Jason Sorens
Why Is Housing So Partisan in the Northeast?
In a recent blog post, Matt Yglesias chides northeastern Republicans for opposing pro-housing deregulation in state legislatures: Republicans have led several major pushes for housing reform in red states. These efforts […]
The Economic Tradeoffs of Property Tax Reform
How do property taxes work in the United States, and what are their economic consequences?
This Medicaid Fix Saves More Than Adding Work Requirements
Republicans in Congress are moving along with their “big, beautiful bill” to extend tax cuts, create some new tax provisions, and reduce the rate of growth in some spending programs. […]
‘Local Control,’ Fake and Real
A debate is raging over housing policy. Many state lawmakers have proposed overriding local growth controls — land-use regulations on housing, such as restrictive zoning requirements — in order to […]
Can Some Deportations Promote Open Immigration and Protect Free Speech?
The Mahmoud Khalil case has prompted much commentary on the following question: should the US government deport noncitizen terrorist sympathizers? The main argument against doing so is that this policy […]
New State-Level GDP and Personal Income Figures Show Where Activity Is Picking Up — And Falling Back
On Friday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis released preliminary figures for GDP and personal income by state for last year. I prefer using personal income over GDP for comparing state […]
Want Starter Homes? Cut Minimum Lot Sizes
One of the big problems in the American housing market today is the dearth of “starter” homes. These are smaller, affordably priced homes available for sale and ownership, often appealing […]
Cuts to Indirect Federal Grants Could Change Research for the Better
On February 7, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it will be reducing its negotiated proportion of grant funding that goes to overhead, or “indirect costs,” to 15 […]
Donald Shoup’s Crusade to Reimagine Urban Parking
“Free” parking has a huge cost. That’s the message that UCLA planning professor Donald Shoup, who died last week, took to the world. He lived to see his research gain […]
Can a State Just Opt Out of Federal Social Security?
The federal old-age programs, Social Security and Medicare, are going bust. The latest trustees reports show the Social Security trust fund running out of money in 10 years and the […]
