic controller. Air traffic control is recognized as one of the most difficult, stressful and pressure-filled jobs on offer. And by all accounts it’s been decades since our corps of air traffic controllers was fully staffed.

But we must acknowledge the reality of human error. In many tragedies, human error is the No. 1 cause:

• Traffic accidents: 90 to 95% are attributed to human error.
• Aviation accidents: 70 to 80% are attributed to human error.
• Maritime accidents: 75 to 96% are attributed to human error.
• Medical errors: Human error is a leading cause of death in medicine, including misdiagnosis, medication errors, and surgical mistakes.
• Nuclear power and major industrial accidents: Both the Chernobyl disaster and the Three Mile Island incident were attributed to human error.
• General industrial/workplace accidents: Most are attributed to human error.

Human error is also a major factor in cybersecurity breaches, IT system failures, construction accidents, structural failures, power grid failures, and even in other areas such as business failure, including risk management errors and so-called “fat finger” trading errors.

Human error is neither a character flaw nor a lack of intelligence or integrity. It’s just a known element of human nature. That’s why in tragic cases like a child left in a backseat by a distracted parent, the proper reaction is compassion, not judgment. We all make mistakes.

Though human error may be inevitable, we are creating tools to help us compensate.

Human error is a perfect place to implement tools like AI to protect us from our own mistakes and compensate for our frailties. Implementing AI could substantially contribute to our quality of life by reducing preventable tragedies.

It’s likely that implementation of AI could eliminate most accidents due to human error. Chips and software don’t get tired, don’t get distracted, and make decisions in millionths of a second that a human might take 5 or 10 seconds to make. Studies suggest that humans can keep track of 3 to 5 independent variables at the same time, while AI can manage orders of magnitude more.

Humans are attention-constrained, while AI is computation-constrained. And while we can’t do anything to improve the former, we’re reducing the computational constraints on AI every day.

After the air traffic controller said, “I messed up,” some kind soul immediately responded with “No, man, you did the best you could.” And that’s entirely possible. It’s likely advanced AI could have prevented the accident, both pilots could have returned to their families, and an air traffic controller could be able to sleep tonight.

The political furor of the moment is over the SAVE Act, or the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act.”

Based on that title, you would think that the bill is about voting.

And it started out that way, with a voter ID requirement for federal elections.

Voter ID is an 80-20 issue. Republicans, who have been championing voter ID for two decades, have won the argument.

So, Republicans should bank the easy win, pass the bill and move on, right? Well, no.

Winning policy arguments, solving problems and preserving those solutions in law is no longer what Congress does. You must fight. So, they threw in requirements that voters prove citizenship when they register to vote.

Now, of course only citizens should be permitted to vote. But voter ID solves 99% of that problem. Regardless, the proof of citizenship requirement gives us more to fight over, even though it loses some votes in both the House and Senate, and it advances the nationalization of elections.

Then President Trump insisted that Republicans eliminate vote by mail, which many states have long implemented, and which almost certainly violates state power over time, place and manner of elections.

But maybe, just maybe, even that bill might still pass.

Then Republicans throw transgender culture war issues into what started as a voter ID bill. Elements that are utterly non-germane to the bill, and that ensure that the bill is impossible to pass.

Now, of course men shouldn’t be allowed to compete in women’s sports. But what does that have to do with elections? Is it worth losing voter ID?

But it gets everyone kung fu fighting online, and it gets people ranting on cable shows.

The final genius move was insisting that the Republic is at stake if the SAVE Act doesn’t pass.

The truth is that the SAVE Act contains elements that would be nice to have, but none of which are critical to the survival of the Republic.

And now the Republican grassroots are furious that Republicans can’t pass the SAVE Act. Do they want men in women’s sports? Do they want illegals voting?

But the votes aren’t there, and the votes won’t be there, because the SAVE Act was designed to not pass. To prolong the fight, not solve the problem.

Our representatives no longer want to solve problems through legislation. They want to prolong problems and prolong frustration, because their brands are built on voter frustration.

The Founders designed a system where our representatives would come to the Capitol, debate and discuss issues, compromise with each other to solve problems, and then go home. That system increasingly looks like a dream.

While the headline-grabbing topic in the affordability debate is the cost of home ownership, the rising cost of electricity in certain markets is a close second.

However, rates aren’t exploding everywhere; they’re spiking in California and the Northeast. In California, in addition to all the normal California distortions like high taxes and regulations, the main factor is wildfire-related costs.

That leaves the Northeast, and the spike in power costs there is real and consequential. There are lessons to be learned.

In many parts of the country, rates have remained relatively stable due to the right balance of competition, regulation and the right mix of generation and transmission. In others, especially in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM), spiking rates serve as a price signal, alerting us that something is wrong.

The way we incentivize power generation, transmit it, and regulate it is one of the most complicated, arcane subjects in public policy, and we aren’t going there (whew). So let’s simplify.

Investor-owned utilities are the backbone of the U.S. electrical system, serving 250 million Americans. In many states, these utilities are vertically integrated, which means they own generation and transmission. They thus operate under state oversight with a simple mandate: plan for the long term, build what’s needed, recover costs from qualified investments in new infrastructure, and keep power reliable and affordable. It’s not glamorous, but it works. Vertical integration plus long-term planning smooths out volatility. That’s why most areas have seen relative price stability even as demand rises.

However, in places exposed to wholesale capacity auctions that spike when supply tightens, where utilities don’t own generation and must buy at market rates, those spikes flow straight through to customers.

We need market reform in places such as PJM to promote proper transparency and oversight with trusted utility partners. Investor-owned utilities have a legal obligation to serve everyone in their territory — urban, rural, wealthy, poor. These utilities have access to lower-cost capital, which reduces the financing costs that customers ultimately pay. And investor-owned utilities plan across decades, not news cycles or quarterly reports. That kind of boring competence is underrated, right up until you don’t have it.

In regions where we offloaded long-term responsibility to an opaque capacity market and hoped price signals alone would summon new power generation on command, things have not gone so well.

A terrible example occurred during the Great Texas Freeze of 2021, when wholesale electricity prices spiked to $9,000 per megawatt-hour, the maximum cap set by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. This price surge, which was 400 times the typical rate, was intended to attract additional generation by offering extreme market rewards.

However, the spike failed to achieve its intended effect because many natural gas facilities had frozen or lost their fuel supply, rendering them unable to generate electricity regardless of price.  The result was a $52.6 billion price hit on consumers. While the price mechanism was intended to function as a market signal, it instead caused catastrophic financial harm.

Some have identified data centers as the culprit for high energy prices in the northeast, but data centers are being built everywhere. That fails to explain why the price spikes seem limited to areas where utilities can only purchase power from wholesale capacity auctions and cannot connect additional power to the grid. The problem is a poorly designed market, however well-intended.

So, what’s the solution? First, it’s a regional, not a national, problem. Second, barring utilities from owning their own generation has turned out to be a mistake. Instead, grid authorities should be encouraging investor-owned utilities to invest in new generation to ensure abundant, robust sources of power for the future. 

A February 2026 analysis by Charles River Associates modeled PJM’s 2028–2029 delivery year and found that expanding state-regulated, utility-owned generation could reduce total customer supply costs by $9.6 billion to $20 billion in that single delivery year. In Charles River Associates’ scenario, “utility-owned generation” means operating alongside merchant generation, not replacing markets, but adding planned, accountable supply.

When it comes to ensuring a reliable source of power at affordable rates, the evidence suggests that investor-owned utilities are not the problem; they’re a big part of the solution.

When claims are made that one of the most widely used medications during pregnancy may cause autism, the public understandably pays attention. Scientists, healthcare professionals, and even judges, however, must ask: What does the evidence actually show?

That question is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

The court is reviewing whether to revive more than 500 lawsuits brought by parents alleging that prenatal acetaminophen exposure caused their children’s autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

In 2023, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote correctly excluded key expert testimony supporting those claims, concluding that they failed to meet the reliability requirements under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

Rule 702 requires judges to ensure that expert testimony presented to juries is grounded in sufficient data, reliable methodology, and a sound application of those methods to the facts of the case. In other words, courts must act as gatekeepers to prevent speculative or methodologically unsound scientific claims from being treated as fact.

Now, plaintiffs are asking the appellate court to reverse that ruling.

The Second Circuit’s decision will test judges’ authority to prevent questionable scientific claims from reaching a jury before they satisfy established reliability standards.

This judicial gatekeeping role is essential. When expert opinions are admitted without rigorous scrutiny, litigation can amplify assumptions that have yet to meet the standards of the broader scientific community.

One reason the plaintiffs’ expert testimony was dismissed is the issue of confounding variables. Neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD have strong genetic components. Disentangling whether a condition stems from a medication exposure or from shared familial and hereditary factors is extraordinarily complex.

None of this means the question should not continue to be studied. But when the vast majority of high-quality studies find no causation between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental conditions, careful gatekeeping must be exercised.

This case’s potential impact on public health makes gatekeeping even more important.

Acetaminophen is one of the most widely used medications in the world and remains the only generally recommended pain and fever reliever during pregnancy when used as directed. That guidance reflects decades of regulatory review and clinical experience.

Several studies have reported an increased likelihood of birth defects and other adverse outcomes from untreated maternal fever. Physicians routinely advise pregnant patients to treat significant fevers promptly because unmanaged fever itself can pose risks to fetal development.

If pregnant women avoid acetaminophen based on unproven claims, they may turn to alternatives such as ibuprofen or aspirin, which carry known risks later in pregnancy, including potential complications affecting fetal kidney development.

By upholding the gatekeeping responsibility of judges under Rule 702, the Second Circuit can reaffirm that scientific claims must meet established thresholds before being presented as reliable proof in court.

When claims are made that one of the most widely used medications during pregnancy may cause autism, the public understandably pays attention. Scientists, healthcare professionals, and even judges, however, must ask: What does the evidence actually show?

That question is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York.

The court is reviewing whether to revive more than 500 lawsuits brought by parents alleging that prenatal acetaminophen exposure caused their children’s autism or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

In 2023, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote correctly excluded key expert testimony supporting those claims, concluding that they failed to meet the reliability requirements under Federal Rule of Evidence 702.

Rule 702 requires judges to ensure that expert testimony presented to juries is grounded in sufficient data, reliable methodology, and a sound application of those methods to the facts of the case. In other words, courts must act as gatekeepers to prevent speculative or methodologically unsound scientific claims from being treated as fact.

Now, plaintiffs are asking the appellate court to reverse that ruling.

The Second Circuit’s decision will test judges’ authority to prevent questionable scientific claims from reaching a jury before they satisfy established reliability standards.

This judicial gatekeeping role is essential. When expert opinions are admitted without rigorous scrutiny, litigation can amplify hypotheses that have yet to meet the standards of the broader scientific community.

One reason the plaintiffs’ expert testimony was dismissed is the issue of confounding variables. Neurodevelopmental conditions such as autism and ADHD have strong genetic components. Disentangling whether a condition stems from a medication exposure or from shared familial and hereditary factors is extraordinarily complex. Critics argue that some of the underlying acetaminophen studies from the plaintiffs’ witnesses did not sufficiently control for these inherited influences, raising the possibility that correlation was mistaken for causation.

Additionally, the expert analyses combined autism spectrum disorder and ADHD outcomes despite their distinct diagnostic criteria. Putting autism and ADHD into the same analysis can make a weak relationship look stronger on paper, even though the conditions aren’t the same so don’t necessarily have the same causes.

Many of the observational studies relied heavily on retrospective, self-reported medication use, sometimes years after pregnancy. Such designs introduce the potential for recall bias. In addition, large, well-controlled studies that have not found a causal relationship were not given comparable weight in the experts’ conclusions.

None of this means the question should not continue to be studied. But when the vast majority of high-quality studies find no causation between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental conditions, careful gatekeeping must be exercised.

This case’s potential impact on public health makes gatekeeping even more important.

Acetaminophen is one of the most widely used medications in the world and remains the only generally recommended pain and fever reliever during pregnancy when used as directed. That guidance reflects decades of regulatory review and clinical experience.

Several studies have reported an increased likelihood of birth defects and other adverse outcomes from untreated maternal fever. Sustained elevated maternal temperature is not benign. Physicians routinely advise pregnant patients to treat significant fevers promptly because unmanaged fever itself can pose risks to fetal development.

Discouraging acetaminophen use without causal evidence of autism is incredibly risky. If pregnant women avoid acetaminophen based on unproven claims, they may turn to alternatives such as ibuprofen or aspirin, which carry known risks later in pregnancy, including potential complications affecting fetal kidney development.

By upholding the gatekeeping responsibility of judges under Rule 702, the Second Circuit can reaffirm that scientific claims must meet established thresholds before being presented as reliable proof in court.

If those standards weaken, unproven claims could influence public behavior in ways that put mothers and babies at risk.

The Second Circuit now has an opportunity to reinforce a simple but essential principle. In both law and public health, scientific standards matter.

Governments should have strategic reserves for the same reason families keep a spare tire or an emergency fund: not because it’s exciting, but because it’s useful when something goes wrong.

A real strategic reserve exists for a concrete, predictable reason: The thing you’re stockpiling is something you must be able to access in an emergency. Petroleum reserves hedge oil supply shocks. Medical stockpiles hedge shortages of critical supplies. Even foreign-currency reserves hedge a very specific risk: paying foreign-currency liabilities when markets seize up.

Bitcoin matches none of those use cases. There are no sovereign liabilities denominated in bitcoin, which means there’s no obvious emergency for which “having bitcoin on hand” is the solution. Reserves should be built around the liabilities and risks you’re trying to hedge — and bitcoin’s volatility tends to amplify risk rather than reduce it.

If you want an asset to be there in a crisis, it helps if it doesn’t routinely plunge 50 percent at the worst possible time.

Some proponents argue bitcoin is “digital gold” and will shore up dollar dominance. But that argument collapses the moment you ask the practical question: What liability does bitcoin help the United States pay? What emergency does it solve? We do not run a bitcoin-denominated economy.

In other words, a government bitcoin “reserve” is really government chasing fads and making highly speculative bets with taxpayer dollars. And gambling with taxpayer dollars is not a legitimate function of government.

In late 2025, Texas seeded its new bitcoin reserve fund with $5 million, buying bitcoin at a market price of $91,336. Less than two months later, that initial purchase has lost more than 28 percent of its value. Was that a good use of taxpayer dollars?

Of course, governments buying massive quantities of bitcoin would drive up the price, creating a windfall for existing holders. That’s undoubtedly why some crypto bros are pushing the idea — but that’s cronyism and wealth transfer, not sound strategy.

If a government comes into possession of bitcoin through forfeiture, it should be disposed of transparently and applied to legitimate public priorities. Locking it away indefinitely under an executive order that declares it must not be sold is the opposite of sober stewardship.

America’s strength is not that Washington is a better speculator than the market. It’s that we have the rule of law, deep capital markets, and an innovation economy that doesn’t require the federal government to run a hedge fund.

Governments should have strategic reserves for the same reason families keep a spare tire or an emergency fund: not because it’s exciting, but because it’s useful when something goes wrong.

A real strategic reserve exists for a concrete, predictable reason: The thing you’re stockpiling is something you must be able to access in an emergency. Petroleum reserves hedge oil supply shocks. Medical stockpiles hedge shortages of critical supplies. Even foreign-currency reserves hedge a very specific risk: paying foreign-currency liabilities when markets seize up.

Bitcoin matches none of those use cases. There are no sovereign liabilities denominated in bitcoin, which means there’s no obvious emergency for which “having bitcoin on hand” is the solution. Reserves should be built around the liabilities and risks you’re trying to hedge — and bitcoin’s volatility tends to amplify risk rather than reduce it.

If you want an asset to be there in a crisis, it helps if it doesn’t routinely plunge 50 percent at the worst possible time.

Some proponents argue bitcoin is “digital gold” and will shore up dollar dominance. But that argument collapses the moment you ask the practical question: What liability does bitcoin help the United States pay? What emergency does it solve? We do not run a bitcoin-denominated economy.

In other words, a government bitcoin “reserve” is really government chasing fads and making highly speculative bets with taxpayer dollars. And gambling with taxpayer dollars is not a legitimate function of government.

In late 2025, Texas seeded its new bitcoin reserve fund with $5 million, buying bitcoin at a market price of $91,336. Less than two months later, that initial purchase has lost more than 28 percent of its value. Was that a good use of taxpayer dollars?

Of course, governments buying massive quantities of bitcoin would drive up the price, creating a windfall for existing holders. That’s undoubtedly why some crypto bros are pushing the idea — but that’s cronyism and wealth transfer, not sound strategy.

If a government comes into possession of bitcoin through forfeiture, it should be disposed of transparently and applied to legitimate public priorities. Locking it away indefinitely under an executive order that declares it must not be sold is the opposite of sober stewardship.

America’s strength is not that Washington is a better speculator than the market. It’s that we have the rule of law, deep capital markets, and an innovation economy that doesn’t require the federal government to run a hedge fund.

Every major innovation seems to inevitably generate an infrastructure fight—generating public and political opposition right up until we can’t imagine life without it. Railroads divided farms and ranches. Telegraph lines “uglified” streetscapes. Highways carved through neighborhoods. Pipelines, cell towers, wind farms, transmission lines—each sparked a familiar chorus: too big, too ugly, too loud, too much. And yet, in the end, the public benefited tremendously because economic growth requires a growing infrastructure.

Today’s favorite target for such opprobrium is the data center.

Just a couple of years ago, policymakers competed to attract data centers. They were symbols of growth, high-value investment, better tax bases, and the digital backbone of modern commerce. Now many of those same policymakers speak as if data centers are some kind of social evil—because they consume power and water, and because the AI boom is making that demand visible. You can see the shift in the sudden wave of proposed moratoriums and “pause” bills rationalized by energy, water, and ratepayer concerns.

Let’s be clear about what a data center is: critical infrastructure. It is the physical home of the digital services we rely on for banking, ecommerce, logistics, emergency communications, healthcare records, education, and—yes—national security. If policymakers are serious about economic competitiveness, they should treat data centers the way they treat ports, rail spurs, and power plants: as necessary facilities that must be sited responsibly, not demonized reflexively.

Critics raise legitimate issues—grid capacity, water use, noise, backup generators, local land-use impacts. But the policy response should be responsible and data-driven, not reactionary.

Start with electricity. Data centers don’t “steal” power; they buy it—often at industrial rates with long-term contracts—and their presence as a predictable buyer can justify new generation and transmission investments that benefit everyone. A rapidly growing load is not a moral failing; it’s a planning challenge. The right answer is to build abundant energy—more natural gas, more nuclear, more renewables where they make sense, more transmission—so that families aren’t pitted against servers in a zero-sum political drama. Lawmakers across the country are already debating how to protect ratepayers while accommodating growth, which tells you the debate is about policy design, not existential threat.

On water: in most cases, data centers use closed-loop systems for cooling, so it’s like filling a swimming pool one time. Over time, data centers consume less water than a car wash. Policymakers can require transparency, recycling, and closed-loop systems rather than discouraging new investment. Indeed, multiple states are moving toward water-use reporting requirements—exactly the kind of targeted, pro-information approach that beats panic.

The broader point is this: America’s economy won’t continue to innovate and remain prosperous by making infrastructure buildout difficult. We stay prosperous by insisting on sensible rules, clear property rights, and predictable permitting—and by letting private capital build the backbone of the next economy, instead of letting political panic veto it.

Running a small business is hard, and that’s especially true for doctors running private practices. Like any small business owners, they’re navigating payroll, expenses and overhead. Add on the bureaucratic red tape and chronic underpayments that come with billing Medicare and it’s a wonder that doctors have the time and resources to see patients at all.

If we want to improve the health of Americans and make it easier to access care, not harder, it’s time for Congress to prioritize protecting private practice. Instead, we’ve seen the government picking winners and losers. These market distortions only contribute to our nationwide healthcare shortage, and the problems in Texas are especially worrying.

According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank, the state “is projected to be short 10,330 doctors by 2032.” It estimates that more than six million Texans live in areas with shortages of health providers and notes that “37 counties lack a single primary care doctor.” Also: “To make matters worse, 15 percent of Texas’ primary care physicians are 65 years old or older and getting ready to retire.”

Part of the blame must rightly fall on Medicare’s flawed physician payment system — known as the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, or MPFS. Unless addressed, the structural problems inherent in the fees that Medicare will pay could force local, independent community doctors to stop accepting Medicare patients or even go out of business altogether.

At the heart of the issue is the fact that Medicare drastically underpays independent physicians for the care they provide. According to data from the American Medical Association, payments to physicians through the MPFS have been on a slow and steady decline for decades. Since 2001, Medicare payments to physician practices have fallen by 33% (adjusted for inflation). By failing to tie physician payments to the inflation in the cost of running a practice, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is forcing smaller physician practices to do more with less.

As Medicare payments become increasingly inadequate to sustain independent physician practices, many are being forced to reduce their staff or the range of services they provide, turn away Medicare patients or exit the profession entirely. The other alternative is to accept a buyout from a large health system or hospital. But those tend to be farther away from home, feel less personal and charge patients and taxpayers more.

In any case, limited payment is driving physicians out of private practice en masse. In 2024, only 42% of physicians worked in the private setting, a nearly 20 percentage point decrease from 2012. With fewer options for care, the strain on existing physician practices and wait times for patients continue to grow. According to a recent survey, patients must wait an average of 31 days for a physician appointment in major metropolitan areas such as Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. That’s an increase of 19% since 2022 and 48% since 2004. These long waits can undermine patient outcomes and lead to even worse health complications.

Congress must address these concerns and put the fee schedule back on a sustainable, stable path forward to strengthen and protect local physician practices as well as access to care for patients.

After five straight years of cuts, lawmakers recently approved a slight increase for doctors in 2026, but it doesn’t address the cuts physicians are facing this year. Nor does it ensure reimbursements in future years will adequately reflect the rising cost of care.

Moving forward, lawmakers must pass legislation that ties payments through the MPFS to inflation — as with other Medicare provider payment systems. By doing so, Congress can provide the support and resources physicians need to keep their doors open and continue serving their patients and communities. Fortunately, Texas Sen. John Cornyn recently said that he hopes doing so is “high on the agenda.”

With the clock ticking, Texas’ leaders in Washington should help level the playing field for physicians throughout the Lone Star State and across the country. The sooner they fix this broken Medicare payment system, the better off we will all be.

For the last six months, the European Union (EU) has held in suspension its 25% retaliatory tariff on American bourbon. But that six-month suspension ended yesterday, February 5. Which means the EU could reinstate its bourbon tariff today, or at any point in the future.

Just what American bourbon producers need right now.

But not just bourbon producers—corn and wheat farmers, oak barrel manufacturers, and everyone else who is in the supply chain for producing bourbon are in the crosshairs. And especially the employees of those companies.

Since it’s been confusing to a lot of people, let’s review how tariffs work. If the EU puts a 25% tariff on imports of American bourbon, that means European consumers will pay a much higher price for it. The country that levies the tariff pays the tariff. The intent of tariffs is to make imports more expensive, so that imports will decrease. You intentionally make imports more expensive for your own consumers.

And, for the nth time, it is Americans who pay the tariffs that the Trump administration has levied on, well, just about everyone and everything. When the United States puts tariffs on bananas from Guatemala, it is American households, not Guatemalans, who pay the tariffs. Guatemalans just lose their jobs.

And when the EU tariffs American bourbon, we don’t pay more for bourbon—they do. But we sell less of it to them. In other words, we’re both harmed.

Sorry for being pedantic, but there has been so much misinformation and falsehoods about who pays tariffs, we need to be very clear and a bit repetitive.

“Well, I don’t drink bourbon and I don’t work in the liquor industry, so the tariffs won’t hurt me,” you might say. Granted. But the tariffs on hundreds of other consumer items and thousands of raw materials DO hurt you. They harm the industries you work in, and they make you pay higher prices.

And for what? To create a golden age of manufacturing in the U.S? How’s that working out?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employment Situation Report for December 2025 (released Jan. 9, 2026), showed that manufacturing employment was down 10,000 jobs over Q4 (Oct. → Dec.), and down 68,000 jobs year-over-year (Dec. 2024 → Dec. 2025).

Whatever policy problem you’re trying to solve, tariffs are a lousy tool to accomplish it.

We expect the Supreme Court to relieve us of many of the most egregious and capricious tariffs imposed by this administration any day now. Perhaps our trading partners are waiting as well.

But relying on a sober Judicial Branch to save us from an impotent Legislative Branch and the daily chaos of the Executive Branch is a precarious situation for a supposedly self-governing people.

Highlights

• Analysis of the streaming marketplace by numerous criteria shows that Netflix is already the dominant competitor in terms of paid subscribers (more than double Disney+), attention share (about double its nearest competitor), and profitability (only long-term profitable company).
  
  
• In comparing the two most likely scenarios, a Warner Bros. merger with already dominant Netflix would likely run afoul of standard antitrust considerations, while a combination with Paramount (or another smaller streaming service) could allow for the creation of a more substantial competitor for Netflix.
  
  
• A Netflix-Warner Bros. merger would probably harm the already struggling theatrical exhibition market, resulting in job losses, reduced revenue for restaurants and shops, among other hardships.
  
  
• Netflix’s history of price increases indicates it is already leveraging its market dominance, and it is reasonable to conclude that, following its acquisition of Warner Bros., it could set rates across the entire sector. 

Introduction

Even though the video streaming marketplace is relatively new, it is widely understood that some market consolidation is inevitable and necessary.i  

In the current market, consumers are frustrated and Wall Street is impatient.ii There are so many streaming platforms offering an abundance of content, some consumers end up using spreadsheets just to keep track of which service their favorite shows are on, or have begun using apps like JustWatch to keep track of which shows are available on which services. 

Consumers aren’t frustrated because the market has failed—the market has delivered spectacularly. Content owners promised to make their catalogs easily available to consumers if they were permitted to protect their valuable copyright interests, and broadband providers promised abundant bandwidth with low latency if they were permitted to profit from their enormous investment in infrastructure. And both delivered. Thus far, policymakers have gotten the big decisions largely correct, and the result is incredible choice and availability for consumers. 

The result is a “crisis of abundance” for consumers. This isn’t a terrible problem, as problems go, but there are other players in the market besides consumers. Most streamers aren’t profitable,iii and that’s a problem for Wall Street in the short term and for the companies themselves in the long term. It’s clear that some consolidation is necessary. Streaming disrupted the formerly stable cable model, and it is normal for a period of consolidation to follow a period of disruption. 

Already there has been a spate of mergers—including Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, Amazon’s acquisition of MGM Studios, and Warner Bros.’ merger with Discovery Inc. 

But consolidation in the streaming industry clearly isn’t finished yet.

Warner Bros. on the Block (again) 

Last October, Warner Bros. Discovery, itself the product of a merger, started exploring merger and sale options, setting the stage for a seismic shift in the media and entertainment landscape. While many potential suitors seemed interested, Paramount Skydance made an offer for the entire company. In reaction, Netflix made an offer for only certain Warner Bros. properties. Weeks later, Warner Bros. accepted Netflix’s offer. 

The announcement immediately drew scrutiny from policymakers in Washington, as Netflix is already the largest subscription video on demand (SVOD) provider in the world. Warner Bros.’ vast content library, sizeable production capabilities, and the third-largest streaming platform (HBO Max), combined with Netflix’s scale, could easily preclude competition in this quickly evolving sector. 

But Paramount Skydance hasn’t thrown in the towel and is attempting to persuade Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders that theirs is the superior offer. It would not be unusual for both suitors to continue to modify and enhance their bids as the process unfolds. 

Meanwhile, on January 7, the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees antitrust issues held a hearing on the impacts of consolidation in the entertainment sector. Additionally, Senator Mike Lee, Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, is expected to hold a hearing on Tuesday, February 3, and Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos has reportedly agreed to testify. With Paramount Skydance still vying for contention, a Netflix-Warner Bros. merger will undoubtedly face substantial scrutiny by policymakers. 

This paper analyzes key factors that policymakers and antitrust regulators should consider as they review the potential sale and the impact it would have on competition, consumers, innovation, and the economy.  

Free Markets and Antitrust

Through competition, innovation, property rights, and rule of law, free markets drive optimal consumer outcomes. Markets are not perfect, but they generally produce value, choice, and novelty for consumers—certainly better than do top-down central control systems. 

As a rule of thumb, light-touch regulatory policy allows markets to push forward deals that make sense and best meet consumer demand without distortion caused by government intervention. 

Scale is not necessarily harmful to consumers—in fact, depending on the industry and market, scale is sometimes necessary to meet consumer demand. There can be literally thousands of doughnut shops, dry cleaners or restaurants in a city, because such do not require enormous infrastructure investment, but no one imagines that there could be thousands of electric utilities or internet providers in a city. 

But scale can be harmful to consumers if scale is leveraged to reduce competition, consumer choice, increase prices and slow innovation. 

Antitrust review, oversight and enforcement is part of our legal code, and is sometimes necessary. From a free market perspective, antitrust law is intended to ensure consumer welfare, which includes preventing dominant competitors from taking advantage of their market dominance to harm consumers through limiting choice, competition, and by extracting higher prices. 

Antitrust Considerations 

There are two important considerations in a market analysis from a free market standpoint. 

One is philosophical: The “consumer welfare standard,” formally described by Robert Bork in his book “The Antitrust Paradox.” Bork argued that government shouldn’t attempt to manage competition based on government’s idea of what a market should look like but should rather make judgments based on how a market actually behaves. 

The second is U.S. law, regulation and precedent. In a 1963 Supreme Court decision, United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, the Supreme Court determined that a 30 percent market share was a significant threshold for antitrust considerations. That decision established the "structural presumption" that certain mergers—particularly those involving significant market concentration—can be presumed to substantially lessen competition, shifting the burden to the merging parties to prove otherwise. 

Policymakers need to take both legal precedent and the consumer welfare standard into account when evaluating streaming consolidation and the mergers under discussion. 

And that’s what current Department of Justice guidance demands. The 2010 Horizontal Merger Guidelines (HMG), jointly published by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), included sections alluding to the “consumer welfare standard.” 

Section 1 of the HGM reads, “The unifying theme of these Guidelines is that mergers should not be permitted to create, enhance or entrench market power…. A merger enhances market power if it is likely to encourage one or more firms to raise prices, reduce output, diminish innovation, or otherwise harm customers….” Furthermore, Section 10 states “the Agencies will not simply compare the magnitude of cognizable efficiencies with the magnitude of the likely harm to competition absent the efficiencies. The greater the potential for adverse competitive effect of a merger, the greater must be the cognizable efficiencies, and the more they must be passed through to customers….”

The HGM leaves little doubt that the antitrust enforcement agencies are including both the consumer welfare standard and established precedent as the driving factors for merger evaluation and other antitrust litigation. 

Trump Administration Antitrust Policy

As in many other policy areas, the Trump administration has not felt bound to prior Republican approaches. President Trump and his agency appointees are far more skeptical of corporate market power, and much more willing to use government power to actualize their preferences, than have been previous Republican administrations.

While the Trump administration revoked Biden’s executive order radically expanding U.S. antitrust enforcement, it left in place Biden’s 2023 merger guidelines, and new Hart-Scott-Rodino Act rules were finalized by the Trump administration on February 10, 2025.iv The net result is that the Trump administration does not begin with a “hands off” approach to antitrust review. This makes it more likely that any merger, especially one where there seem to be genuine competition concerns, will be subject to more scrutiny. 

Analysis of the Streaming Marketplace 

The streaming marketplace saw a surge of new entrants in the late 2010s as subscription video disrupted traditional cable model. The result has been a “disaster of abundance,”v in which users increasingly reported “subscription fatigue.” In 2024 nearly a quartervi of U.S. streaming users reported canceling three or more subscriptions over the prior two years, and almost one thirdvii of Americans canceled at least one service last year. 

While much of this industry restructuring was, and is probably still, necessary—many services remain unprofitable, and for them, a merger may be the only option to continue operating. Thus, competition and antitrust concerns will likely follow the streaming market for the foreseeable future. 

The Current Streaming Marketplace 

For purposes of this paper, platforms that consist of almost entirely user-generated content, such as YouTube, are excluded from the market definition. We consider YouTube to be a video-sharing platform, as opposed to an on-demand video streaming service. While YouTube garners a significant share of consumer attention, user-generated content is dissimilar to studio and network generated content as provided by Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney, Paramount, Peacock, Warner Bros. Discovery, Tubi and Roku. Consumers often go to YouTube, but they don’t go to YouTube for the same reason they go to other streaming services. 

Netflix maintains otherwise; insisting that YouTube should be included in the market definition, because it would appear to lessen Netflix’s market dominance. But this assertion does not stand up to scrutiny when considering how consumers use these services. User generated content can be surprisingly creative and entertaining, but it doesn’t substitute for studio-created content. 

We define the streaming video marketplace as on‑demand catalog services under the editorial responsibility of the provider (i.e., services offering programs from a catalog selected by the provider). User-upload video-sharing platforms such as YouTube are excluded because they operate primarily as video-sharing platforms without editorial responsibility for user-generated uploads, and their content offering and competitive constraints differ materially from curated on‑demand program catalogs. 

Importantly, both EU regulatorsviii and the UK regulator Ofcomix make this same distinction. 

We will examine the streaming marketplace by several different criteria.

Note: Shortly before publication, on January 21, 2025, Netflix reported its full-year earnings for the 2025 fiscal year, reporting $45.2 billion in revenue for the full year (up 16 percent year-over-year), and with ad revenue rising over 2.5x to over $1.5 billion. Viewing hours were up 2 percent year-over-year, and total subscribers increased to 325 million.x

Because comparing Netflix’s 4Q 2025 numbers with its competitors’ 2024 numbers would be invalid, we note the new numbers here prior to our comparisons. What is clear is that Netflix continues to increase its market dominance, while other competitors continue to struggle. 

Subscribers 

For the most part, streaming services report subscriber numbers as a part of their earnings reports, though not all services do, and not all services break out video streaming from other offerings.

• Netflix: Finished 2024 with 302 million subscribers (and reported “Global Streaming Paid Memberships” of 301.63 million for Q4 2024).xi
• Amazon Prime: More than 200 million members; Amazon doesn’t report Prime Video subscribers. Amazon uses its video services as a feature to acquire and retain users in its Prime memberships. A study last yearxii found 90 percent of Prime users say free shipping is the primary incentive for maintaining their subscription. It is therefore not possible to determine the number of consumers who simply choose to subscribe to Amazon Prime.
• Disney: End of fiscal Q4 2025: 132 million Disney+ subscribers and 196 million Disney+ & Hulu subscriptions.xiii
• Warner Bros. Discovery (HBO Max + Discovery+): 128.0 million global streaming subscribers at end of Q3 2025.xiv
• Paramount (Paramount+): 79.1 million Paramount+ subscribers at Q3 2025 end.xv
• Comcast (Peacock): 41 million paid subscribers as of Sept. 30, 2025.xvi
• Apple TV+: While Apple does not release numbers, Reuters cites 40.4 million subscribers per analyst estimates.xvii

Conclusion: Netflix is far and away the dominant competitor in terms of paid subscribers, dwarfing all other standalone video streaming providers. Netflix has more than double the number of subscribers as content powerhouse Disney+.

Attention Share

Streaming services don’t report viewing numbers in a standardized or comparable manner, but market analysts have employed several methods to attempt to quantify streaming data.

Nielsen’s “The Gauge” is one of the most cited benchmarks for streaming services because it’s based on TV viewing minutes in the U.S. In November 2025, streaming was 46.7 percent of total TV usage. The Gauge reportsxviii that, for November 2025, streaming platforms by attention share were:

• Netflix (8.3 percent) (30.41 percent weighted by market definition)
• Disney (4.7 percent) (17.22 percent weighted by market definition)
• Amazon Prime (3.8 percent) (13.92 percent weighted by market definition)
• Roku (2.9 percent) (10.62 percent weighted by market definition)
• Paramount (2.3 percent) (8.42 percent weighted by market definition)
• Tubi (2.1 percent) (7.69 percent weighted by market definition)
• Peacock (1.9 percent) (6.96 percent weighted by market definition)
• Warner Bros. Discovery (1.3 percent) (4.76 percent weighted by market definition)

Conclusion: Netflix is the clearly dominant competitor in terms of attention share, about double that of its nearest competitors. 

Profitability

Not all streaming companies report their profits in a way that allows direct comparison. This data is from publicly available filings from corporate earnings reports. 

• Netflix: In 2025, revenue grew 16 percent, operating margin expanded to 27 percent, and operating income exceeded $10 billion for the first time.xix
• Amazon Prime: Does not report standalone streaming profit & loss.
• Disney: Q4 fiscal 2025 direct-to-consumer operating income was $352 million.xx
• Warner Bros. Discovery: Q3 2025 streaming adjusted EBITDA was $345 million.xxi
• Paramount: Q3 2025 materials show Paramount+ management messaging that profitability is a top priority with expectations for direct-to-consumer profitability to be reached in 2025.xxii
• Peacock: Comcast reported Peacock EBITDA losses of $217 million in Q3 2025.xxiii 

Conclusion: Netflix is in the strongest profit position which allows it to self-fund content projects and command a premium for its subscription service. Most other streamers remain unprofitable or are subsidizing their video streaming services from other revenue sources. 

Apple-ish to Apple-ish Snapshot 

This analysis allows us to construct a “power ranking” of streaming market strength. 

Tier 1: Platform Leaders

• Netflix
• Amazon Prime (estimated) 

Tier 2: Strong and Improving

• Disney
• Warner Bros. Discovery 

Tier 3: Mid-scale Challengers

• Paramount
• Peacock

Tier 4: Small but Strategic

• Apple TV+ (estimated) 

Tier 5: Marginal with Ad Strength

• Roku Channel
• Tubi

Two Merger Scenarios

At the time of this writing, both Netflix and Paramount Skydance are vying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Let’s briefly compare the two possible outcomes. 

Scenario One: Netflix Acquires Warner Bros. Discovery 

By our analysis, this would involve a dominant Tier 1 competitor combining with a strong and improving Tier 2 competitor. In formula terms, 1+2. 

Netflix, with 302 million subscribers, would combine with 138 million subscribers, likely pushing its subscriber base to over 400 million, more than twice as many as the next closest competitor, Amazon Prime Video, which has about 200 million subscribers. 

And that comparison is skewed by the two streaming services’ different revenue models. Whereas Netflix operates on direct revenue, Amazon uses its video services as a feature to acquire and retain users in its Prime memberships. In other words, many Amazon Prime “subscribers” pay for Prime not for the video component, but for other “perks,” especially free shipping. A study last yearxxiv found 90 percent of Prime users say free shipping is the primary incentive for maintaining their subscription.  

The next closest sole content platform to Netflix is Disney+, which has slightly more than 130 million users. A merger with Warner Bros. would position Netflix with more than three times as many subscribers as Disney+. 

According to a recent analysisxxv by JustWatch, Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. would push its share of the U.S. SVOD market to 33 percent—12 points higher than Prime Video, the next closest platform in terms of size. JustWatch also estimates that this combination would account for 20 percent of streaming attention share. 

By all available evidence, Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. would run afoul of the United States v. Philadelphia National Bank market share threshold. Netflix is already the leading streaming service, both by subscriber volumexxvi and viewership.xxvii It’s also the obvious leader by market cap, with an equity value of almost $40 billion morexxviii than all the other major entertainment producers and theatrical exhibitors combined. 

By this market analysis, Netflix already is above the 30 percent market share threshold, even before any further acquisitions. 

Scenario Two: Paramount Skydance Acquires Warner Bros. Discovery 

By our analysis, this would involve a Tier 3 mid-scale competitor combining with a strong and improving Tier 2 competitor. In formula terms, 3+2. 

Paramount Skydance, with 79.1 million subscribers, would combine with 138 million subscribers, likely resulting in a net subscribership of about 200 million. This would still be significantly smaller than Netflix’s current subscribership. 

A smaller streaming service’s acquisition of Warner Bros. could create greater competition, establishing a company with the content library and user base to be closer to Netflix. 

A merger between Warner Bros. and Paramount, or another smaller streaming service, may not unseat Netflix from atop the “streaming wars,” but it could establish the resulting company as a close contender. Such an outcome certainly would not harm consumers, since it would force Netflix (and other providers) to continue to innovate and offer competitive prices.

Other Considerations 

The Theatrical Market

Entertainment is a highly integrated industry. Theaters, restaurants, retail and a whole host of businesses largely rely on upstream production decisions. Pandemic lockdowns shifted consumer behaviors—theatrical revenues dropped from $42.3 billion in 2019xxix to $12 billion in 2020—creating a structural shift that many vendors are still struggling to climb out from under. Box offices revenues in 2025 remained below pre-pandemic levels. 

Since 2023, Netflix films have averaged a theatrical run of only 11 to 17 days,xxx compared to major studio features’ average of 46 days in 2024 and 58 days in 2023. And Netflix shows no sign of changing its model. CEO Ted Sarandos has called the theater experience “outdated,”xxxi and the company has said it intends to standardize the 17-day theatrical release window if its acquisition of Warner Bros. is approved. 

In fact, Netflix only bothers with short theatrical releases for films it believes are Oscar-worthy, since the Oscars require theatrical release. Most Netflix products never make it to a projection booth. 

Michael O’Leary, CEO of Cinema United, has saidxxxii that Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros. “poses an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business.” Acclaimed director James Cameron, likewise, has said the merger is a “disaster”xxxiii for the wider industry and called Netflix’s promise to continue to release films in theaters “sucker bait.” 

A Netflix-Warner Bros. merger would put even greater pressure on theaters—a scenario that would likely result in job losses, reduced traffic through restaurants and shops, property vacancy, and diminished community vibrancy—especially in rural and small towns, where theaters are often still social anchors.  

Last year the movie theater industry employed over 127,000 workers. A 2021 reportxxxiv found that theaters supported over $36 billion in indirect and induced economic activity and more than $9 billion in movie-night spending. Regulators should consider those jobs and broader economic impacts as they review Netflix’s proposed purchase of one of Hollywood’s top studios.  

Netflix’s Pricing History 

Some proponents may argue that despite Netflix’s disproportionate market share, a merger could allow it to reduce prices and produce better services. But Netflix’s pricing behavior hardly merits such confidence. 

Despite being one of few profitable streaming platforms, Netflix has continually raised its prices on consumers. Since 2014, Netflix has increased the cost of its “standard plan” by more than 225 percentxxxv and its “premium plan” by over 200 percent, setting the pacexxxvi for an industry now plagued by rapidly rising prices. 

Netflix’s price increases are notable for two reasons. 

First, Netflix is one of the few profitable streaming platforms. In the third quarter of 2025, it posted a $2.5 billion net profit, more than twice the next three profitable streaming services combined. The company has been consistently profitable since 2010. By contrast, most streaming platforms have struggled (and many continue to struggle) to turn a profit, due in large part to start-up costs. 

Disney+, for example, only first reported positive earnings in the third quarter of 2024, and the platform reportedly lost three timesxxxvii more money in its first five years than Disneyland Paris did in three decades. Peacock incurred $101 million and $217 million in losses in Q2 and Q3 of last year, respectively—which were improvements from a year earlier. 

And second, as the largest SVOD provider, Netflix is the industry trend setter. When it raises its prices, it creates a benchmark for other services, driving what commentators have dubbed “streamflation.” As one industry publication noted:xxxviii 

“In recent years, as the streaming TV and movie business has gotten more competitive and companies around Hollywood have thrown billions into building their own platforms and libraries in order to compete with Netflix, participating in the streaming era has gotten steadily more expensive.” 

Netflix’s price increases, which have occurred on average every 18 months, are indicative of a market-dominant player leveraging its market power. Due to its sheer superiority in viewership and content, its actions suggest it can hike rates knowing that users will pay up, because there are few other services that offer the same breadth of material. 

U.S. Representative Darrell Issa (R-CA) raised this point during the January 7 hearing, when he asked a witness: 

“Aren’t we again in situation where if Netflix post-acquisition controls a massive library to the exclusion of others, we have the same situation, where everyone must have access to Netflix in order to have access to not just new production, but a vast library that, in fact, by definition every child grows up watching?” 

“I think it’s a relevant concern,” the witness stated. 

Netflix’s record profits are not a disqualifier, per se, but its continual rate increases indicate that it is already leveraging its market dominance—which hardly assuages concerns that with a bigger market share, it won’t raise prices faster. And, with fewer competitors, it is reasonable to assume it could manipulate rates across the entire sector. 

Conclusion 

After a surge of new streaming providers launched only a few years ago, the industry is experiencing much needed consolidation. Several mergers have already taken place, but the most potentially important is the current competition to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. 

In most cases, light-touch regulatory policy generally yields optimal outcomes for consumers. Netflix’s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros., however, deserves additional scrutiny. It’s impossible to predict the future, but it seems very likely that such a transaction would lead to a dominant video streaming behemoth, pursued by minor, ad-supported competitors and boutique services. 

As recently as the end of 2024, a Netflix executive dismissed rumors of pursuing mergers and acquisitions, stating that the company is “better builders than buyers.”xxxix Its rapid about-face in reaction to Paramount Skydance’s offer for Warner Bros. suggests Netflix saw an opportunity to prevent a transaction that would create a competitor with sufficient scale to challenge Netflix’s dominance. 

Netflix has indeed been a successful “builder,” and deserves its success. The question for policymakers is whether a video streaming market dominated by a single, Tier 1 provider is best for consumers, for competition, for choice and for innovation, or whether a transaction that creates a stronger Tier 2 competitor for Netflix would be better. 

Washington has a lot of work to do on health care. The current battle on Obamacare subsidies is a stark reminder of that fact.

While that issue is divisive, there are opportunities to find consensus on health care such as protecting Medicare’s home health benefit, which is widely supported by Americans of all backgrounds and political persuasions.

As one of the most popular parts of Medicare, home health care allows patients to recover in the comfort and safety of their homes, typically after a hospitalization, or receive care to prevent hospitalization. This is good news for patients who don’t want to move to a nursing home or other institutional setting. And importantly, it eases pressure on crowded hospitals and saves the Medicare program (and taxpayers) money by delivering care in a cost-effective setting.

Despite the obvious fiscal, clinical, and human benefits of keeping people at home as they age, Medicare continues to cut funding for this highly valued program. Just last month, Medicare finalized another round of cuts to home health care in 2026.

Patients are already feeling the negative cascade from cuts to the program by the last Administration. By continuing to pull the rug out from under home health providers, fewer patients will be able to access the home health services they need, leading to worse outcomes for patients and virtually guaranteeing higher costs down the road. Fewer home health options mean more patients kept in hospitals, longer nursing home stays, and even more pressure on an already overburdened health system.

Patients who don’t receive home health care see 35% higher hospital readmissions and experience 43% higher mortality rates. That’s devastating for families, and costly for taxpayers. Every additional hospital admission or nursing home stay drives Medicare spending higher. Frankly, that’s a terrible deal for everyone involved, and it makes no sense when Washington is already staring down unsustainable deficits.

There’s another serious problem: years of funding cuts choke competition and push small businesses out of the market, with rural markets bearing the brunt of it. On top of stubbornly high inflation, Medicare cuts to home health threaten to force some home health providers to shut their doors altogether, adding to the more than 1,000 home health agency closures in recent years.

Texas shows exactly what’s at stake. More than 380 home health agencies in our state have closed since 2019. In that same period, over 233,000 Texas patients lost access to home health care. And nearly half of all patients referred for home health after a hospitalization never received it. That’s not because doctors don’t recommend home health care – it’s because there aren’t enough providers left to deliver it.

On top of this, the government’s own actuaries project that by 2027, nearly half of the remaining providers will be operating in the red. That’s a recipe for consolidation and collapse. Instead of encouraging a competitive, patient-driven marketplace, home health agency doors close, leaving some rural Texans and communities without any home-based care options at all.

The federal government should not be in the business of picking winners and losers in the healthcare marketplace.

While the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has taken some steps recently to work with home health stakeholders to address steep cuts to the benefit, a long-term policy solution is needed to make home health sustainable for our aging society.

The bottom line is simple: families want their loved ones to age at home. And they want access to Medicare home health services to make that possible.

In Texas, we tend to take free markets seriously. That’s not because markets are perfect – they aren’t – but because they have a better track record than anything else of delivering prosperity, innovation, and choice. The proposed acquisition of Kenvue by Kimberly-Clark, headquartered in Irving, is a useful reminder of how markets and economic freedom work to benefit consumers.

You don’t have to be an economist to understand why this deal makes sense. The global consumer-health and household-products industries are intensely competitive and increasingly shaped by supply-chain efficiency, research investment, and scale. Producing safe, reliable, and affordable goods – whether diapers, tissues, pain relievers, or wound-care products – requires constant reinvestment and gains in efficiency. That’s why mergers often result in stronger, not weaker, competition.

Kimberly-Clark acquiring Kenvue is an effort to ensure that both companies operate more efficiently, invest more confidently, and innovate more aggressively. And for Texans, it underscores that our state is home to world-class companies that compete on the global stage, and their success brings real benefits in jobs, investment, and economic vitality.

Critics of mergers tend to assume that bigger somehow automatically means worse for consumers. But size, in itself, is neither a virtue nor a vice. What matters is whether a business combination enhances innovation, expands output, or improves consumer experience. In this case, the likely outcomes are encouraging. Consolidating distribution, harmonizing manufacturing operations, and streamlining product portfolios can reduce costs – savings that flow directly to households through lower prices, higher-quality goods, and higher wages for employees.

Moreover, in an industry where brand trust is indispensable, the ability to invest in product improvements and new formulations is crucial. A combined Kimberly-Clark–Kenvue entity would be better positioned to invest in materials science and consumer health. This is precisely the kind of activity policymakers should want to see more of, not less.

Unfortunately, Washington sometimes approaches mergers with a preconceived suspicion of “big” that ignores the advantages of scale. During the Biden administration, the antitrust debate was diverted from an emphasis on consumer welfare – the standard that served this country well for decades –toward European style competition policy and a kneejerk hostility to “bigness” that ignores the facts. The consumer-goods sector is full of vigorous competitors. The notion that one transaction could somehow freeze competition misunderstands how resilient and adaptive markets can be.

If anything, blocking or discouraging efficiency-enhancing mergers would make American firms less competitive globally. Foreign companies do not wait for permission from U.S. regulators to adapt. If we hamstring our own industry leaders, especially those headquartered in growth states like Texas, we risk ceding ground in innovation and manufacturing to markets that welcome, rather than fear, scale—and to countries that subsidize nationalized producers.

Texans understand that economic leadership is not achieved through top-down government regulation but through dynamic, innovative free markets that serve consumers. Kimberly-Clark is a great American success story that exemplifies that tradition. 

Mergers and acquisitions should be judged by a simple standard: Are consumers harmed, or do they benefit? Everything we know about this transaction suggests that consumers stand to gain – from improved supply chains to better-designed products to enhanced competition with global giants.

Texas didn’t become an economic powerhouse by dictating business practices from Austin. We became one by championing policies that allow them to determine how they can best deliver what their customers want. Kimberly-Clark’s acquisition of Kenvue is a reminder of what a healthy, forward-looking market looks like. It’s not the government pushing companies around; it’s companies positioning themselves to serve consumers better.

That is something Texans should welcome – and something Washington should let proceed without unnecessary interference.

Want evidence that elections matter? Witness the change at our southern border.

Seldom have we seen such a rapid and dramatic improvement because of a change in administrations. 

After years of chaos, the border is secure. Let that reverberate a bit in your mind before we continue.

The border is secure because President Trump made it a priority, appointed people who shared his mission, and ignored the complaints of the Left. Donald Trump has been in office for less than a year, and in that time the border has gone from porous to secure.

You don’t hear much lately in the media about the border, and everyone thinks the problem is solved. But that’s a trap.

Because the immigration issue isn’t solved. Not even a little bit.

For years—decades even—we have heard:

• “There can’t be a deal on immigration until the border is secure!” 
• “We can’t deal with the Dreamers until the border is secure!”
• “I don’t want to hear about comprehensive immigration reform until the border is secure.”

Well, the border is secure. And 2026 could be the year of comprehensive immigration reform.

President Trump has forcibly established the first condition for a deal, and he wants to be remembered as a dealmaker. The border is secure, and Congress is evenly divided. The conditions are perfect for a bipartisan deal on immigration that requires significant compromise (that means buy-in) by both parties.

• We need an immigration system that encourages the best of the world to come to the United States.
• We need an immigration system that protects us from those who will not or cannot assimilate.
• We need an immigration system that provides an abundant source of human capital.
• We need an immigration system that allows us to know who is here, when they arrived, and when they left.
• We need an immigration system that allows foreign workers to supply labor in areas where the current and future work force is insufficient.
• We need an immigration system that doesn’t brutalize those who have grown up in this country and know no other culture.
• We need an immigration system that prevents immigrants from taking advantage of our safety nets and our generosity.

In 2016, IPI published a paper with suggestions on how to proceed with a solution to the immigration challenge. It was posited on border security.

And now the border is secure. But the job is not done. Now is the time for the “Art of the Deal” Trump to step up to the plate. It will probably require sidelining advisor Stephen Miller, but you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggheads.

The problem with zombies is that, even though they are dead, they’re still dangerous.

Currently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is a zombie federal agency — deprived of funding and personnel, yet still legally in existence and still functioning. Congress should put a stake through its heart at the earliest opportunity, but until then, the CFPB continues to pose a threat, especially since everyone thinks it is already dead.

The CFPB was then-law professor Elizabeth Warren’s “big idea” in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Warren conceived and helped design the CFPB, but when the Senate refused to confirm her as its first head, she decided to run for the Senate instead.

The design of the CFPB was a constitutional nightmare, as it ignored the separation of powers and was statutorily immune from accountability to either Congress or the president. And while the DC Circuit Court of Appeals found that the CFPB’s construction was unconstitutional, the Biden administration did its best to reanimate the agency, initiating, among other things, a rulemaking on Section 1033 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Biden’s Section 1033 proposed rule was yet another nightmare. Instead of simply fulfilling the requirements of Dodd-Frank Section 1033, the Biden CFPB drafted a breathtakingly broad rule that would have been a disaster for consumer financial privacy, as well as for the delivery of efficient financial services. It was so problematic that a court order barred the CFPB from enforcing its order until it could be reissued in a revised form.

Since then, the Trump administration has zombified the agency, removing almost all funding and personnel. But despite the courts and the Trump administration determining that the agency itself is effectively illegitimate, the CFPB has continued drafting the rule. 

Any new rule dictated by even a Trump administration zombie CFPB would almost certainly be overly broad and would claim sweeping new powers for the CFPB, which would be all a future administration would need to revivify this dangerous agency.

Ironically, as this Section 1033 regulatory drama has been unfolding, the financial services industry has not only continued to function well but has also been providing consumers with new and innovative products and services. Bilateral private agreements between banks and fintech companies are an area of intense growth and investment in application programming interfaces (APIs) for the safe and secure transfer of consumer data, all of which occurs without the need for governmental interference. 

If there’s no need for the CFPB, there’s no need for this rulemaking.

As an agency targeted for elimination, the CFPB should be put out of its misery. The Trump administration should instruct the few remaining bureaucrats at the CFPB to cease drafting rules and finally seal the coffin shut.