Stock

Colleen Hroncich

Chase Eskelsen’s career path has included lots of twists and turns. But each of those experiences benefit him in his latest endeavor: founding Fersken Education, a consulting firm that helps education entrepreneurs.

After a stint in the business world, Chase became an administrator at an online charter school in Texas. His focus there was growing enrollment and creating a standard operating procedure manual since it was a relatively new venture, and they were figuring things out as they went. Chase moved into a national role dealing with policy at online schools, which allowed him to travel the country working with state policymakers to help them understand important considerations and differences in the virtual realm versus brick‐​and‐​mortar school policy.

In 2019, Chase joined a non‐​profit that wanted to create hybrid learning sites, which gave him the chance to be involved in creating schools from the ground up. After a few years there, he decided to build on his varied experiences to create FerskenEd. “I’ve touched school administration, government and public affairs, policy, board and partner relations, leading a nonprofit,” he says. “So now when people come and ask, ‘What do you guys do?’ I say, ‘What do you need?’ Because we can either do it or we can put them in touch with the right people.”

Education entrepreneurs, or edupreneurs, can become members of Fersken’s Edupreneur Mastermind, a group that provides networking, webinars on relevant topics, and access to resources to help grow and sustain their businesses. It’s aimed at young entrepreneurial endeavors in their first three years of operation.

There’s a diverse group of edupreneurs currently involved with Fersken, and the team works hard to help each one with what they need. “We wrote the manual for one client on how to launch pod schools. We do advocacy and government affairs for another client—it’s parent advocacy for school choice and we do the policy work for five states,” says Chase. He helped another edupreneur who created a successful course that she sold directly to consumers. She approached Chase for help structuring the course in a way that would work for high schools, which Fersken was able to do.

Most of the education entrepreneurs Chase encounters were teachers or administrators who realized there had to be a better way to do what they were doing in the classroom. “So, they go and figure out a better way to do it,” he says. “They leave their school and launch this business. And then the businesses way too often were failing—not because the idea is not great, not because it’s not helping students, but because they’re educators, not business people. And they were failing on the business side.”

The realization that these edupreneurs often needed specific business‐​related help inspired Chase to start bringing in experts to discuss key issues. Recent webinar guests include a bookkeeper who explained the importance of good record keeping and a lawyer who gave tips on what they could do before hiring a lawyer to save on billable hours. Other times the members just share their own experiences with each other so they don’t all make the same mistakes or jump through the same unnecessary hoops.

Membership with Fersken is currently free as it gets up and running, but Chase says there will eventually be different levels. Entry level will be very inexpensive and similar to what’s currently available. The next level will include consultations—with Chase and outside experts. For example, he has an agreement in place with a legal firm that specializes in education, especially charter schools, private schools, and education savings accounts (ESAs), which allow parents to use a portion of state education funding for a variety of educational options. One of the membership tiers will include access to the legal firm.

He’s making similar arrangements with an education marketing firm and an education human resources firm. “We’re really trying to take all the business side off so you can really focus on your reason for starting your company,” he explains.

Fersken Education was recently awarded a VELA Education Fund microgrant, which will help them “expand their reach, develop new initiatives, and continue fostering a culture of innovation in education.”

It’s a great time to become an education entrepreneur. Parents are increasingly expressing interest in educational options beyond their district schools. More states are adopting or expanding education choice programs, including ESAs. And organizations like Fersken are sprouting up to help edupreneurs navigate the complexities of the changing education landscape.

Jennifer Huddleston and Gent Salihu

Introduction

As discussed in previous work, “youth online safety” bills, however well‐​intentioned, raise significant constitutional concerns. These laws are likely to violate the First Amendment due to their impact on the speech rights of users of all ages, and there are additional concerns about their impact on privacy. The emergence of legal challenges against the implementation of these laws has substantiated these concerns. 

The US district courts in both Arkansas and California issued preliminary injunctions stopping the enforcement of the Arkansas Social Media Safety Act and the California Age‐​Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA). These laws, intended to implement age verification and restrictions for children accessing the internet, are likely to limit speech for adults without necessarily providing enhanced protections for young internet users. However, a court has allowed a Utah law related only to age verification for pornographic content to proceed, denying the challenge to the law.

What the Courts Decided in Arkansas and California

The US District Court in California granted a preliminary injunction against enforcing CAADCA, holding that the act “likely violates the First Amendment” based on NetChoice’s claim that the law imposes “speech restrictions” that “fail strict scrutiny and also would fail a lesser standard of scrutiny.”

The court notes that California fell short in identifying case law that would support the kind of restrictions on the collection and sharing of information as imposed by CAADCA. The court also notes that given Supreme Court case law that the “creation and dissemination of information are speech within the meaning of the First Amendment,” CAADCA’s restriction on usage and access to information is likely to fail constitutional muster. Even if CAADCA were to dictate usage and access of commercial speech, the court, relying on Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., notes that such speech is entitled to at least intermediate scrutiny under the First Amendment. 

The US District Court in Arkansas went a step further, noting that the Social Media Safety Act would not only restrict speech under a strict scrutiny standard but also prove ineffective in protecting youth, as it is “littered with” exemptions. For example, companies in the business of interactive online games are exempt from the law. This means that the Arkansas law does not extend protections beyond COPPA because gaming companies will not be prevented from collecting data from children above 13 years old and then selling it to advertisers.

Both Arkansas and California sided with NetChoice’s concerns about the burdens that the laws impose on adult speech. Noting the difficulty of estimating children’s age without figuring out the age of everyone else, the California court ruling noted that businesses opting not to estimate age will end up shielding content for both children and adults, thereby reducing the adult population to “only what is fit for children.”

The CAADCA restrictions, according to the California court, would fail intermediate scrutiny, let alone strict scrutiny. The Arkansas court ruling expresses concern over the law’s requirement to forego anonymity on the internet, a mandate that would in turn deter users from accessing certain websites and chill speech.

While Arkansas and California took different paths in their legal analysis, they reached the same conclusion: both the CAADCA and the Social Media Safety Act are likely to violate the First Amendment.

Given that California’s CAADCA restrictions are unlikely to meet either strict or intermediate scrutiny standards, and since Arkansas’s law has been enjoined due to its ineffectiveness and limitations on speech, other states contemplating similar laws should reconsider their approach to protecting young people online, which is a matter of serious concern. The laws designed after the Arkansas or California model are likely to fail in protecting young internet users, while inadvertently suppressing speech for everyone.

Key Takeaways from These Early Cases

While both the underlying laws and the cases themselves are distinct, there are a few general takeaways from these cases that policymakers, internet users, and innovators should be aware of.

These cases illustrate that youth online safety laws will undergo strict scrutiny by the courts due to their impact on First Amendment rights. This means that for such laws to be upheld, states must demonstrate that the laws are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. For example, questioning will likely arise regarding the laws’ impact on users over the age of 18, scrutinizing whether the laws are narrowly tailored to affect only underage users. Additionally, proving that safeguarding online youth is a state’s interest—rather than that of individual households—will also pose challenges. Defenders of broader social media regulation may also face an uphill battle given the abundance of tools presently available to parents, suggesting the existence of less restrictive means without consequences for speech and innovation.

As mentioned, another key takeaway from these cases was the courts’ recognition of the impact these laws have on adult users of the internet. It is not surprising that, in such cases, courts relied on precedent from prior online safety battles in Ashcroft v. ACLU, which struck down COPPA, and the debates over video games and free speech in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association, which struck down a California law restricting the sale of “violent” video games to minors.

Youth online safety regulations still impact those over the age of 18 and their speech rights, as the only way to ensure compliance is to either treat everyone like they are under 18 or to require age verification for all users. While much of the speech analysis has been focused on the impact of adult users, it should not be forgotten that such regulations also impact the speech rights of young people, including the positive and entrepreneurial opportunities the internet has provided them.

Notably, there are distinctions in the courts’ reasoning due to the difference in the laws, but policymakers should be aware that these cases show it will be difficult to craft general‐​purpose age verification or age‐​appropriate design codes that can pass strict scrutiny. 

Conclusion

While proponents of government regulation of social media and the internet in the name of protecting the next generation may find the passage of the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Bill noteworthy, recent court decisions in the United States should prompt reflection on the broader impact of such proposals on the free expression of users of all ages. The court decisions issuing the injunctions demonstrate that these proposals would affect not only the speech and access to information of those under 18 but also of all internet users.

As parents and policymakers continue to debate the impact of technology and social media on young people, perhaps these recent court rulings should encourage reconsideration of how these technologies have enabled speech and highlight the necessity for nuanced safety solutions that do not need to arise from a government‐​dictated approach.

Paul Matzko

Link taxes are a flawed policy idea under even the best of conditions, as I recently wrote in a policy analysis. Legislation like the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) would bail out struggling news outlets by compelling online platforms such as Google and Meta to pay whenever they surface links to news articles for consumers. It doesn’t take an economist to realize that raising the costs of linking to the news will ultimately mean fewer articles from fewer news outlets reaching fewer consumers. And doing so just might break the internet.

But these are not the best of conditions.

Last week the New York Times ran an insightful article about the slow motion break up between the news industry and online distributors (Google, Meta, etc.). Google has laid off dozens from its Google News team, Facebook News is extinct, and Twitter (now X) is increasingly hostile to allowing any users off‐ platform.

This is bad news for news outlets given that these platforms have provided a valuable distribution service. Bear in mind that in the pre‐​digital era, distribution costs were the largest single item in a newspaper’s budget, more even than the cost of the actual journalism. While Craigslist tanked classified ad revenue for newspapers, at least Google et al provided a superior (and costless!) substitute for the old network of newsstands, newsies, and other distribution functions. But with a quarter of Gen Z already getting their news and search from TikTok, the mutual value of that complementary relationship is in decline.

Which means that this is the worst possible time for the reintroduction of the JCPA or any other link tax. It will force tech executives to ask hard, practical questions about the precise value of the news to their online ecosystems. The fact that both Google and Meta were willing to pay $200 million to Australian news companies after the country passed a link tax in 2021 was a sign that these links are worth quite a lot. But the willingness of Google to pull out of Spain after its snippet tax in 2015 and out of Canada this summer is a reminder that the value of the news organizations to tech companies is not infinite. Raise the functional price of links too high, and news aggregators will stop sharing links altogether.

Even in the link tax optimal scenario, in which news aggregators don’t pull out of news entirely and instead strike deals with news producers for access, it’s inevitable that fewer news articles from fewer newspapers will reach fewer consumers. What tends to happen is that the companies limit bargaining costs by making deals with only a few, larger conglomerates—maybe placing them behind a paywall a la Apple News—and then no longer provide links from smaller, independent news outlets with niche audiences. It’s “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch,” journalism edition.

Regardless of how you feel about these tradeoffs, the reality is that the price point for traditional online news from legacy news outlets is falling. Which means that imposing a link tax now would have an even larger, negative effect on total online news distribution as well as greater informational deadweight losses for consumers than it would have even a year or two ago. Policymakers should respond accordingly.

As a final thought, I’d like to highlight the insight that the NYT article closes with. It notes that newspapers are rapidly expanding into “branded newsletters,” which has apparently boosted the subscriber base for outlets like The Atlantic substantially. As The Atlantic’s executive editor Adrienne LaFrance put it, “In a way, this decline of the social web—it’s extraordinarily liberating.”

Legacy news outlets are responding to the decline of the Internet 2.0 by experimenting and innovating with new products and new business structures. We’re transitioning into a “new news” media landscape in which professional journalists surf the web and act as guides to user‐​generated news and expertise. But a link tax, even to the limited extent it works as a cross‐​subsidy from Big Tech to Big Ink, will only delay that transition and discourage experimentation.

Romina Boccia

The House Budget Committee held a hearing on October 19 titled “Sounding the Alarm: Examining the Need for a Fiscal Commission.” Among the witnesses was former House Budget Committee chair, John Yarmuth (D‑KY), who resigned from Congress in January of this year. In both his remarks and answers, Yarmuth put debt threat denial on full display while suggesting that Congress need not worry about rising borrowing costs because “we can print all the money we want.” Were Congress to follow Yarmuth’s advice, this would most likely lead to rapidly rising inflation and spell economic doom.

The hearing, co‐​chaired by the HBC chair Jody Arrington (R‑TX) and ranking member Brendan Boyle (D‑PA), called upon four witnesses to discuss whether and how a fiscal commission might help put the US budget on a better fiscal path. Each witness was a former member of Congress and had been involved with a fiscal or budget process commission effort in the past. The witnesses were former Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, former Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, former Budget Chair Steve Womack of Arkansas, and former Budget Chair John Yarmuth of Kentucky.

Three of the four witnesses supported the idea of a fiscal commission to help Congress address the rapidly deteriorating fiscal situation. With total deficits projected to exceed $110 trillion over the next 30 years as the federal debt doubles to more than 200 percent of GDP, it’s necessary that Congress consider more effective options for reining in deficits and debt than the current, broken budget process. The only dissenting voice came from Yarmuth.

Beyond disagreeing with the need for a fiscal commission, Yarmuth questioned the unsustainability of the federal debt by espousing a widely debunked economic doctrine, without explicitly mentioning it by name: so‐​called modern monetary theory (MMT). As economist Jeffrey Rogers Hummels has argued, “[MMT] is neither new nor modern. It simply justifies funding government expenditures by issuing fiat money, which, of course, all economists have long been aware is possible. MMT then attempts to downplay the potential inflationary impact of such financing with manipulations of the government and central‐​bank balance sheets.” According to Yarmuth:

“Of course, every one of these efforts [to establish a fiscal commission] stems from the presumption that our debt and deficits are unsustainable. […] maybe this committee can actually analyze the national debt issue to determine whether the debt we have, and will have, is really unsustainable or not and how can we judge that moving forward? It can’t be just looking at a graph with a constantly rising line and getting scared. […] So that’s why I suggest before we start talking about the debt and deficit problems, we ought to try and get a really good look at what’s sustainable and what’s not. We are a sovereign currency, we can print all the money we want to serve the people whom we serve. … [W]hy are we paying interest on the money we borrow? And why do we borrow money anyway? We can print it and put it in the Treasury.”

Yarmuth’s advice to Congress amounts to, “Just have the Federal Reserve print more money. What could possibly go wrong?” Rapid inflation is what will go wrong.

The recent round of inflation, the highest in 40 years, followed a massive Fed‐​fueled deficit‐​spending spree during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inflation is fortunately falling (meaning prices are still rising, just more slowly), and the Covid‐​19 experiment in MMT‐​style policy should have dampened enthusiasm for MMT. Apparently, Yarmuth is undeterred.

The invocation of the magic words “sovereign currency” won’t insulate the United States from the inflationary effects of printing money to fund excessive government expenditures, any more than the sacrifice of animals in Ancient Rome protected that empire from natural catastrophes. With the 2023 deficit clocking in at a peace‐​time, and non‐​emergency‐​period high of $2 trillion, as President Biden is asking Congress for more than $100 billion in emergency aid, the US federal government has no plans to stop massive deficit spending anytime soon.

Yarmuth isn’t the only legislator who has fallen for the alluring bait of modern monetary theory (it should be called “Magic Money Theory”). According to Peter Coy with the New York Times, quite a few Democrats have jumped on the MMT bandwagon:

Representative Alexandria Ocasio‐​Cortez, Democrat of New York, has spoken positively about M.M.T., as have several of her fellow House progressives. Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii, has also expressed sympathy with Modern Monetary Theory and its cousin, the Green New Deal. The Times has reported that Kelton [author of the MMT bible: The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy] has been a regular participant in conference calls on pandemic relief organized by Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, Democrat of New York.

Yarmuth says M.M.T.’s visibility in Congress is less than its influence. “There aren’t many people who are willing to be out front about it because it doesn’t resonate with what the average person thinks,” he said. He told The Louisville Courier‐​Journal in August that many members of Congress are more open to deficit spending than you would guess from their anti‐​deficit public statements: “Ultimately I think that’s for home base consumption and not necessarily for the vote at the end of the day.”

MMT is alluring because it promises to eliminate tradeoffs and constraints on government expenditures with the empty promise of creating unlimited dollars to finance such expenditures without the need to raise taxes or suffer rising interest costs. If politicians raise taxes too much, they’ll kill the golden goose that fills the Treasury’s coffers while taking a political risk. From politicians’ standpoint, it appears that much easier to finance government expansions with deficits. Deficits allow legislators to meet current constituent demands without imposing the associated costs on them. Yet, when excessive deficit spending on an already enormous federal debt pushes up interest rates, as we’re witnessing right now, using the Fed’s money‐​issuance powers starts looking even more appealing. That’s where MMT comes in. Who doesn’t love a magical money theory that promises Congress that they can eat their cake and have it too?

Against this backdrop, and given congressional reluctance to reform entitlement programs that are the major drivers of increased spending and debt, it would be wise for Congress to empower a fiscal commission with real authority to stabilize the growth in debt and rein in exploding interest costs. Moreover, the Federal Reserve should close off an avenue for monetizing the debt via fiscal QE. The temptation to use the central bank balance sheet to fund federal government spending without having to resort to taxation or borrowing will only rise as the federal debt grows ever larger.

If Congress waits long enough to address the US fiscal crisis, the MMT crowd might just get their way. Governments throughout history have resorted to the printing press or other forms of currency devaluations to fund their expenditures with the same result again and again. We’ll all end up paying the price for higher inflation and implicit default on the federal debt should stable monetary policy give way to the temptations to apply the hidden tax of money devaluation. If the federal government doesn’t get the budget under control and instead embraces MMT to fund its operation, we’ll learn that lesson the hard way.

Chris Edwards

Is the federal government’s debt too large?

Federal debt held by the public of $26 trillion amounts to almost $200,000 for every household in the nation.
At 98 percent and rising, federal debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) will soon hit a record high.
Debt‐​to‐​GDP ratios above 90 percent slow economic growth,
High and rising debt could trigger a major economic crisis.

So, yes, federal debt is far too large.

More evidence comes from comparing federal debt to state government debt. Out‐​of‐​control federal debt contrasts with stable and legally constrained state debt. This article looks at the rules and metrics used by the states to control debt. Federal debt is vastly higher than what state policymakers would think is prudent.

Nearly all the states have balanced budget requirements for their operating budgets, but most borrow to fund some of their capital expenditures. All states recognize that debt is costly and risky, and so they impose constitutional, statutory, and procedural restrictions on it. State finance agencies and credit rating firms routinely examine state finances to ensure that debt is held to affordable levels.

A Federal Reserve study said that debt affordability means “a state’s ability to repay all of its obligations without negatively impacting the provision of ongoing public services or raising taxes to anticompetitive levels.” The study pointed to two metrics: “debt service to revenues and debt to personal income can serve as reasonable gauges of near‐​term and longer‐​term burden.”

Let’s compare federal debt to state debt using these two metrics—debt to personal income and debt service to revenues.

Debt to Personal Income

Figure 1 shows measures of government debt to personal income. The higher the ratio, the more burdensome debt will be on future taxpayers. Federal debt will rise from about 116 percent of U.S. personal income in 2023 to 140 percent by 2033, based on Congressional Budget Office projections.

By contrast, total U.S. state and local government debt—as measured by the Census Bureau—was just 16 percent of U.S. personal income in 2021. But even that relatively modest figure overstates the burden of state‐​local debt on taxpayers because much of it will be repaid by non‐​tax revenues, such as charges for utilities, colleges, and stadiums.

A better comparison with federal debt is “tax‐​supported” state debt, which is estimated by Moody’s Investors Service (linked here). Moody’s found that tax‐​supported debt in the 50 states totaled just 2.8 percent of personal income in 2022. Thus, American taxpayers are on the hook for 40 times more federal debt than state debt (116 percent vs. 2.8 percent).

Federal debt can also be compared to personal‐​income limits on debt that some states impose. NASBO identifies five states that have legal or advisory limits on (typically) debt as a percentage of state personal income: Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, and Rhode Island. The average limit is 3.8 percent. These states believe that issuing debt above about 3.8 percent of personal income is too risky, yet the federal government has exploded its debt to 116 percent.

Debt Service to Revenues

Figure 2 shows debt service costs relative to revenues supporting the debt. For the federal government, I simply included annual interest payments. For the states, debt servicing estimates typically include interest and principal payments because states generally repay debt when it matures.

More debt means higher costs and higher taxes down the road. States have learned from history that debt is costly and risky, which is why many states have laws or long‐​standing procedures that limit debt issuance based on measures of debt servicing costs.

Federal interest payments were 16.0 percent of revenues in 2023. In June, CBO projected that interest payments would rise to 20 percent by 2033, but the recent interest rate spike suggests that the outlook is even worse now.

Compare these federal interest costs to interest costs on state debt. Interest costs were 3.8 percent of state own‐​source general revenues in 2021, based on Census Bureau data. Alternately, we can look at state tax‐​supported debt. Moody’s calculates that servicing costs on this debt were 2.6 percent of own‐​source state revenues in 2022. State interest costs will likely rise in coming years as interest rates rise, but that will likely prompt reduced debt usage in state budget plans.

We can also examine state limits on debt service. By my count, 22 states (listed below) have legal or procedural limits on debt service as a percentage of revenues. The limits range from Montana at 1.5 percent to Hawaii at 18.5 percent. The average is 7.2 percent. Thus, federal interest costs are twice as high as the typical legal maximum debt service costs in the states.

Note that actual state debt service costs are often less than legal limits. For example, Georgia’s constitution limits debt service to 10 percent of revenues, but the state has been recently keeping the ratio to 5 percent or less.

Final Thoughts

State debt is very constrained compared to federal debt. In addition to the metrics examined here, some states impose limits based on debt as a percentage of tax revenues and debt as a percentage of statewide property values. Some states impose fixed dollar limits on general obligation debt, and nearly all the states require voter approval for issuing general obligation debt. Also, many states impose legal limits on taxes and spending.

The states sometimes cheat on their fiscal rules, but the generally modest levels of state debt sharply contrasts with the massive river of federal red ink. Debt and debt service costs are vastly greater in the federal government than state governments. Both federal and state politicians are biased toward deficit‐​spending, but state experience shows that this impulse can be restrained and stabilized.

Background Notes:

My tallies of states with state debt and debt service limits are based on NASBO and Pew reports. Another useful resource is this Federal Reserve study. State debt limits are variously constitutional, statutory, or guidelines in official debt management plans.
As the Federal Reserve study discusses, definitions and coverage of debt and debt service ratios vary by state, as do the ways that the limits affect state budget processes.
The 22 states that have limits on debt service to revenues are Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. This list may not be fully up to date as I relied on NASBO (2021) and Pew (2017).
The Moody’s report on state debt is titled, “Ability to service long‐​term liabilities and fixed costs improves,” September 26, 2023. You may need to email the company to get a copy.
In 2022, U.S. personal income was 85 percent of U.S. GDP.

David Inserra

Free speech scholars and advocates have written about the general decline in freedom of expression that has occurred over the past two decades. Despite great technological advances that make communicating immensely easier—social media, encrypted communications, and ubiquitous computers and cell phones—many governmental policies and public opinion around the world have soured on the importance of expression.

In this recession of free speech, the Future of Free Speech project, a collaborative venture between the Justitia think tank and Vanderbilt University, has released a report that examines the importance of free speech as a “safety valve” to prevent social conflict. Among the issues studied in the report is the common belief today that “extreme” or disfavored speech around contentious topics can lead to violence and social conflict. This belief can even be seen in the glib slogans “silence is violence” or “words are violence.”

By ascribing actual violence to mere differences of opinion, this view argues that allowing such expression will lead to more violence. In other words, free speech can normalize and spread beliefs that will produce more violence. It can allow more dissension within a society that ultimately erupts into violent conflict.

But the Future of Free Speech report, by executive director Jacob Mchangama and Christian Bjørnskov challenges that narrative. Rather than producing more violence, greater expression—not merely defined as First Amendment or other legal protections, but also the ability to safely and freely express oneself in practice—is often correlated with less societal conflict and violence.

Speech can function as a safety valve that allows individuals to express frustrations and vent their anger without resorting to violence. Speech allows policymakers to understand the views of their constituents in order to legislate effectively. For instance, it allows civil society to form and address the sources of social conflict, as seen in the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, where civil society helped guide peaceful protests and expression to overcome the evils of segregation and Jim Crow.

Censorship, on the other hand, can even create more conflicts as it limits legitimate avenues for discussion, according to the report. The study finds that speech “restrictions will lead to more conflict, a consequence that to some extent may be driven by government misuse of restrictions. Such problems are more often than not ignored by the legal and political literature on the topic.”

In other words, government abuse of its censorial powers increases the frustration of those who are silenced and potentially leads some to turn to conflict and violence.

The Future of Free Speech report discovered that among democracies and multiparty autocracies with relatively strong protections for citizens’ rights, freedom of expression is strongly and significantly associated with less social conflict. Simply, in democratic and relatively less authoritarian states, greater freedom of expression means less social conflict and more restrictions on expression may result in more conflict.

However, researchers also found that “it appears that increasing the freedom of expression is associated with more conflict in single‐​party regimes.” This is possibly due to autocratic governments channeling expression against already socially disfavored groups that are unprotected or even targeted as enemies of the state. Additionally, the brutal repression and lack of expression in communist states may result in very little outward conflict, but such repression also crushes human flourishing.

Indeed, the safety valve justification is not the only reason to treasure freedom of expression. Other reasons include:

self‐​governance and government accountability;
individual liberty and fulfillment;
the search for truth and knowledge in the marketplace of ideas;
understanding what others believe;
promoting tolerance;
and that censorship may be ineffective or even backfire.

The next time you hear an expert or policymaker say we need to restrict speech to reduce conflict and violence, know that this is not a tradeoff we need to make.

In light of the horrendous acts of terrorism against Israel and the ongoing conflict in Gaza, many critics are saying we need to limit speech and silence others in the name of safety and to stop alleged misinformation. Citing the conflict, the EU is for the first time invoking—and already abusing—the Digital Services Act to cow social media companies into removing protected speech.

Yes, we should stop activity that is violent or directly incites people to imminent violence. But undesirable opinions are not violence. Words are not violence, and we can have safety and liberty so long as we reject the idea that free expression is dangerous.

Neal McCluskey

Last week my new Policy Analysis on public school library holdings was published. A major reason I wrote it was that it felt to me that over the last few years Americans had been expending a huge amount of energy on books challenged in libraries while basically ignoring how books are selected.

To check if my feeling was amiss, CEF’s crack research team looked at all of the “reading material” conflicts on the Public Schooling Battle Map, determining how many focus on items already stocked or assigned in schools, and how many are about materials not yet acquired. The former swamp the latter: 556 conflicts are over material already in schools versus five district fights over acquisitions – and those mainly about processes, not specific books or other items – and twelve state conflicts over legislation prohibiting certain acquisitions.

Note that battles categorized as “curriculum” were not counted, but many probably would incorporate prohibiting books. Also, if proposed district policies examining acquisitions led to no disagreements, we did not catalog them. Finally, as always with the Map, if conflicts occurred but were not reported in the media, or were reported but escaped our notice, they are not on the Map.

So these numbers are likely rough approximations of what’s happening, but they support my basic conclusion: People have been focusing much more on challenging stocked books than on possible acquisitions.

This seems illogical. People should want to know what is being purchased, and why, in the first place, not wait to see what eventually hits shelves and then fight over it. At the very least, it is a waste of money to buy books only to see them removed.

But there is a major reason people focus on the back end instead of the front. As my paper discusses, the acquisition process is opaque. It is often unclear who is in charge of selecting books – school boards? superintendents? librarians? – and how they decide which books are worthy and which are not. Acquisition processes have also rarely been examined by researchers.

If ever there were a time to start assessing acquisitions, this is it. Based on the Battle Map collection, the last three years have seen big increases in conflicts, likely spurred by overall frustration with the COVID-19 pandemic that struck in 2020, as well as ongoing demographic, social, and political transformations. Notably, the number of battles in 2020 was small, but that was because the national education debate was dominated by how to attend school at all.

Of course, what these battles emphasize is that no one system can satisfy all people with diverse values and needs. Diving deeper into the acquisitions process would likely highlight the same, inescapable reality.

Colin Grabow

It has become conventional wisdom among many in Washington that a once‐​vaunted US manufacturing sector has become a shell of its former self. Language used by members of the commentariat and politicians to describe the state of US industry is often bleak, sometimes bordering on the apocalyptic. In August, for example, columnist David Brooks flatly stated “we don’t make things anymore.” Talk of rescuing the so‐​called “Rust Belt” and American manufacturing have been staples of recent presidential campaigns, and once in office President Biden and President Trump have both pushed a spate of protectionist measures to resuscitate the allegedly beleaguered sector.

But aside from the economic harm inflicted by such actions, the underlying premise that American manufacturing needs saving doesn’t square with the facts. As I explain in a new essay, reports of the sector’s demise are greatly exaggerated—if not entirely fictitious.

Simply put, the United States remains a manufacturing powerhouse. In 2020 it was the world’s fourth‐​largest steel producer and in 2021 was the second‐​largest automaker and largest aerospace exporter. Accounting for nearly 16 percent of global manufacturing output in 2021—second only to China, which has four times the population of the United States—the US had a greater share than Japan, Germany, and South Korea combined. By itself, the US manufacturing sector would constitute the world’s eighth‐​largest economy.

Such facts perhaps come as a surprise to Americans accustomed to regularly purchasing consumer products that are made overseas. If the United States is such a manufacturing stronghold, they might reasonably wonder, where is all the stuff that American firms make? The answer: all around us. US manufacturers make many of the products we use, ranging from the gasoline in our cars (not to mention the cars themselves) to the sophisticated medical instruments in our hospitals to the advanced commercial aircraft that transport us to destinations around the globe.

Even many of the products Americans consume from overseas still have a considerable US influence. Nike shoes, for example, are produced abroad while design work takes place at its headquarters in Oregon. Similarly, numerous designers are employed by Apple in the United States as a key part of the production process for devices sold worldwide. Such highly skilled work may not take place on the assembly line, but manufacturing would be impossible without it.

Beyond our everyday shopping experiences, perceptions of US manufacturing decline may also be due to the declining number of Americans who work in factories. From a peak of 19.5 million workers in 1979—22 percent of the nonfarm workforce—manufacturing employment has dropped to approximately 13 million today and just 8.3 percent of nonfarm workers. But employment is not the same as output—far from it. While manufacturing employment has declined by about one‐​third, output is only slightly off its record high. Manufacturing’s value‐​added, meanwhile, last year stood at an all‐​time high.

This ability to produce more stuff with fewer workers reflects the incredible productivity of US workers. Measuring manufacturing value added on a per‐​worker basis shows Americans to be the world leader at over $141,000. That’s 45 percent higher than second‐​place South Korea and over seven times that of workers in China. Such high productivity helps explain why manufacturing attracted over $55 billion in foreign direct investment last year—more than any other sector.

Along with higher productivity, reduced manufacturing employment reflects Americans’ increased appetite for services over stuff. Instead of buying proportionately more manufactured products as they become more prosperous, Americans are spending their money on services and experiences such as dining out, travel, and entertainment.

This is hardly a uniquely American phenomenon. Across a range of highly developed countries the same pattern holds, with countries seeing less manufacturing employment as they become richer. Germany, a country long synonymous with manufacturing prowess, has seen its share of workers employed in the sector nearly halved from approximately 37 percent in 1973 to barely 19 percent as of 2016. Japan, another long‐​time manufacturing titan, had just 16 percent of its workers employed in manufacturing as of 2016.

It’s not clear that this should be a source of distress given the relatively low wages of such employment. As a 2018 Congressional Research Service report points out, “…production and nonsupervisory workers in manufacturing, on average, earn significantly less per hour than nonsupervisory workers in industries that do not employ large numbers of teenagers, that have average workweeks of similar length, and that have similar levels of worker education.” Other sources comport with this finding, as I note in my new essay:

A senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis pointed out that, while the average manufacturing worker earned $0.50 more per hour than the average private‐​sector worker in 2010, by 2022 the average manufacturing worker was earning $1.12 less. This finding comports with a 2019 Bureau of Labor Statistics report noting that in 1990, production workers in manufacturing had hourly earnings approximately 6 percent greater than those of production or nonsupervisory workers in the total private sector ($10.78 versus $10.20) but that by 2018, such workers were earning about 5 percent less ($21.54 versus $22.71). In addition, a 2022 paper found that the wage premium for manufacturing jobs has disappeared and noted that manufacturing wages rank in the bottom half of all jobs in the United States.

Of course, none of this is to suggest that manufacturing employment is somehow bad or that the sector should be looked down on, but those calling for a manufacturing renaissance and to put more Americans to work in factories should perhaps first take a deep breath.

This is also not to say that the state of manufacturing cannot be improved. While there is certainly no reason for doom‐​mongering, plenty of scope exists for eliminating obstacles that hinder the sector’s growth and competitiveness. Removing tariffs on steel and aluminum, for example, would boost the fortunes of manufacturers that rely on these metals as key inputs, while scrapping Jones Act shipping protectionism would bolster the US steel industry (among others). Changes to the tax code that allow for full, immediate expensing of capital investment and a more sensible, streamlined immigration system would benefit both manufacturers and a range of other industries.

But perhaps the best assistance legislators can offer is to back off and resist temptations to engage in new misadventures in protectionism or industrial policy.

Contrary to common perception, US manufacturing continues to be a vibrant source of growth and economic dynamism. Provided Washington can avoid ill‐​advised schemes to “rescue” the industry it should remain so for many years to come.

Scott Lincicome

Today we’ve published three great new essays for Cato’s Defending Globalization project:

Globalization and Growing Global Equality, by Chelsea Follett, documents how—contrary to the conventional wisdom—the last few decades of globalization have seen unambiguous declines in global inequality across a variety of metrics, including income inequality, education inequality, and more.
The Reality of American “Deindustrialization”, by Colin Grabow, debunks the myth of American “deindustrialization” and shows instead that the US manufacturing sector remains a global powerhouse and vibrant part of the US economy.
Globalization Has Propelled India to Prosperity, by Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, traces India’s opening to the global economy and subsequent economic growth, while cautioning that much work remains to be done.

We also have a new video of Cato Senior Fellow Johan Norberg and me discussing his Defending Globalization essay on the supposed “race to the bottom”:

This content joins fourteen other essays and other multimedia features on the main Defending Globalization project page. Be sure to check it all out, and stay tuned for more to come.

Jeffrey A. Singer

As of 2022, all 50 states and the District of Columbia allow nurse practitioners (NPs) to prescribe medications. However, many states’ “scope of practice” laws do not allow NPs to prescribe medications unless supervised by a physician. As of October 2022, 27 states plus the District of Columbia grant “full practice authority” to NPs, permitting them to practice and prescribe independently of physicians.

Critics of full practice authority, usually advocates for entrenched incumbents such as the American Medical Association, contend that NPs provide poor quality care. They lobby against state legislation aimed at expanding NP’s scope of practice.

We previously reported on a large quasi‐​experimental study of Veterans Health Administration patients in 530 VHA facilities:

After comparing patient conditions pre‐ and post‐​reassignment and between primary care providers, the study found NP‐​assigned patients had similar total costs and clinical outcomes to physician‐​assigned patients and were less likely to require hospitalization.

Today, a study by researchers at the University of California Los Angeles, Stanford University, and Yale University appears in the Annals of Internal Medicine that further debunks claims that NPs provide poor‐​quality care.

The researchers examined data from Medicare Part D beneficiaries aged 65 or older between 2013 and 2019 in the 29 states that had granted NPs prescriptive authority by 2019. Using the American Geriatrics Society’s Beers Criteria, they measured the rate of “inappropriate prescriptions,” defined as drugs that should not generally be prescribed to adults over age 65.

The researchers concluded:

Nurse practitioners were no more likely than physicians to prescribe inappropriately to older patients. Broad efforts to improve the performance of all clinicians who prescribe may be more effective than limiting independent prescriptive authority to physicians.

With a worsening shortage of primary care physicians, an overall shortage of health care workers, and an aging population, lawmakers and policymakers can help expand access to primary care services by allowing NPs to practice to the full extent of their training in the remaining states and territories that restrict their scope of practice.