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Clark Packard

Jeffrey A. Singer

On November 25, the New York Times reported that President-elect Donald Trump intends to punish Americans by making them pay more for goods—including domestic manufacturing inputs—imported from Canada, China, and Mexico (our three largest trading partners) until the US wins the war on drugs. 

Trump ignores the fact that illicit drugs are largely smuggled by US citizens through legal border crossings and sold to US citizens. He also misses the fact that tariffs are taxes on American consumers, not on foreign countries. The governments of Canada, China, and Mexico do not write checks to the US Treasury when American consumers and manufacturers buy products that Canadians, Chinese, and Mexicans make and sell to them.

The Times reported that Trump believes China can do a better job stopping the flow of Chinese-made fentanyl precursors to the transnational drug cartels located in Mexico, where they synthesize fentanyl in underground labs. But fentanyl precursors also come from India, Myanmar, and other parts of Southeast Asia. If China cracks down on domestic precursor labs, that means increased business for dealers in those countries. Waging a war on drugs is like playing a game of whack-a-mole.

What’s more, cracking down on fentanyl precursors may hasten drug traffickers’ shift to nitazene trafficking. Nitazenes are more dangerous and potent than fentanyl. They are derived from benzimidazole, a chemical used to make a host of drugs ranging from antacids like omeprazole and pantoprazole to antifungal agents to blood pressure medicines. Isotonitazene (“iso”) has been detected in overdose toxicology studies in the US since 2019 and is causing a “second wave” drug crisis in the UK.

In 1983, President Ronald Reagan famously said:

We and our trading partners are in the same boat. If one partner shoots a hole in the boat, does it make sense for the other partner to shoot another hole in the boat? There are those who say yes, and call it getting tough. I call it getting wet–all over.

We must plug the holes in the boat of open markets and free trade and set sail again in the direction of prosperity. No one should mistake our determination to use our full power and influence to prevent anyone from destroying the boat and sinking us all.

President-elect Trump intends to shoot holes in the bottom of our boat until Canada, China, and Mexico some way, somehow, help us win the endless war on drugs. During his campaign, Trump pledged to get the US out of endless wars. Instead, he will make Americans pay an endless tax.

Marc Joffe

Every time I look into a rail project on the Federal Transit Administration’s (FTA’s) Capital Investment Grant (CIG) dashboard, I feel like I am peeling a new and unique onion. Each project seems semi-plausible at first, but once I delve into the details not shown in each project’s FTA profile, it becomes obvious that we’re looking at another boondoggle. 

Ideally, the incoming Administration should impound previously appropriated CIG funds. But if it concludes that it lacks impound authority, it should at least take a hard look at each multi-billion LRT project in the pipeline, with an eye to disbursing the funds to less costly bus initiatives. After diving into Austin, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis LRT projects on the FTA dashboard, today I will break down one in Seattle.

The CIG dashboard shows that Sound Transit’s West Seattle Link Extension will cost $3.2 billion, but that number is stale. Sound Transit now estimates that the project will cost between $6.7 and $7.1 billion. The extension consists of four stations and 4.1 miles of new track, so the estimated project cost now works out to well over $1.5 billion per mile.

But for the project to make any sense, a second project, the Ballard Extension, would also have to be funded and built. Once the West Seattle Link is completed, it will be served by a shuttle connecting just the four stations. To reach other stations on Sound Transit’s light rail system, passengers will have to change at SODO station. If the agency can complete the Ballard Extension, passengers would then have a one-seat ride from the northern Seattle suburbs through downtown and to Alaska Junction, where the West Seattle Link will terminate.

Once the two extensions are completed, Sound Transit expects at least 20,000 passengers to use the West Seattle Link Extension on weekdays by 2042. That’s a capital cost to passenger ratio of $350,000. This is high, but not out of line with the costliest projects that FTA has greenlighted. In San Jose, the Valley Transportation Authority has received preliminary approval from FTA to spend $12.75 billion to serve 32,900 daily passengers, yielding a ratio of $388,000.

But if the West Seattle Link is completed on a standalone basis, expected daily ridership is only 5,400, spiking the ratio to an incredible $1.3 million.

It is reasonable to ask whether the West Seattle Link should be evaluated on its standalone ridership or on boardings once it is included in a larger project scope. The answer must be the former. The Ballard Extension is on track to be put through the federal approval process at a later date, so it is possible that West Seattle will be approved, and Ballard will not be. The latest cost estimate for the Ballard Extension is $11.2 billion, and that is an older figure that will inevitably be significantly increased. 

By the time Ballard reaches the FTA approval process, supplemental CIG appropriations provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will have been exhausted. Without a new special appropriation (unlikely with the incoming Administration and Congress), FTA simply will not have the money to fund a third or more of the cost of this megaproject.

Now would be a good time for Sound Transit to put a hold on its light rail expansion program. If not, the incoming administration should send a clear message that the cupboard is bare.

Alex Nowrasteh

Support from Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, and others was essential to President Donald Trump’s recent reelection. Immigration was a crucial issue to Musk and Ackman, who rightly complained about border chaos. Musk and Ackman emphasized how expanding legal immigration for skilled, entrepreneurial, and ambitious people would be a great boon to the United States. The Trump administration should listen to Musk and Ackman on the benefits of expanding skilled immigration to the United States. 

Below is an explanation of the benefits of allowing in more skilled immigrants, an analysis of one problem with the current employment-based (EB) green card system for skilled workers, and several suggestions for expanding and streamlining their entry to the United States.

Benefits of Highly Skilled Immigration

Most immigrants come to the United States for higher wages regardless of their skill level. Those higher wages result from higher demand for their services in the United States compared to other countries. Labor demand is determined by the marginal value product, which is the extra revenue that a firm gains from employing one more worker or the economic productivity of the worker. 

In simpler terms, immigrant workers have higher wages in the US because they are more productive here than in their home countries. Skilled workers are more productive and innovative in the United States than in other countries.

The wages from working in the US are so much higher than in developing countries that many have trouble believing it. An older paper by economist Michael Clemens helps show the gap for skilled workers doing the same jobs, on the same teams, and in the same firm when some were lucky enough to win a visa lottery and come to the US and the other workers on their teams stayed in India. The wage gap was $58,000 a year in 2009 for migrants who won the visa in 2007. Location matters for productivity.

Skilled immigrant workers in the US do not simply reallocate production here from their home countries, they increase global output because they are so much more productive here. This shows up in many forms but below will focus on how it boosts innovation to the economic benefit of the worker, American firms, the US economy, and the world. Conversely, immigration restrictions reduce innovation in the United States.

Immigrants are more likely to patent than native-born Americans, and their patents tend to be more valuable. Their contributions to innovation show up elsewhere, such as higher entrepreneurship, where they tend to start more firms at about an 80 percent higher rate than native-born Americans and at every firm size. Workers in their firms also earn slightly higher wages than workers at firms started by natives because of higher productivity in immigrant-founded companies. These aren’t new phenomena, as immigration is closely related to historical regional economic development in the US, and there was a drop in US innovation when Congress closed American borders to European immigration in the 1920s.

The evidence is so overwhelming that highly skilled immigration is beneficial to US production and innovation that it’s hard to find contrary evidence. For instance, 39 percent of Americans awarded the Nobel prize for physics, chemistry, and medicine were immigrants as of 2024. The three 2024 winners of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences were all foreign-born economists living and working in the United States, two from the United Kingdom, and one from Turkey.

At least two selection layers help explain why highly skilled immigrants are so successful in the United States. The first and most important is self-selection. Highly motivated and ambitious foreigners want to come to the United States. They have much higher earning potential here and face lower taxes and barriers to economic success than in other developed countries, so their chance of becoming very wealthy is higher here than in other countries. At the same time, reduced access to welfare here and fewer labor market regulations mean the less ambitious stay home or go to Europe. American immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa are more educated and have higher incomes than white native-born Americans, for instance. 

The second type of selection is the highly selective US immigration system that lets in few skilled immigrants heavily tilted toward employer demand rather than arbitrary points awarded by Congress. The workers who come in are actually vetted by employers for their ability to productively work. Still, the EB green card system for skilled workers is beset by significant problems.

Most Employment-Based (EB) Green Cards Are Misallocated

The immigration system of the United States favors family reunification even in the so-called employment-based (EB) green card categories. Under current interpretations of US immigration law, family members of immigrant workers must use EB green cards. The American system isn’t unusual as Japan, Spain, and Ireland are the only OECD countries with more immigrants who enter on visa categories as workers than immigrants who enter on visas for family members.

Still, the difference is more significant in the United States than in other countries. Instead of a separate green card category for the spouses and children of workers, those family members get a green card that would otherwise have gone to a skilled worker. The allocation of green cards to the immediate family members of skilled immigrants wouldn’t be a problem if the number of EB green cards were uncapped, but Congress did limit them. 

Ideally, Congress should abolish the cap, but a more palatable reform would be to allocate EB green cards to workers without reducing family-based immigration.

In 2023, 52 percent of EB green cards went to the family members of workers (Figure 1). The workers themselves received the other 48 percent. Those percentages were similar to 2020, 2021, and 2022. Some of those family members who received EB green cards are workers, and many are highly skilled since skilled people tend to marry other skilled people, so this isn’t a neat de facto division. Many of the family members of skilled workers are skilled workers themselves or will be when they grow up.

Another thing to note is that Congress capped the EB green card category at 140,000 per year, but the federal government issued 196,720 in 2022. The government was able to issue more EB green cards because immigration law allows unused green cards in other categories to be used for immigrants who have applied for EBs. Unused family-based green cards from 2021 were reallocated to adjust the statuses of EB green card applicants already in the United States on other visas in 2022, when 270,284 EB green cards were approved. This process allocated almost 60,000 additional green cards from the family-based to the EB green card categories in 2023.

EB green cards are in five categories separated by the type of worker or investor and their family members. EB‑1 green cards are for workers of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and some multinational firm managers and executives. EB‑2 green cards are for professional workers with advanced degrees and those with exceptional ability in the sciences, arts, or business. EB‑3 green cards are for skilled workers, professionals, or other workers. EB‑4 is for religious workers, certain broadcasters, some foreign employees of the US government, and others. EB‑5 is for a narrow class of investors. All EB categories also include their family members by convention, not according to statute or regulation.

Family-based immigration is important for social, economic, and ethical reasons. Additionally, skilled immigrants who want to come here on the EB green card don’t want to leave their immediate family members behind, and those who legally immigrated in the past shouldn’t have to wait longer by shoving more people into the family-based green card backlogs. To ensure that family-based immigration is not hindered by the numerical cap of EB green cards, Congress should either exempt family members or create a new green card category for them. This will prevent the reduction of workers by the same number of family members. By doing so, an additional 101,740 immigrant workers could have earned a green card in 2023, which would have resulted in a 107 percent increase without adjusting the cap number for that green card category.

Those who are already legally present and have received their green cards can adjust their immigration status from another type of visa, like an H‑1B or an F visa, to an EB green card. Seventy-five percent of those who received an EB green card in 2023, or 146,870, were already legally living in the United States (Figure 2). That’s down from 2021 and 2022, when 92 percent and 82 percent were adjustments of status, respectively.

Exempting those adjustments of status from the EB green card cap in 2023 would have boosted the number of highly skilled workers who entered from abroad from a mere 49,890 to 196,760 – an almost 4‑fold increase. Such a reform would allocate all EB green cards to immigrants coming from abroad. Figure 3 gives more detail.

Exempting adjustment of status from the EB green card cap would increase the number of green cards for the EB‑1 and EB‑2 categories the most. In 2023, 91 percent of immigrants who received an EB‑1 and 90 percent of those who received an EB‑2 were adjustments of status. Exempting adjustments of status from the cap would have increased the number in these two categories by 102,270. Workers on the EB‑1 and the EB‑2 are the most skilled, so increasing the numbers available would have the biggest positive economic effect while increasing the number of green cards in other categories through the trickle-down.

Exempting adjustments of status from the EB green card cap would also deplete the 1.8 million green card backlog imposed by the per-country caps. The backlog would fall at the speed of administrative processing unhindered by arbitrary annual caps. Such a reform would especially benefit Indian workers on the H‑1B visa by shortening their wait times without increasing the wait time for immigrants from other countries.

Exempting adjustments of status is a politically easier policy reform than tinkering with the numerical cap or getting rid of the per-country caps for two reasons. First, more exemptions would avoid the debate over which arbitrary number should be the new EB green card cap. Second, more exemptions would clear out the backlog more quickly without opening up the contentious political debate over winners and losers in any reform of the per-country caps. Congress should eliminate the per-country cap to be clear, but exempting adjustments of status would achieve the same goal of reducing wait times for Indian immigrants without increasing them for others. Likewise, Congress should increase the number of EB green cards just as Senator Rand Paul (R‑KY) proposed with the 2019 BELIEVE Act.

Here are some other exemption options for increasing the number of EB green cards issued annually without raising the overall numerical cap:

Workers should be exempted from the EB green card cap if they have a higher level of education, like a graduate degree or a PhD.
Workers should be exempted from the cap if they have a graduate degree or a PhD in particular fields, such as science, technology, engineering, mathematics, or medicine. The House version of the America COMPETES Act did this in 2022.
Some workers who adjust their status should be exempted from the numerical cap in the way the H‑1B visa exempts 20,000 graduates of American universities from that visa’s numerical cap. Exempting all workers who earned their degrees at US universities is a good start.
Workers who have wage offers in the top 10 percent of wages in their occupation, or in the top 5 percent of wages nationally, should be exempted from the cap. These workers are extremely productive, there’s no sense in making them wait longer.
Workers who work in occupations with unusually low unemployment, say below half the national average, should be exempted from the cap.
Immigrants who adjust their status in the EB‑1 and EB‑2 categories should be exempted from the numerical cap.
Workers should be exempted if they show five or more years of legal employment in the United States prior to obtaining their green card.
Workers should be exempted from the cap if they have waited for five years and are otherwise eligible for a green card.
Anybody who has legally resided in the United States for a decade or more should be exempted from the cap. This would benefit many workers who started as students and then became temporary students, as well as the legal dreamers who grew up as dependents of temporary workers but who lost their status at age 21.
Workers should be exempted based on the occupation they intend to enter. This is a problem because it requires the government to choose which occupations are deserving, but the benefits will outweigh the costs so long as it leads to a general increase in the number of skilled immigrant workers without decreasing them elsewhere.
Workers should be exempted from the cap if they work in a non-profit research institution or a university, similar to how they are exempted from the H‑1B visa cap.
Workers should be exempted for other national security or geopolitical reasons if they are from countries that the US government believes are a national security threat to the United States. For instance, exempting skilled workers from China, Russia, or Iran would reduce the number of skilled workers who could work in their defense industries. 
The United States should also exempt all EB green cards issued to Canadians and Mexicans because of the deep economic, social, and political ties between those countries.
Workers should be exempted from the cap if they receive Schedule A exemption to the labor certification because they work in shortage occupations, which are currently just registered nurses and physical therapists as well as those with exceptional ability in science or the arts. The Department of Labor is currently considering changing that to include other occupations.
Workers who meet the EB‑2 National Interest Waiver threshold should be exempted from the cap. These are for individuals the government believes are working on a project of national importance.

Marc Joffe and Krit Chanwong

Federal reforms in 2025 may give states both the flexibility and incentives they need to rein in spiraling Medicaid costs. As we discussed in a February 2024 Cato Policy Analysis, the Biden administration gave states few opportunities to improve the cost-effectiveness of their Medicaid programs, but this is likely to change under the second Trump administration. 

And such a change is sorely needed. According to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC), Medicaid spending totaled $900 billion in Federal Fiscal Year 2023. This number includes costs incurred by federal, state, and territorial governments. It is up dramatically from the $498 billion the same entities spent in FFY 2014.

At the most aggressive end of potential federal reforms on tap for next year would be the conversion of Medicaid from an entitlement to a block grant program. Currently, states receive a federal match for all medical provider expenses they incur on behalf of Medicaid beneficiaries. During FFY 2025, this Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) ranges from 50 percent in affluent states such as California and New York to 76.90 percent in Mississippi, and to 83 percent in some smaller overseas territories. The block grant proposal would replace this variable match with a fixed stipend.

Such a change could be scary for state governments because it would make them fully responsible for each incremental dollar of Medicaid spending, whereas now their share of this additional spending is half or less. But assuming the block grants come with limited strings attached, states will gain considerable new flexibility to control costs, including setting their own eligibility requirements.

Given concerns about low-income individuals losing coverage, federal policymakers may choose an alternative to block grants known as per capita caps. Under this policy, the federal government would pay each state no more than a certain amount per Medicaid beneficiary per year. Caps may vary by category because it costs much more to cover a senior in a skilled nursing facility than a healthy young adult. With per capita caps, states would be at less risk from enrollment growth, but they could lose out if per-beneficiary spending exceeds the federal cap.

But assuming per capita caps are coupled with delegation of control over program structure, states should be able to avoid this outcome. For example, states could impose significant copayments to dissuade the use of emergency rooms for non-emergency purposes. Under current law, such copayments are limited to $8. States could impose copayments on other services to discourage their overuse as well.

States could also encourage beneficiaries to use lower-cost alternatives compared to in-person physician visits, such as nurse practitioner services and telemedicine. To derive cost savings from these options, states will have to establish lower reimbursement rates for them.

Assuming they have greater flexibility, states can also save money by curtailing Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments to hospitals that do not require them. As we discussed in our Policy Analysis, many large hospital systems realize significant net revenues, offer costly executive compensation packages, and/​or employ excessive administrative staff. States could reduce or eliminate Medicaid supplemental payments to these institutions without compromising the quality of patient care.

Finally, states should reexamine their relationships with Medicaid Managed Care Organizations. Under current Medicaid program constraints, MCOs generally lack the flexibility to realize the cost savings necessary to justify their substantial overheads. If the administration does not provide more flexibility, it may be best to phase out managed care arrangements and revert to fee for service. But, if the federal government creates the opportunity to really manage costs, MCOs may become an attractive option if state Medicaid agencies aggressively negotiate rates.

In the long term, the federal government should give the states full responsibility for Medicaid by eliminating federal Medicaid spending while concomitantly cutting federal taxes. 

Enthusiasm over Medicaid reform may be premature. Republicans will have a very narrow House majority and so a budget reconciliation process that significantly reforms Medicaid may prove impossible. In that event, the administration could still make more modest regulatory reforms, such as ending the Biden administration’s ban on Medicaid beneficiary work requirements, but the opportunities for savings will be limited. Further, Medicaid regulatory changes will not impact the FMAP system, so the fiscal upside to state reforms will be limited. For now, state Medicaid administrators will have to monitor developments at the federal level to see what will be possible.

Eric Gomez and Benjamin Faber

In October 2024, Congress received notification of two new arms sales for Taiwan, and the Ministry of National Defense (MND) confirmed the final delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles. The net value of the US arms sale backlog to Taiwan increased by $1.86 billion, bringing the backlog’s total value to $22.39 billion.

Figure 1 shows the current composition of the backlog by category of weapons system. Toggle between the tabs of Figure 2 to see how the composition shifted from September to October 2024.

All US arms sales to Taiwan in 2024—including the last five in a row—are for asymmetric capabilities best suited for fighting off a Chinese invasion, showing that US arms sales to Taiwan are heading in the right direction. This recent focus on asymmetric capabilities means that the proportion of the arms backlog represented by traditional capabilities is less than 50 percent for the first time since January 2024 when we started releasing monthly updates to this dataset.

Per Table 1, which shows an itemized list of capabilities in the backlog, the proportion of traditional capabilities, asymmetric capabilities, and munitions is now 48.6 percent, 39.6 percent, and 11.9 percent, respectively. Put differently, the United States is selling better types of weapons to meet Taiwan’s most pressing security threat, which is good news for Taiwan’s self-defense despite a growing backlog dollar value.

New Air Defense Sales

The most significant development in October 2024 was congressional notification of two new arms sales for asymmetric air defense systems for almost $2 billion—$1.16 billion for three National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) and $828 million for an unspecified number of mobile radar systems.

NASAMS is a ground-based air defense system that can use multiple types of missiles against aerial drones, cruise missiles, helicopters, and fixed-wing aircraft. The United States has sent Ukraine a handful of NASAMS batteries, which have reportedly enjoyed considerable success against Russian cruise missiles and drones. Compared to the Patriot system, which Taiwan has also purchased from the United States, NASAMS has a shorter range and cannot intercept ballistic missiles. While NASAMS is a formidable asymmetric air defense system, some analysts have noted that $1.16 billion is a steep price for three batteries.

Both the NASAMS batteries and the mobile radar systems have asymmetric capabilities. The mobility of these systems will help them survive in an intense conflict by making it harder for China to fix their location and strike them. Ukraine’s success at denying Russia air superiority despite having a much smaller air force is due in large part to mobile air defense systems like NASAMS.

Updated MND Report Confirms Javelin Delivery

The second major development in the Taiwan arms sale backlog in October 2024 was the publication of an MND document with updated information on the status of US arms sales. An earlier version of this document, published in June 2024, was an important data source that contradicted other sources of information about weapons deliveries. This prompted us to add several arms sales back into the backlog that other sources suggested had already been delivered.

The October 2024 MND document indicates that the July 2019 sale of 400 Javelin anti-tank missiles was fully delivered to Taiwan in July 2024. According to the MND report, several Javelin missiles were test-fired in the annual Han Kuang exercise. This delivery reduced the value of the backlog by $129 million.

Finally, the new MND report provided new information about two delayed arms sales: TOW-2B anti-tank missiles and F‑16 Block 70 aircraft. Taiwan is still waiting to receive 1,700 TOW-2B anti-tank missiles that were notified to Congress in 2015 (769 missiles, later reduced to 460) and 2019 (1,240 missiles). Delivery of the TOW-2Bs was supposed to happen in 2022. However, production problems and quality control failures delayed delivery. The October 2024 MND document claims that the missiles have passed quality control testing and that full delivery should occur by the end of 2024.

The MND report also states that delivery of newly built F‑16 Block 70 aircraft—notified to Congress in 2019 and the largest arms sale in the backlog valued at $8 billion—is a year behind schedule. The MND was expecting the first aircraft to leave the factory in 2023. However, it now expects to receive its first fighter planes by the end of 2024, with final delivery occurring in late 2026.

Taiwan Arms Backlog Dataset, October 2024

Jeffrey Miron

For most goods and services, governments leave the production, distribution, sale, and consumption decisions to private individuals or groups.

For gambling, however, US states are schizophrenic. Historically, state governments banned gambling of all kinds. In 1931, however, Nevada re-legalized casinos, leading to the return of parimutuel horse betting and casinos in some states. In 1964, New Hampshire authorized the first state-run lottery, and 44 more states eventually followed suit. Following the 2018 Supreme Court ruling in Murphy v. NCAA, 38 states legalized sports betting.

Thus many kinds of gambling are now legal (casinos, sports betting, horse races, and more), yet private lotteries are not legal in the United States. Some states have transferred day-to-day operations to private companies. But these lotteries are still under government control, and private companies cannot enter the market. The government profits off this monopoly, raising $24.4 billion of revenue from the 49 percent of Americans who participate.

The inconsistent treatment makes no sense; the right policy is for governments to impose no limits on the private provision of gambling activities, while itself exiting the gambling business.

The argument for legalization is standard: prohibition drives markets underground, leading to violence and other adverse effects. For example, when gambling was illegal in New York in the 1920s, the practice remained widespread in underground markets.

The argument against government provision of lotteries is also standard: government provision addresses no plausible externality or market failure; if anything, it encourages participation in an activity that some regard as immoral or addictive. Libertarians discount this last risk, but they still argue against government provision.

The argument that lotteries raise revenue is misguided. Operating lotteries seems like a “free” way to raise revenue because participants choose to buy lottery tickets. But governments can tax private gambling in the same way as any other activity.

This article appeared on Substack on November 22, 2024. Amelia Heller, a student at Harvard College, co-wrote this post.

Colleen Hroncich

Project-based learning sounds great … until you realize you have to find or create the projects for your learners. That’s where Rock by Rock comes in. Jeff Imrich and Sung-Ae Yang, experienced teachers and school leaders, created Rock by Rock to increase access to project-based learning. “For a lot of kids, what we do traditionally for learning isn’t working for them,” says Jeff. “We know that one of the best ways to prepare kids for the future and develop all these critical thinking and other skills is through project-based learning.”

Jeff and Sung-Ae had collectively helped design and open seven different school models, and families kept asking how they could support their children’s education at home. They began thinking of ways to make high-impact project-based learning more equitably accessible, across the income spectrum and regardless of schooling model. “We started prototyping with homeschool families, and then the pandemic hit. Then we were working with some homeschool families, some microschools called pods, and some more traditional educators,” says Jeff.

Initially, Rock by Rock sent projects-in-a-box that included a mission—like save the elephants or help address traumatic brain injury—along with the supplies needed to complete the project as part of a four-to-six-hour experience. They got very positive feedback with parents reporting their kids were really engaged in the projects and they were having interesting conversations around the dinner table.

They also received a lot of tips on how to improve, such as: “Our kids love it, but I don’t need the scissors, the markers, and the glue—I have that in my magic homeschool cabinet.” “We don’t want just a four-to-six-hour experience; we want a deeper project-based experience.” “When you send us a project, it’s great. But we have to do the project you sent us. Can you make it a library so we can choose with our kids what we want to do and when we want to do it?”

Jeff and Sung-Ae took that input and created an online library of on-demand projects, with some geared toward grades K‑2 and others to grades 3–5. Parents and teachers have the flexibility to mix up ages in the way that works best in their situation. “We have some families where a fifth grader will work with their second-grade sibling or a microschool will do one project for K‑5 and they’ll sort of dial up or down depending on the kids,” says Jeff.

“All of the projects are real-world topics. Sleep inventions look at the Earth, science, seasons, and patterns of motion. But it does it through the lens of how that impacts our sleep and how we can improve our sleep,” Jeff explains. “Ugly food, Hungry people looks at the science standards related to seed dispersal and plants, but it does it through the lens of food sustainability. Kids do an action to address an issue of hunger in the community when they learn about food waste and ways that we can use food more wisely. So they’re all real-world topics that empower kids to do something with what they’re learning.”

When families or schools purchase a Rock by Rock membership, they receive access to the entire library of projects as well as teacher training and resources to help them manage the projects and go beyond them when there is interest. The lessons are interactive and incorporate videos, games, readings, and hands-on activities. The extension resources include data collection posters to help students understand the importance of data and ways to share it with others, a debate planning guide, and a songwriting template to help kids write simple songs to accompany their projects.

Every membership also includes virtual field experiences that give students the chance to engage with an expert in the field and be exposed to different careers. “On December 12, we’re doing a visit with the Tanganyika Wildlife Park in Wichita, where kids can zoom in and meet Penguins live and talk to a zookeeper. We’re doing a rainforest virtual field trip to meet the animals at the Birmingham Zoo in January because we have a rainforest project. We have our Save Our Brains project. So in February, Doctor Jones is doing a live sheep’s brain dissection and talking about what it’s like to become a neuroscientist,” says Jeff.

Critical thinking, problem-solving, collaboration, and creativity are crucial skills that often aren’t built in conventional schools where, Jeff notes, success equals compliance. “I followed the steps, I got the predictable outcome, check,” he says. “We know that kids need reading and math for sure, but they also need to apply it in real-world ways that actually solve real-world problems. With the advent of AI, these 21st-century skills are even more important.” He’s heard from second-grade teachers who give their students open-ended tasks and they have no idea what to do. “How are we at a place where a second grader has already unlearned curiosity and the way to explore in the world?” Jeff asks. He and Sung-Ae created Rock by Rock to bring project-based learning to more students to help solve that problem.

Chris Edwards

President-elect Trump should add “and Elimination” to his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The federal government has grown far too large to be managed efficiently. Even if federal workers were highly industrious, and even if politicians were laser-focused on the public interest, the government’s vast size would still create failure after failure. To achieve efficiency, we need major program eliminations. We need a DOGEE.

Federal spending in 2024 of $6.75 trillion was almost 100 times larger than spending by the average state government of $68 billion, as shown in the figure. The average state legislature oversees a budget the size of a bungalow, but Congress (is supposed to) oversee a budget the size of the Empire State Building.

Economist Milton Friedman said, “The tragedy is that because government is doing so many things it ought not to be doing, it performs the functions it ought to be performing badly.” We all know that is true, yet Congress keeps adding more agencies, programs, and spending.

There are 441 federal agencies, as Elon Musk noted. Those agencies run more than 2,400 subsidy programs, have imposed 188,000 pages of regulations, and buy more than $750 billion a year of goods and services. The federal government owns 640 million acres of land and owns or leases almost 300,000 buildings. The federal government is massive in size and sprawling in scope.

Members of Congress don’t have time to oversee even a fraction of this empire. They are consumed by fundraising, meeting with lobbyists, and giving speeches. They routinely miss committee hearings. They don’t know the details of the vast majority of programs they’ve enacted, let alone fix the broken ones. Congress seizes vast powers over society but doesn’t bother ensuring that its interventions actually work.

Sadly, we are squandering a built-in advantage of American democracy that would improve governance. I’m talking about federalism, or allowing the states to handle most government activities. Instead, politicians of both parties have acted to crush federalism and centralize power in Washington over the past century.

They have done so for no good policy reason: centralization benefits politicians, not citizens. Congress has created hundreds of federal programs to supposedly help the public in recent decades, yet polls show that Americans have become ever more disgusted by Washington’s dysfunction and corruption.

The House will be creating a DOGE subcommittee to work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy. But we really need a DOGEE, with the elimination part coming first.

Data note: I estimated total state spending for 2024 based on data from the National Association of State Budget Officers and divided by 50.

Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar

Under 10 years of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rule, industrialist Gautam Adani became a “national champion” in infrastructure and one of the richest men in the world. He is India’s main face in attempts to combat China’s Belt and Road Initiative. To compete with China in building infrastructure across Asia and Africa, Modi has nominated or backed Adani companies in several ventures abroad to boost India’s image and prowess.

That is proving a terrible choice. US prosecutors have indicted Adani for paying or planning to pay $265 million in bribes to secure financing and 12 gigawatts of solar-power contracts from Indian government agencies. US Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lisa Miller has accused Adani and two codefendants of “corruption and fraud at the expense of US investors” in Adani companies. Given Adani’s stature, the US prosecutors would not have asked for Adani’s arrest without careful accumulation of clinching evidence.

Earlier in 2023, US short-seller Hindenburg alleged that Adani had misused tax havens and engaged in stock market manipulation to push up his stock prices. Separately, the Financial Times (London) repeatedly claimed that Adani had over-invoiced the price of coal imported from Indonesia to his power plant in Gujarat, where his power tariff is linked to the coal import price.

These claims temporarily crashed Adani prices, but they recovered soon. Given Adani’s closeness to Modi, it was no surprise that neither India’s market regulator nor customs authorities followed up on Hindenburg’s or the Financial Times’s accusations. But Adani can expect no leniency from US prosecutors. His share prices and ability to borrow abroad cheaply will be hit, as will India’s image.

Cynical Indians will say that bribes are standard practice in India. But the sign of good management is that it observes the 11th commandment—Thou shalt not be caught. By this token, Adani has proved to be a poor manager, so sure of his clout in India that he failed to cover his tracks from foreign investigators. His performance in infrastructure has been remarkable, and he is India’s top player, but he owes something to political influence. When he bids for projects, rivals can be told to stay away or face tax raids and other uncomfortable consequences. Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi has long castigated Adani as one of two crony capitalists that are ripping off India and will be elated at the new ammunition provided by US prosecutors.

China has long dominated foreign financing and infrastructure development in Sri Lanka. India wants to get in, too, and struck a deal with Sri Lanka to build a new terminal at Colombo port. It nominated Adani to do the job. As India’s biggest port operator, he has good credentials, but some ask why there were no competitive bids for the task. Adani also headed a consortium that successfully bid to privatize Haifa Port, Israel.

A few years ago, when Bangladesh faced an acute power shortage, Modi offered to help. He brokered a 2017 deal for Adani to import coal from his captive mines in Australia, use this to generate 1,600 MW of power at Godda in India, and transmit this to Bangladesh by power lines. Bangladeshi activists have long condemned this as a “sweetheart” deal saddling Dacca with expensive power. Adani claims his power tariff is competitive. But his name is mud in Bangladesh, where many want the power contract renegotiated.

Adani has proposed investing in Africa in a big way. He was close to finalizing a deal to lease and expand Nairobi Airport for 30 years. He has also negotiated a deal to build and operate four electric transmission lines. Both have been opposed by trade unions and activists who allege corruption. The courts have stayed the airport deal.

In sum, Adani’s reputation was far from fragrant even before the US warrant for his arrest was issued. Modi cannot escape blame for choosing to promote Adani in the face of constant complaints of corruption. Modi openly aided Adani’s astronomical rise, treating him as a national champion to be supported in competing against Chinese and other global giants. But legal government support and bribes are two very different things.

Some will recall that in the early decades of Korea’s dizzy economic rise from 1960 onwards, a few politically connected business groups called the “chaebol”—including Hyundai, Daewoo, and Samsung—got favors and subsidies aplenty while giving kickbacks to politicians. This did not ruin their image. However, Korean companies did not depend on American and global investors the way Adani does, and so did not risk US prosecution. Adani will pay a heavy price. So, in different ways, will Modi.