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Jennifer Huddleston

On the TV show Parks and Rec, libertarian character Ron Swanson takes a trip to London and famously quips, “History began on July 4 1776. Everything before that was a mistake.”

When it comes to issues like free expression online, it is easy for Americans to get the myopic view that we don’t need to worry about the impact of other countries’ regulations because we are protected by the First Amendment.The United Kingdom has been debating the “Online Safety Bill” that could have serious consequences for many internet companies. This sizable piece of legislation would create many new requirements for platforms that carry user generated content including search engines, messaging apps, and social media. Among these requirements include strict age‐​verification requirements and limiting certain types of “legal but harmful” content that raise significant concerns for the implications the bill would have on users’ privacy and speech. While the regulations will mostly be felt by U.K. internet users, the global nature of the internet means that the regulations will likely impact users more generally. With that in mind, here are three key reasons Americans should be concerned about what might happen if the United Kingdom passes the Online Safety Bill.

It could undermine encrypted services

One of the key concerns about the Online Safety Bill is the way it would undermine encryption. This is because the bill disincentivizes the use of end‐​to‐​end messaging by incentivizing services to scan all messages for child sexual abuse imagery. While the intention of identifying the criminals behind this heinous act is noble, such a requirement would require platforms to screen all messages in the United Kingdom to prevent certain illegal content. In short it creates a guilty‐​until‐​proven‐​innocent standard for messages on encrypted services.

Many encrypted messaging services have opposed the bill and even stated they would cease services in the United Kingdom rather than compromise the level of privacy and security in this way. This could deny U.K. users access to popular apps like Signal and WhatsApp, which also make it more difficult for Americans and others to communicate and connect with their friends and family in the United Kingdom. For companies that did comply, the message screening requirement would certainly catch messages from American users to the United Kingdom, as well as impact any number of American services that host user‐​generated content links to the United Kingdom.

Many of its provisions may be applied globally

While the First Amendment may protect Americans from many potential speech restrictions domestically, the actions of other countries can certainly impact the experience of American users because of the internet’s global nature.

Americans have previously experienced this with many of the privacy changes following the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, such as the increase in cookie pop‐​ups and being unable to access certain newspapers if traveling in Europe. We’ve also seen a similar international impact on American companies through the U.K.’s pro‐​competitive actions, such as blocking Meta’s acquisition of Giphy and, most recently, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision.

If the Online Safety Bill were to become law, many companies will find themselves deciding if the cost of compliance will be too much to stay in the United Kingdom. For those that do stay, it may be easier to apply the same restrictions globally to ensure compliance. The result might mean that American users are subject to the same requirements around age verification and restraints on content moderation. This is particularly true if the proposal is read broadly enough to impact certain virtual private networks (VPNs) that would allow U.K. users to claim they were in another country.

U.S. policymakers are looking to it as a model for youth online safety proposals in the United States

At a state and federal level, there has been much debate over potential youth online safety or privacy legislation. Policymakers behind these proposals are likely watching the debate over similar policies across the pond. In fact, during the debate over California’s Age Appropriate Design Code, one of the Online Safety Bill’s key proponents, Baroness Beeban Kidron, wrote positively of its similarities. In turn, recent American actions only further some of the U.K. legislation’s proponents’ ardent advocacy for the law.

However, policymakers should be cautious not to forget one key difference between the U.S. and the U.K.’s foundations: the First Amendment. In fact, the California law has already been challenged in court on First Amendment grounds, and other state or federal legislation would likely face similar legal challenges.

Still, in some cases, this has done little to dissuade policymakers who often have well‐​meaning intentions of protecting the next generation. But proposals modeled after the U.K.’s Online Safety Bill would diminish the privacy and benefits of the internet for all users, including the children that it claims to protect.

The Online Safety Bill has a whole plethora of concerns that many scholars have written about in great detail. If passed, it will have significant negative impacts on the speech and privacy of British internet users, but its broader impact will also likely reach America’s shores.

Jeffrey A. Singer

When 14 academic public health experts wrote in the American Journal of Public Health in 2021 supporting e‑cigarettes as a powerful tobacco harm reduction tool, it mostly fell on deaf ears. San Francisco and other cities have since banned the sale of all vaping products, and several states, including California, have imposed bans on sales of flavored vaping products and, in some cases, the online sale of all vaping products.

Now The Hill reports preliminary survey results from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that only 11 percent of adults are tobacco smokers, down from 12.5 percent in 2021 and 2020. The survey also found that vaping among adults increased from 4.5 percent to 6 percent during the same period.

The survey finds teen and adolescent vaping is on the increase: roughly 14.1 percent of high schoolers and 3.3 percent of middle schoolers are vaping. This is occurring despite efforts by the Food and Drug Administration and several states to ban flavored vaping.

Bans on flavored vaping are rooted in the fact that teen vapers prefer the fruit, candy, or menthol flavors over the tobacco flavor. But e‑cigarette sales to those under 18 have been prohibited since 2016, so the teens are already tapping the black or grey market to vape. And while teen vaping has been increasing, teen tobacco smoking is at an all‐​time low.

Yet research shows that fruit or candy‐​flavored e‑cigarettes are not determinants of teen vapers moving on to tobacco. And a study published in the May 2021 issue of Nicotine and Tobacco Research by researchers at Brown and Harvard Universities finds, “E‑cigarette use is largely concentrated among youth who share characteristics with smokers of the pre‐​vaping era, suggesting e‑cigarettes may have replaced cigarette smoking.” Dr. Natasha Sokol, one of the study’s authors, told Filter journalist Alex Norcia, “The decline in youth smoking really accelerated after the availability of e‑cigarettes.”

Meanwhile, efforts to reduce teen vaping deprive adult tobacco smokers of a proven harm‐​reduction strategy. It turns out that most adult tobacco smokers who wish to quit prefer flavored and menthol e‑cigarettes as more effective substitutes. The authors of the 2021 American Journal of Public Health article warned, “Policies intended to reduce adolescent vaping may also reduce adult smokers’ use of e‑cigarettes in quit attempts.”

The authors also wrote, “Because evidence indicates that e‑cigarette use can increase the odds of quitting smoking, many scientists, including this essay’s authors, encourage the health community, media, and policymakers to more carefully weigh vaping’s potential to reduce adult smoking‐​attributable mortality.”

The CDC’s latest survey supports that advice.

Colleen Hroncich

Christina and Eric Threeton have a lot of experience in education. They both taught in the Clark County School District in Nevada before moving to the charter school sector. When they moved into charter administration, they expected to really be able to shake things up and make an impact.

“We were always trying to do new things in the classroom, always kind of innovative,” says Eric. “The higher we got, we realized the less you can actually do. Your hands are tied more. It got to the point where, in order to do what we know is best for children, we needed to do something different. So we saved up some money and took a leap.”

The leap was starting their own private microschool, the Nevada School of Inquiry (NVSI). They decided to focus on middle school because there are great elementary and high schools in the area, but they found the middle school landscape to be lacking in good options. Christina and Eric plan to do things differently than most traditional schools, allowing kids to explore their passions through self‐​directed learning, incorporating field trips and hiking, and using units of instruction to teach thematically.

This is the first year of operation for NVSI, and there are currently 11 students enrolled—up from three at the beginning of the year. The cap they’ve set for the program in their current location is 30 students. This will allow them to maintain the family‐​like atmosphere and student‐​centered approach.

While the group is small, they still separate for some classes to ensure each child is at the level that’s right for them. “There are a couple of subjects that we teach all together because they need to have the state standards mastered before they leave 8th grade,” says Christina. “So we wrote a three‐​year program for those. The kids are together for science, social studies, health, and PE. When it comes to math and ELA, it gets a little bit different.” Christina works with the 6th graders to ensure they build a strong foundation for the future. Eric works with the other groups for 7th and 8th grade math, pre‐​Algebra, and Algebra 1. For English/​Language Arts, the students all read the same novel, but Christina differentiates their assignments based on their level.

NVSI focuses on mastery, so they use a hybrid grading approach. Students are rated based on their mastery of a subject and then that rating is converted to a traditional letter grade. This helps parents understand how their kids are progressing and gives them a regular report card to use for high school applications.

Before a student enrolls, they meet with the family to make sure the school is a good fit for them. They also help to set up a plan for each incoming student to help them achieve their goals when it comes to high school. According to Christina, a student’s plan will be different depending on their expected path—for example, they may want to attend an International Baccalaureate school, a performing arts school, or one of the elite private schools in the area. “Really starting to get them thinking early has been helpful because then we can meet those expectations and set them on the right trajectory,” she says.

Eric and Christina plan to eventually build a new school so they can hire other teachers and enroll more students. But for now, they just want to fill their current location and get on a sustainable funding path so they can go back to earning salaries. “It’s scary to leave,” Eric notes. “We went from both of us making good money to making nothing, but it’s absolutely amazing.”

What advice would they offer other teachers, parents, or entrepreneurs looking to start their own school or learning center? Eric says, “Start saving up some capital because it’s very capital intensive—more so than we thought. We thought we’d saved enough. We did not save enough. Though the initial capital investment is high, you’re going to be not making money for a little bit. But hopefully in the end you’ll come out on top. We’re still kind of waiting for that.”

Christina and Eric are confident NVSI will flourish. Growing from three to 11 students in the first year helped bolster that confidence. Other than three students graduating, all of their current students are returning next year along with several new students who have already registered. Their growth has been through word of mouth, which is evidence that their families are happy with this new learning environment for their children.

Beyond the financial challenges, Eric and Christina had to deal with a lot of hurdles to get NVSI up and running. There were zoning issues and code issues that fell under separate government agencies and were time‐​consuming to deal with. They had to be “squeaky wheels” to make sure things moved along quickly or else they wouldn’t have been able to open on time—and even then, it was down to the wire. They got their final approval two days before the first day of school.

These hurdles keep some good educators from branching out to start their own school. “It’s a shame there isn’t a clearer path for people to be able to do something like this without all those barriers, because we need more options,” Eric laments. Fortunately, there are people like Eric and Christina who are willing to take the road less traveled. Future entrepreneurs will benefit from the lessons they’re learning.

Mustafa Akyol

In recent years, Muslim communities in the West have been pushed to two opposite trends: On the one hand, there are Muslim politicians or activists who ally themselves with the progressive left, because the latter’s “inclusion” agenda promises a better future for Muslims. If “transphobia” is defeated, the logic goes, “Islamophobia” will be defeated, too.

On the other hand, there are ultra‐​conservative Muslims, who condemn any new interpretation of Islam as an illegitimate concession by treacherous sell‐​outs. They glorify the most rigid interpretations of Islam, including that of the Taliban, while denouncing the evils of Western liberalism. (Yet they keep living in London or Texas, for some curious reason, instead of flocking to Kabul or Kandahar.)

The tension between these two philosophies has recently come to a head following an unprecedented development in Scotland.

On March 29 of this year, the seat of the First Minister—the very leadership of the country—was taken by a member of an ethnic minority. Humza Yousaf (37), a Muslim politician born to Pakistani immigrants, took the oath of office, pledged his allegiance to the King, and vowed to work for “the best interests of our nation.”

This was a historic moment not just for Scotland, but also for Western Muslims. The Muslim Council of Britain stressed this point, hoping the “first leader of a British nation from a Muslim background” may be “a source of great unity across communities.” The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, also a Muslim, similarly hailed the “significance of this moment.”

However, not all British Muslims agreed. Two days after Yousaf’s inauguration, Muhammad Hijab, a popular hardliner in the British Muslim community with more than 737,000 followers on YouTube, issued a declaration of ex‐​communication. “The First Minister of Scotland is not a Muslim,” he claimed, “but a clear‐​cut infidel.”

Appealing to Yousaf himself, Hijab contemptuously added, “You are nothing, because you have left the religion of Islam. And the only way back is for repentance and clarification.”

Some other prominent Muslim conservatives on social media supported Hijab’s condemnation. Others said maybe formal excommunication is too much, but conceded Yousaf had crossed boundaries that no real Muslim would overstep.

These boundaries are mostly about Yousaf’s championship of the LGBT movement, which has been a pillar of his political career. He vocally supports same‐​sex marriage, and vows to make legal gender transition easier. In his latest campaign, he promised that he would continue “promoting and protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people” even by “embedding LGBTQ+ rights in an independent Scotland’s constitution.”

Further, in a Sky TV interview that went viral, Yousaf was asked whether “gay sex is a sin.”

“No,” he said boldly, seeming to give not just a political statement but also a religious opinion.

For most conservative Muslims, such statements are unacceptable, because traditional Islamic sources do condemn homosexual sex as sin. The Qur’an, echoing the Bible, tells the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where “the people of Lot” are condemned for “lustfully approaching men instead of women.” Hadiths, or words attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, also condemn “sodomy,” in line with “adultery,” and even decree for them the death penalty.

So, perhaps it wasn’t very wise for Yousaf to flatly assert, as a self‐​declared believing Muslim, that homosexual sex is “not a sin.” Religions, after all, have the right to define whatever they consider as sin, and caution their believers against them. According to Islam, eating pork, getting intoxicated, or gambling are also sins—and Muslims do not have to decide otherwise to be better citizens of Western liberal democracies. They just have to accept that individuals have the freedom to commit those sins—and leave the judgment to God.

In other words, Muslims can live peacefully with peoples of “un‐​Islamic” worldviews and lifestyles—from LGBTQ+ activists to atheists, from Christians to pagans. They can also respect and even defend their rights as fellow human beings, while preserving their own theological and ethical convictions. They can enjoy their freedom of religion, in other words, while respecting other people’s freedom from religion.

Yet this live‐​and‐​let‐​live solution seems not to be fully articulated in Islam today. Hence Muslim elected leaders in liberal democracies—including Ilhan Omar of the U.S. House of Representatives—often have a hard time explaining their enthusiastic progressivism to a largely conservative community. Some may also go really too far, as seen with Yousaf’s illiberal plans to ban conversion therapy and to criminalize any speech that “stirs up hatred.” In return, conservatives trench themselves in a medieval jurisprudence.

But regardless of how these two trends within Western Muslims choose to air their conflicts, there is an aspect of Western liberalism that all these Muslims of diverse opinions keep enjoying: freedom of speech. If, for example, Yousaf received a “fatwa” on his “infidelity” in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, or Pakistan, then he would have to fear for this life. (Because “infidelity” of a Muslim means “apostasy,” which, according to most conservatives, can be punished with the death penalty.)

Conversely, the hardline Western Muslims who revile Western liberalism would probably end up in jail, if not torture cells, if they were living in those countries and were condemning their political systems.

In other words, thanks to Western free speech, Western Muslims are able to freely discuss important issues of Islam that are simply impossible to question in much of the Muslim world. That is why, despite all the brouhaha, the Western Muslim experience is an important one.

Hopefully, in the long run, it can help more and more Muslims embrace the key value of liberalism: living by your own values, while respecting others—from “heretics” and “infidels,” to sexual minorities—to live by theirs.

Adam N. Michel

The House Republican debt ceiling package repeals many of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) energy tax credits. Revised estimates of the tax credits confirm that their costs will be at least two times higher than originally thought.

Putting aside the countless problems with each of the specific tax credits, it’s worth comparing the size of the special interest IRA tax subsidies to other more beneficial tax changes Congress could have made. For example, the energy credits could end up costing almost twice as much as making full expensing permanent, the most pro‐​growth investment incentive in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Costs Revised Up

When passed in August 2022, congressional scorekeepers estimated that the energy tax credits in the IRA would cost $271 billion dollars over ten years. Since then, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, The Brookings Institution, and The Mercatus Center have all published estimates showing that the cost of the IRA tax credits could be two to three times larger than initially projected. Goldman and Brookings put the estimated ten‐​year cost at over $1 trillion.

In an updated preliminary score to repeal most of the IRA tax provisions, the JCT now estimates that repealing the tax credits would raise $570 billion, doubling their original estimate. Notably, the score does not include the cost of some of the subsidies for electric vehicles. Goldman estimates the total for all EV credits could cost as much as $390 billion over the decade, which is more than 27 times larger than the originally estimated cost.

The new higher cost estimates are the result of different assumptions about how the credit rules will be written by the Treasury Department and demand for incentive‐​eligible products. Because most of the credits are uncapped, the costs can increase significantly if eligibility rules are interpreted broadly and if consumer demand for the subsidized products is higher than anticipated. Accurately projecting these variables is challenging, if not impossible.

For proponents of the credits, the ballooning cost could be interpreted as a good thing, signifying additional adoption of government‐​favored technologies. However, it could also be the result of gamesmanship, where industry has found a way (through lobbying Treasury or other creative means) to access incentives that Congress did not intend. For example, companies are encouraging customers to lease instead of buy new electric vehicles to sidestep restrictions on tax credits if the car is purchased by an individual.

The high fiscal cost of industry‐​specific tax credits may come at the expense of extending or expanding neutral tax policies that benefit all Americans. Neutral tax policies create broader economic benefits, including for IRA‐​targeted industries.

A Lost Opportunity

Under current law, effective tax rates on U.S. investment are scheduled to increase as immediate expensing for new investments phases out and other changes take place. For example, the effective marginal tax rate on capital income from business equipment is set to increase by more than 200 percent between 2021 and 2027, according to the Congressional Budget Office. If Congress does not stop these tax increases, it will make all types of new investment more expensive and businesses will do less investing, including the types of investment necessary for green energy production targeted by the IRA.

Two significant tax changes start to happen in 2022 and 2023. Beginning in 2022, research and development spending—including related wages and other associated costs—cannot be deducted from revenues immediately. Instead, the costs must be amortized over five years. By spreading these deductions out over time, the most innovative U.S. businesses will face higher tax rates because they will only be able to recoup as little as 83 percent of their real research costs (investment deductions are eroded by inflation and time). Similar changes start in 2023 for the remainder of business investments as 100 percent bonus depreciation or “full expensing” begins to phase out. Costs that were immediately deductible following the 2017 reforms now must be spread out over as many as twenty years.

As I explained in detail recently, expensing makes it easier to invest in tools, equipment, and research that allow Americans to produce new goods and services and earn higher incomes for their work. Expensing also creates an incentive for businesses to re‐​shore their operations without the economic costs of more heavy‐​handed industrial policies or industry‐​specific tax credits. By lowering the cost of new investments made in the United States, expensing is a powerful incentive that boosts overall levels of investment and economic growth. In general, expensing offers the most economic benefits for the budgetary cost of the policy.

Making R&D expensing and 100 percent bonus depreciation permanent would lower revenues by about $582 billion over a decade, according to Tax Foundation estimates. The lost revenue is about $150 billion less after accounting for the economic benefits of more investment and the resulting larger economy.

The IRA energy credits could cost between $300 billion and $760 billion more than originally estimated when Congress passed the law. In other words, Congress could have stopped the limits on R&D spending and expensing for $170 billion less than the upper‐​bound unanticipated cost increases of the IRA credits. The updated score from JCT shows that the IRA credits would all but fully cover the lost revenue from full expensing reforms.

Figure 1 shows the original and updated JCT estimates of the IRA energy credits, the Goldman IRA cost estimate, and the Tax Foundation cost estimates for R&D and expensing. Compared to the Goldman estimate, expiring technology‐​neutral expensing rules reduce revenue by a bit more than half the cost of the energy credits.

The IRA reveals Congress’ preference for the heavier hand of industry‐​specific subsidies over the proven incentives of neutral policy changes that encourage investment of all types. Lest you think this is just a preference among Democrat lawmakers, the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act similarly authorized about $280 billion in industry‐​specific subsidies. Despite R&D being a key component of advanced chip manufacturing, Congress chose not to include the legislative fix to the 2022 R&D amortization requirement that disincentivizes all U.S. R&D spending.

Congress chose to subsidize specific politically popular technologies and leave in place scheduled tax increases on all other forms of domestic investment. The type of targeted subsidies used in the IRA have historically failed to create the desired economic transformations as policymakers don’t have the knowledge and expertise to direct sustainable innovation. Because the IRA credits are more akin to direct government spending, and expensing is a broad‐​based tax cut that removes current disincentives to invest, comparing the two is a little apples to oranges. However, when deficits are high, and Congress faces tough fiscal tradeoffs, they are ultimately making decisions between subsidies, such as those in the IRA, or broad‐​based tax cuts that benefit everyone.

Repealing the IRA provisions would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings that could go toward deficit reduction and maintaining a pro‐​growth tax code.

Neal McCluskey

The 1990 book Politics, Markets, and America’s Schools, by John Chubb and Terry Moe and published by the Brookings Institution, had a major role in school choice history, arguing that public schools are, by their democratically controlled nature, doomed to stagnation. Autonomous schools and choice for families, they convincingly explained, fundamentally change that. But the book contained one statement that still haunts the choice movement: We should see choice as a “panacea.”

Education funding following children to options their families choose, coupled with freedom for educators, is, indeed, a game‐​changer, moving us from a system of government control to one grounded in free people, with diverse values, needs, and desires, making decisions. It is consistent with a free society and immediately moves significant power away from special interests and bureaucracies. That is why the explosion of school choice programs since the onset of COVID-19, and especially the arrival of universal programs, are extremely welcome developments.

But we must keep expectations grounded. Choice is not a panacea for everything people dislike about education. In part that is because choice does not decide how to teach, it simply frees people to try different approaches. It does not determine the best school discipline policy, it just helps families decide for themselves if they want no‐​excuses, free‐​range kids, or something in‐​between. And there will likely be no single outcome indicator that everyone can point to demonstrate success or failure because we do not all agree on what constitutes success or failure.

The Expected Benefits of Choice

What do we expect to get from choice? First and foremost, more freedom – people with different values and desires are enabled to seek out education consistent with those things without having to defeat people who want something different. Families that want students able to choose the bathroom they use no longer have to defeat in political combat those who want access determined by biological sex. Those who want diversity, equity, and inclusion policies not having to politically thwart those who don’t. And so on.

Next, choice should put competitive pressure on schools to improve, because they must attract families to survive and thrive. The basic need for students should spur schools to try to get better at what they already do, and more importantly, to attract even more students—and funding—by finding better ways to educate.

Finally, choice should enable greater specialization, with some schools focused on artistic children, some on children with disabilities, some on kids who thrive in unstructured environments, and so on. Rather than having to try to serve all kids, which incentivizes aiming at the mythical “average,” or lowest‐​common‐​denominator content everyone will at least tolerate, educators can focus on the needs and desires of numerous subsets of real‐​life, unique children.

What Does Universal Choice Look Like?

The big movement in school choice over roughly the last year has been toward universal education savings accounts (ESAs). “Universal” typically means there is no income cap or other curb on who qualifies for funding.

An ESA, universal or otherwise, is different from a voucher in that money is put into an account in a child’s name and the funds can be used not just for private school tuition, but typically also tutoring, therapies, or other educational uses. Unspent money can usually accumulate over time, including in some cases carried over for college. The amount per child in universal programs is generally around $7,500, which is less than half of the roughly $15,500 spent per American public school student.

Universal programs tend to have limited regulations, especially avoiding requirements that chosen schools administer state standardized tests. They often require that some standardized assessment be administered, but it need not be the state test that, especially if coupled with ramifications based on performance, would de facto require private schools to implement public school curricula. The programs also sometimes have a couple of ramp‐​up years to reach full universality, including restricting access to students from specific groups, including those falling under income caps.

What Schools Will Be Chosen?

Annual allotments of $7,500 will not make famous private schools such as Exeter and Sidwell Friends affordable to most families, though they might help those on the margins of affording $50,000-plus tuition. But most private schools are not super‐​pricey. They are relatively low‐​cost, often religious, institutions. That’s why the average tuition nationwide is around $12,200—about $3,300 less than we spend per public school student. Also, many private schools, especially elementary, are $7,500 and below, making them affordable with just the annual ESA. And since many are below that, elementary ESA recipients could save money to use at more expensive high schools.

Will universal programs encourage fly‐​by‐​night operations? We have seen such schools in both higher education and K‑12, and unfortunately should expect some. That said, many private schools are quite old. Indeed, a big problem is that many well‐​established schools have shut down or are on the verge of closing, struggling to survive against better‐​funded “free” public schools. The average founding year for closed private schools on Cato’s Private Schooling Status Tracker is 1944.

While the existence of schools focused on money and not education is a real concern, we want supply to meet increasing demand. Part of that will be existing schools staying in business and expanding. Part will be new entrants, some of which will be of modest quality or worse (though, as we will discuss, what constitutes “quality” is hardly clear‐​cut). But as choice becomes the norm, we should expect to see poor performers tending to go out of business and superior performers becoming more stable and expanding. We will also likely see more tools to help parents become savvy consumers, building on current resources such as GreatSchools and Niche. And don’t forget the alternative: public schools that frequently appear to get poor outcomes, often for more money.

But let’s not be too optimistic: While universal programs in at least six states providing roughly $7,500 per student beats the status quo, it will not be nearly enough to spur massive expansion of good choices, or transformative innovation. And as long as education is seen as something that should be nonprofit – in which providers should be satisfied to meet costs and educate small numbers of mainly local students – innovation will be stifled. Innovation involves risk, and trial and error, which requires funding. It also requires the ability to make a big financial return with success, both to compensate for risk and to spur imitators who, seeking to tap into the financial windfall, will bring innovations to scale and prices down.

What Does “Quality” Look Like?

Choice will likely bring some low‐​quality providers into the market. But what constitutes “quality”? Is it high standardized test scores, especially on state tests? Instilling virtue? A strong sense of community? Other things?

The answer is that quality is in the eye of the beholder, and diverse people behold in myriad ways. When this is the case – when people value numerous things at many different levels – the way to determine whether a school is “quality” is not a single measure like test scores, graduation rates, or even a combination of those, but whether the school attracts and satisfies customers: families.

What do parents want from education?

A recent survey that required respondents to make tradeoffs among different priorities ranked both what parents and the general public value among 57 educational “goods.” For parents, the top priority was that “students have the option to choose the courses they want to study based on interests and aspirations.” They also wanted students to be “able to think critically to problem solve and make decisions” and to “develop practical skills” such as managing “personal finances.” The fifth highest priority was “students demonstrate character” such as “honesty, kindness, integrity, and ethics.” The general public had similar priorities.

Practical skills and developing unique, virtuous people ranked at the top of the priority lists. Meanwhile, for both parents and the general population, standardized test scores ranked 49th – near the bottom. Importantly, that option qualified such tests as being used to rank students against each other, but we’ve seen low prioritization of standardized tests before.

Emphasizing diversity, the survey found priorities differed by race and ethnicity. For instance, Asian members of the general population placed students having “the option to choose the courses they want to study based on interests and aspirations” as their top priority, while Hispanic and Black respondents placed it 52nd. Black respondents put students advancing “once they have demonstrated mastery of a subject” number 2, while Asians and Hispanics put it 28th. Of course, race/​ethnicity is just one of the countless ways American are diverse.

Standardized Test Scores

Standardized test results are not necessarily high on the priority list for parents. But let’s set that aside for a moment. What do we know about choice and test scores?

On the whole, the top‐​quality research – random assignment of students to receive choice funds – tends to show a test‐​score benefit, but small and typically in older studies. Newer random‐​assignment studies show substantial negative effects in Louisiana, and one shows no effect in Washington, DC.

There are also studies using less rigorous approaches that have found negative impacts, though with important caveats. For instance, in an Ohio study, the researchers noted that they could “only credibly study the performance effects of moving to private schools…for those students leaving comparatively high‐​achieving public schools.” They went on, “It may be the case that there are less negative, or even positive, performance effects for students moving to private schools from lower‐​performing public schools.”

An Indiana study looked only at low‐​income, upper‐​elementary, and middle‐​school students and only found negative impacts in math. It found no effects in reading. It statistically matched choosers and public school remainers, and the authors noted, “Because we specifically focused on the lowest income voucher students who transitioned from a public to a private school, our analysis represents only a partial effect of the voucher program on student achievement…effects may differ for all other voucher students.”

The research is far from conclusive that choosers end up with worse standardized test results than comparable students who remain. But if you value standardized test scores, these findings are a reason to temper your enthusiasm about the growth of school choice.

Importantly, this might reflect less testing focus, not less learning. Private schools long had less incentive to care about standardized tests than public, especially state tests that were the crux of public‐​school accountability during the No Child Left Behind era from 2002 to 2015. Private schools might not have drilled on testing strategies such as if you can eliminate two answers it is worth guessing, or knowing that there will always be a math problem with two trains heading towards each other at different speeds.

Finally, if there is one thing that has been consistently replicated in school choice research, it is that competition incentivizes public schools to improve their testing outcomes. That does not explain all relative “loss” for choosers, but choice may well help lift all boats.

Non‐​Test Outcomes

The primacy of math and reading tests in public schools under NCLB appeared to crowd out time for other subjects, while private schools might have maintained them. That crowd‐​out may have ultimately been damaging even if test scores rose, with some research indicating that standardized test scores do not reliably translate into long‐​term outcomes many people value, such as educational attainment, lifetime earnings, and health.

This is consistent with research that finds many advantages for private school choice outside of standardized testing. For instance, studies have repeatedly found private school advantages in producing knowledgeable, tolerant citizens. Research has found a choice advantage in moving students to high school graduation and college. And perhaps most important given how we judge quality when people want diverse things, 30 of 32 studies have found positive parental satisfaction effects for choice, versus only 2 finding negative impacts.

Who Will Choose?

As universal programs have arrived, a major objection has been that enrollment in expansive choice programs has primarily consisted of families already using private schools. Indeed, some choice opponents have suggested that choice is really about helping “the rich,” not the needy.

For context, the vast majority of school choice programs are targeted at low‐​to‐​middle‐​income families, kids in poorly performing public school districts, or students with disabilities. Populations facing specific challenges, not the privileged few, have long been the focus of school choice efforts. Of course, by definition, universal programs encompass all families.

No matter what the intent, it should be no surprise that the first people to sign on to universal choice tend to already use private schools. They are likely to be among the first to hear about such programs and most able to immediately use them. And it is no more just for them to pay twice for education – once for public schools they do not find acceptable, a second time for education they do – than anyone else.

Over time, we should expect already private‐​schooling families to become smaller shares of the new‐​enrollee population, as people not already in private educational arrangements become more aware of the programs. We already see such movement in Arizona’s universal ESA, enacted in mid‐​August 2022. An early October 2022 report found that 80 percent of enrollees “did not have a record of prior public‐​school enrollment.” Many were probably already using private schools, though some were also likely kids entering preschool, kindergarten, or first grade, with no previous K‑12 schooling at all. Fast forward to February 2023, and the not‐​previously‐​in‐​public‐​school share had fallen to 51 percent.

Not only do choosers trend away from current private school enrollees over time, there is no evidence that most current enrollees are rich. Income data for enrollees is not available, but as noted before, most private schools are not priced beyond most families’ means. We can also estimate private school enrollment shares by income. In 2018, researchers found that about 16 percent of families with elementary‐​aged children in the top 10 percent of income used private schools, about 7 percent of students from 50th percentile families did, and 4 percent of the bottom ten percent did. Assuming the middle‐​income rate applies broadly to families in the middle 80 percent of earners, approximately 80 percent of private schoolers are not rich, if “rich” is defined as being in the top 10 percent of earners. And, of course, $7,500 means a lot more to low‐​income families than wealthy.

Again, though, we must be realistic. It is difficult to spread the word about new programs, and lower‐​income families might not have as much familiarity with private school options as higher‐​income. They might also have bigger transportation barriers. For these and other possible reasons, choice will likely not spread like wildfire to low‐​income families.

Looking beyond income, choosers are almost certainly more likely to be religious than non‐​choosers. Why? Because public schools are, constitutionally, supposed to be secular, making them unacceptable or compromised for many religious families. Indeed, about two‐​thirds of all private K‑12 schools are religiously affiliated in large part because the public schools cannot be religious. And when they were religious they were unacceptable to some religious groups, especially Roman Catholics.

Conclusion: Freedom is Crucial, But Does Not Do the Work

In a free society, millions of diverse families and educators should decide amongst themselves what is the best education, not have that answer dictated by the government. That – freedom – is the core reason to champion choice. It is also a major reason that choice cannot be a panacea: people do not even agree on the disease. And choice itself creates no cures – it develops no pedagogy, establishes no discipline policies, and cooks no school meals. What it does is keep some people’s idea of a cure from being imposed on everyone else, and fosters the creation of options that meet the many wants and needs of diverse children, families, and communities.

Chris Edwards

Americans are getting used to failures by government experts. Government economists have a dismal forecasting record. Government actions and advice during the pandemic were often misguided. And dozens of former government intelligence experts got the Hunter Biden laptop story wrong.

A less recognized but also important failure may be in nutrition. Federal experts appear to have issued faulty advice for decades, even as American obesity exploded from 15 percent in the 1970s to 42 percent today. Federal guidance on nutrition has a large influence on health practice across society. Some researchers argue that Americans have generally responded to the guidance, yet obesity has nonetheless soared.

A clue to shortcomings in federal nutrition guidance comes from calorie data. A new U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study shows that average daily calorie intake increased 21 percent from 1977–78 to 2003-04, and then started trending down. By 2017–18, calories were up 15 percent from the 1970s, but as the study notes, “the rise in obesity rate outpaced the increase in calorie intake.”

In a 2022 article, Professor of Nutrition Dariush Mozaffarian noted that “over the last 20 [years] we are not eating more calories, nor exercising less, but are still becoming more obese.” As average calories have dipped, the obesity rate rose from 31 percent in 2001–2002 to 42 percent today.

How can that be? Obesity is caused not just by the amount we eat but also what we eat. Generally, the government advised us to emphasize carbohydrates and deemphasize protein and fat, as shown in the food pyramid. But some nutritionists are now saying that was backwards. As a libertarian, I don’t want the government telling us what to eat, and our diets may have been better if that had been the case.

Like government experts, private‐​sector experts get things wrong. But the government uses mandates and subsidies to impose its will, and its strong positions often displace other views. In a presentation at Cato, author and science journalist Nina Teicholz discussed the government’s flawed nutrition standards and the harm she believes they caused. She observed, “the level of certainty you need to have for public policy of an entire population ought to be very high,” and federal directives on nutrition fell far short of that level.

The chart shows average daily calorie intakes of Americans, based on the new USDA data. Carbohydrates are up 22 percent since the late 1970s, fat is up 12 percent, and protein is unchanged. It appears that we mainly want to look at carbs to explain the rise in obesity.

Below I excerpt from two studies that sync with Nina Teicholz’s views about the record of faulty government advice on protein, fats, and carbohydrates. I understand that other experts have conflicting views. Nutrition is a complex field and scientists have not figured it all out yet.

However, the costs of bad diets to individuals, the medical system, and society are huge, so we should pay close attention to government interventions. This is particularly true this year because Congress is set to consider another large farm and food subsidy bill, which may adversely influence American diets.

First, an excerpt from a 2015 study by Evan Cohen and colleagues in Nutrition. Note that the latest USDA data show fat calories up somewhat since this study was published.

Americans in general have been following the nutrition advice that the American Heart Association and the US Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services have been issuing for more than 40 [years]: Consumption of fats has dropped from 45% to 34% with a corresponding increase in carbohydrate consumption from 39% to 51% of total caloric intake. In addition, from 1971 to 2011, average weight and body mass index have increased dramatically, with the percentage of overweight or obese Americans increasing from 42% in 1971 to 66% in 2011.

… Since 1971, the shift in macronutrient share from fat to carbohydrate is primarily due to an increase in absolute consumption of carbohydrate as opposed to a change in total fat consumption. General adherence to recommendations to reduce fat consumption has coincided with a substantial increase in obesity.

… Since the late 1970s, the US government, following the American Heart Association (AHA) and much of academia, has consistently recommended lowering the dietary percentage of fat and saturated fat, as well as the absolute levels of dietary cholesterol, based on a theoretical link between those food components and higher risk for coronary heart disease. This government guidance suggested that the reduction of dietary fat would be accompanied by a concurrent increase in the dietary share of carbohydrate. Taken together, these recommendations were also considered to be beneficial for the prevention of overweight and obesity, along with diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases.

… In 1961, spurred by emerging medical and epidemiologic research, the AHA issued dietary recommendations to ‘reduce the intake of total fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol. In 1977, the US Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs issued Dietary Goals for the United States, which recommended that fat consumption be reduced to 30% of energy intake, and that carbohydrate consumption be increased to account for 55% to 60% of energy intake.

Following this report, Dietary Guidelines for Americans, issued by the USDA and the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now the Department of Health and Human Services; DHHS) in 1980, recommended a reduction in the consumption of the share of total macronutrients attributable to fat and saturated fat, and a reduction in the absolute consumption of cholesterol. To compensate, the guidelines recommended increasing consumption of carbohydrate as a share of total calories because “carbohydrates contain less than half the number of calories per ounce than fats.”

During the 1980s, the federal government continued to issue reports and recommendations encouraging Americans to limit fat consumption. In 1982, the Committee on Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer of the National Research Council issued Interim Dietary guidelines that recommended fat intake be lowered from 40% to 30% of total calories in the diet, officially endorsing the AHA’s recommendations from 1961 and the Senate committee’s recommendations from 1977. The USDA and DHHS recommendations have remained largely unchanged since 1980. In 1992, the Food Guide Pyramid was released, urging Americans to use fats, oils and sweets “sparingly,” and to consume between 6 and 11 servings of bread, cereal, rice, and pasta.

… There is a strong relationship between the increase in carbohydrate share of total intake and obesity.

… this study demonstrated that general adherence to government dietary recommendations to decrease fat share of total dietary intake has been accompanied by a rapid increase in obesity rates.

Second, an excerpt from a 2022 study by Joyce Lee and colleagues in Frontiers of Nutrition:

[From 1800 to 2019] processed and ultra‐​processed foods increased from <5 to >60% of foods. Large increases occurred for sugar, white and whole wheat flour, rice, poultry, eggs, vegetable oils, dairy products, and fresh vegetables. Saturated fats from animal sources declined while polyunsaturated fats from vegetable oils rose. Non‐​communicable diseases (NCDs) rose over the twentieth century in parallel with increased consumption of processed foods, including sugar, refined flour and rice, and vegetable oils. Saturated fats from animal sources were inversely correlated with the prevalence of NCDs.

… Ancel Keys’ Diet‐​Heart Hypothesis posited that the mid‐​nineteenth century heart disease epidemic resulted from “a changing American diet”: increased consumption of fats, especially saturated fatty acids (SFAs), and decreased grain consumption.

… The unprocessed elements of our nineteenth century diet–animal fats, whole fat dairy, fresh vegetables, and fresh fruits—were progressively replaced with more processed elements, including industrial seed oils, HFCS, and ready‐​to‐​eat snacks and meals. The data do not support the widely publicized [Ancel Keys’] “changing American diet” of increasing animal‐​derived SFAs over the first 60 years of the twentieth century.

Rather, polyunsaturated fats and partially hydrogenated fats from vegetable oils progressively replaced lard, butter, and other animal‐​derived fats. Across the twentieth century, rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer were associated with stable SFA consumption. Yet, large increases in sugar and refined carbohydrate consumption and more modest increases in total calories make refined carbohydrates and total calories more likely factors than SFA in NCD pathogenesis.

… The increased consumption of red meat and SFAs as the cause of the heart disease epidemic was one foundation for Keys’ Diet‐​Heart Hypothesis, strengthened by authoritative repetition, including McGovern’s Senate Select Committee’s Dietary Goals for America (1977), Science in the Public Interest’s (1978) monograph The Changing American Diet, the New York Times columnist Jane Brody’s (1985) Good Food Book, Surgeon General Koop’s Report on Nutrition and Health (1988), and the World Health Organization’s Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases (1990). However, neither the USDA nor other data supported this narrative.

… The alleged increase in American SFA consumption in the twentieth century was considered the cause of the dramatic rise of non‐​communicable diseases (NCDs) … [But] our findings suggest that SFAs are unlikely to drive obesity, diabetes, or other NCDs.

… US and international agencies and medical associations strongly supported a low‐​fat/​low‐​SFA, high‐​carbohydrate diet for everyone over age 2 years, and through 2008, advocated sugar as healthy for diabetics and the general population.

… Evidence supports both the roles of energy balance and refined carbohydrates‐​insulin mechanisms in obesity, with their relative roles likely varying based on genetics and other factors.

… our findings suggest that increased sugar and refined carbohydrate consumptions during the twentieth century in America may have played a larger role than total calories or physical activity, although this remains a speculation without accurate data on all variables.

Data Notes: The chart shows average daily calories for all Americans over age two. USDA data on grams were converted to calories using 4 grams per calorie for protein and carbohydrates and 9 grams per calorie for fat. Using this approach, the sum of calories in the chart matches the USDA total for 1977–78 but understates the total for 2017–18 of 2,093 calories. More on nutrition and the farm bill here and here. The Nutrition Coalition explores these issues here.

Romina Boccia

House Republicans expect to vote on a plan to raise the debt ceiling this week. The Limit, Save, Grow Act put forth by Speaker McCarthy would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or suspend it until March 31, 2024—whichever comes first. This is a modest proposal that would begin to put a dent in the fiscal challenge. The plan allows fiscal conservatives to assert themselves by clawing back spending driven by the Biden administration’s priorities and reining in the regulatory power of Washington bureaucrats. It would neither stabilize the debt nor address the main drivers of future spending growth. Importantly, legislators should strengthen new discretionary spending limits by closing commonly abused loopholes to secure the $3.2 trillion in 10-year savings as intended.

Shaves six percent off projected 10-year spending

The Limit, Save, Grow Act is moderate in terms of its fiscal impact because federal debt would still grow as a share of the economy. At $4.8 trillion in projected savings, the plan is similar in size to the Budget Control Act of 2011 in terms of its impact on projected 10-year spending. McCarthy’s debt limit plan would shave a little more than six percent off the 10-year federal spending total, estimated at $80 trillion between fiscal years 2024 and 2033.

If legislators instead aimed to stop the growth in the debt at no more than 100 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), they would need to double this proposal, reducing deficits by at least $8 trillion. While this GOP proposal will not succeed in stabilizing the debt, it might just garner enough support to responsibly raise the debt limit by making a down payment toward this bigger goal.

Establishes a new debt limit

Setting a new dollar-denominated debt limit in combination with a fallback date is a smart choice. When legislators suspended the debt limit through a certain date with no dollar limit, they learned the hard way that a suspension doesn’t actually limit the growth in the debt. To the contrary, a suspension with no dollar limit allows for unlimited borrowing through a certain date. By specifying that the bill would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion or suspend it until March 31, 2024, whichever comes first, legislators are honoring the intent of the debt limit law to both authorize and limit Treasury’s borrowing authority.

Cuts and limits discretionary spending growth (saving $3.2 trillion)

Like the Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA), the GOP debt limit proposal would cut discretionary spending immediately and limit future spending growth. Learning a valuable lesson from the failures of the BCA, this proposal would limit total discretionary spending, instead of placing separate spending caps on defense and nondefense spending. Such a total cap approach has a higher likelihood of succeeding at encouraging legislators to prioritize within overall spending limits. The separate caps approach had encouraged big spenders on both sides to increase their respective spending caps together.

Discretionary spending for fiscal 2024 would be cut back to fiscal 2022 levels and limited to grow at no more than one percent annually over 10 years. This is estimated to reduce spending by $3.2 trillion. To secure this level of savings, legislators should also close commonly abused loopholes such as designating spending for emergencies or overseas contingency operations (OCO) outside the caps and including fake savings from changes in mandatory programs (CHIMPs). A more robust spending cap would disallow CHIMPs which do not produce real savings and would account and pay for emergency and OCO spending by tracking these deviations on a scorecard and reducing future spending commensurately. Legislators might lower discretionary spending caps to pay for emergency-designated discretionary spending over the following five years and add any mandatory spending to the PAYGO (Pay As You Go) and CUTGO (Cut As You Go) scorecards.

Claws Back Biden’s Spending Priorities (saving $940 billion)

Some of the most popular policies in this proposal would claw back Biden administration priorities such as cancelling new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) funding, cancelling the president’s student loan forgiveness and changes to income-driven repayments, and repealing the clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. The proposal would also cancel unspent COVID-19 funds that are more likely going to be wasted now that the pandemic emergency is officially over.

Reins in the Bureaucracy

In addition to reducing spending, the proposal would adopt the Lower Energy Costs Act (H.R. 1) to increase domestic energy production and implement the REINS Act (H.R. 277), which would require congressional approval for all major new regulations.

Strengthens Work Requirements (saving $120 billion)

The Limit, Save, Grow Act would strengthen work requirements for some beneficiaries of federal welfare programs. Cato’s Chris Edwards argues: “it is important to begin reining in bloated entitlements, and adjusting eligibility to encourage work is a good place to start. . . .The Republican proposal would tighten work requirements [for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)] by raising the top age for able‐ bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) from 49 to 56. . . .[About] 1 million households or fewer. . .may be affected.” The new work requirements would also affect beneficiaries covered by Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

An Opening Bid

The Limit, Save, Grow Act presents a worthy and modest opening bid by House Republicans to speed up debt limit negotiations before Treasury borrowing authority runs out sometime this summer. Most estimates predict the so-called X-date between June and September (depending on June tax filings).

Although the Limit, Save, Grow Act would be a step toward fiscal discipline, it falls short in achieving long-term fiscal sustainability. The proposals fails to stabilize debt over the next 10 years and neglects major entitlement reform. Despite politicians on both sides of the aisle vowing to keep Medicare and Social Security out of debt limit negotiations, the unavoidable truth is that these old-age entitlement programs are the largest drivers of spending and debt growth and will account for 95 percent of all long-term unfunded obligations.

Congress must confront the fiscally unsustainable growth of entitlement programs eventually. For the fiscal and economic health of the United States, the sooner the better.

This blog was updated to reflect the most recent Congressional Budget Office score. Since publication, GOP leadership agreed to make two major changes that are not reflected in the April 25 CBO score: implementing work requirements one year earlier and preserving certain tax breaks for biofuels like ethanol.

Daniel Griswold

America’s annual trade deficit continues to be among the most misunderstood features of the nation’s economy. Trade skeptics tend to blame the deficit for a range of problems, real or imagined, when in fact the current deficit in important ways reflects America’s underlying strength and influence in the world.

The latest example of misplaced worry about the deficit is a recent essay from The Claremont Institute on “Restoring American Manufacturing: A Practical Guide.” The essay attempts to pin at least part of the blame for the relative decline of U.S. manufacturing on persistent U.S. trade deficits. Author David P. Goldman argues that trade deficits also mean the accumulation of unsustainable “foreign debt”:

During the past thirty years, from 1992 through May of 2022, America’s trade balance on goods was a cumulative negative $18 trillion. That is exactly equal to America’s net foreign investment position, also $18 trillion. We have exchanged $18 trillion worth of Treasury bonds, corporate stocks, real estate, and other assets, for $18 trillion worth of goods.

A better term for “foreign debt” is “foreign investment.” In a new Cato Policy Analysis released today, “Balance of Trade, Balance of Power: How the Trade Deficit Reflects U.S. Influence in the World,” co‐​author Andreas Freytag and I explain that what ultimately drives the U.S. trade deficit is the annual net inflow of foreign investment to the United States. Through a persistent surplus in the financial account, foreigners help to finance a share of the federal government’s annual borrowing needs, while also investing in the productive private sector. As we explain in the paper:

The financial account surplus demonstrates confidence in the United States as a haven for global savings. Foreign investment keeps interest rates lower in the United States than they would be otherwise and provides capital to launch new businesses, to fuel research and development, and to expand output for existing firms.

America’s net international investment position is easily sustainable. As we note in the paper, Americans run an annual surplus of more than $200 billion a year in primary income—U.S. earnings on foreign assets compared to what is paid out on foreign‐​owned assets in the United States. As we conclude, “The abiding confidence of global investors remains one of America’s greatest national assets—and the trade balance is a symptom of that strength.”

We go on in the paper to debunk myths about the deficit and “deindustrialization,” the alleged “de‐​dollarization” of global commerce, and the supposed decline of U.S. competitiveness. (The trade‐​skeptical American Compass raised similar fears about the trade deficit, which I critiqued in a previous blog post.)

Chris Edwards

Federal policymakers will soon run into a hard deadline to increase the government’s legal debt limit. President Biden wants a simple debt‐​limit increase with no strings attached, but House Republicans have proposed spending reforms called Limit, Save, Grow to include in a debt‐​limit deal.

One GOP reform would strengthen work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also called food stamps. The proposal would affect a small fraction of people on the program and reduce costs only slightly. But restricting hand‐​outs to encourage work makes sense because the economy has millions of job openings, as shown in the chart below.

In 2023, about 42 million people will receive food stamps at a cost of $127 billion. Many recipients are exempt from SNAP work requirements, including children, the elderly, and the disabled. About four‐​fifths of SNAP households include a child, a senior, or a disabled person. The other one‐​fifth consist of adults who generally need to be working, looking for work, or in training to receive ongoing benefits.

There are two sets of work requirements for SNAP recipients. General rules require individuals able to work, age 16–59, and not caring for a child under age 6, to register for work, to accept suitable work, or be in a training program. These rules have numerous exceptions. There are additional rules for able‐​bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs) age 18–49 to receive benefits for more than three months within any three‐​year period.

The Republican proposal would tighten work requirements by raising the top age for the ABAWD group from 49 to 56. Looking at Table 3.2.a here, 3.5 million SNAP households do not include either children, the elderly, or the disabled, and about 2.5 million are in the ABAWD group. That appears to leave about 1 million households or fewer that may be affected by the GOP proposal. The data is for the October 2019 to February 2020 period.

SNAP’s ABAWD rules had been suspended during the pandemic but come into force again this year. And even then, the American Enterprise Institute’s Kevin Corinth notes that numerous states have federal waivers that void some of the program’s work requirements.

Tightening the SNAP work requirements would generate just a small part of the savings from the Republican plan. But it is important to begin reining in bloated entitlements, and adjusting eligibility to encourage work is a good place to start.

More on SNAP here, here, and here.