RealClearPolicy Articles

Starting soon, formerly homeless Americans will face the prospect of going back on the streets because of a sudden change in federal policy. As many as 170,000 could lose their housing in 2026. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) recently announced that it will drastically alter its $3.9 billion Continuum of Care homeless assistance program, which has helped millions of people move from homelessness to stability. The program that has long enjoyed strong bipartisan support provides housing that people with low incomes can afford and connects them to...

The Justice Department has fired a shot across Big Tech's bow. In a recent speech, Dina Kallay, a deputy assistant attorney general in the department's antitrust division, criticized Big Tech for using supposedly "free" patent-licensing initiatives to poach smaller competitors' technologies. Her remarks come at a pivotal moment. The Alliance for Open Media -- a consortium led by Amazon, Meta, Google, and other tech giants -- just announced a new video-streaming format called AV2 that could soon be embedded in televisions and...

Venezuela’s future will not be decided by speeches, sanctions, or symbolic elections alone. It will be decided by whether the country is reintegrated into the global economy in a way that creates durable incentives for stability and democratic governance. The uncomfortable truth is that democracy in Venezuela will not survive on political process alone. It requires commerce and credible security guarantees. Without those, the vacuum will be filled by America’s adversaries. For two decades, Venezuela has been hollowed out by state control, corruption, and economic isolation. The...

College football is foundational to college athletics and our country. It supports every sport, anchors school identity, and remains one of the most unifying traditions in American life. For a long time, the system was not perfect, but it worked. Scholarships provided student-athletes with opportunities they otherwise might not have had, and many of these young people go on to be some of our country’s greatest leaders. But I had no idea how broken college athletics is until very recently, when I was pulled into LSU’s football program. I learned way more than I ever wanted to know...

The holiday season is often associated with joy, generosity, and connection. Yet, it also marks a peak period for financial fraud and scams. Cybercriminals exploit the surge in online shopping and charitable giving, deploying sophisticated schemes through phone calls, text messages, and emails that promise rewards or threaten consequences. This is not a seasonal phenomenon; it is a thriving, year-round enterprise. In 2024, consumers reported losses exceeding $12.5 billion to scams, a 25% increase over the prior year. Bitcoin ATM-related fraud alone accounted for $250 million,...

The Federal Trade Commission’s war on alleged Big Tech monopolies suffered a major defeat last month, when a judge ruled in favor of Meta at trial.  But the FTC’s troubles might not be over yet: In continuing to pursue cases using former Biden FTC Chair Lina Khan’s European Union-esque approach to antitrust, the FTC could be setting itself up for more pain. Future losses would likely include FTC’s case against Amazon, where the agency alleges that Prime customers want to unsubscribe from the service but that Amazon makes it too complicated. That allegation is...

For years, radicals and industry insiders pushed a ridiculous narrative about wind turbines which I exposed in the documentary “Blown Away: Exposing the Wind Scam.” These massive windmill projects are exorbitantly expensive, harmful to the environment, produce little power, and ruin gorgeous natural vistas, from the deserts to the oceans. Some of the most egregious abuses involve the offshore wind farms that mar some of America’s most pristine seascapes. These projects cost taxpayers billions in subsidies and do grave harm to marine ecosystems. These ocean projects...

There’s a particular sound a broken machine makes. The gears still turn, the belts still hum, but nothing useful comes out the other side. You get motion without output. Noise without purpose. That’s what Congress feels like today. For much of the 20th century, Congress produced legislation that reshaped American life: the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, the Clean Air Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act. These weren’t symbolic votes or partisan showpieces. They were structural laws that still govern daily life. Today, the machinery looks busy, but little comes...

Clever, rent-seeking attorneys are successfully misusing public nuisance laws to win big paydays from corporate victims. As usual, these litigations against members of the business community end up costing consumers and family breadwinners. The centuries-old doctrine of public nuisance has long been defined as an unreasonable interference with a right common to the public. It was originally used to address simple problems that impacted peoples’ daily lives, like when someone obstructs a public road or water way. But modern-day tort litigators have invoked public nuisance to attack...

If the world’s future is powered by semiconductors and designed by advanced AI chips, then it will be printed on polysilicon; the purest manmade material and the foundation for any semiconductor chip. Without it, advanced technologies and electronics would not exist. Importantly, the U.S. currently faces a decision: to rely on imported polysilicon from China to unlock the electronic economy, or to protect and expand existing capacity across the U.S. and allied nations to feed the growing demand for chips, and therefore for polysilicon. The ongoing Section 232 investigation into imported...

It has become all too familiar to see a news story about another violent and tragic attack done by a person with a significant criminal history, which makes you wonder, “How could they possibly be on the streets?” In Nashville this month, a man was charged with raping a woman (who died from her injuries) outside of a church. He had been previously arrested 15 times, including for sexual battery, but these were almost all dismissed or not pursued by prosecutors. In November, a Chicago man with 72 prior arrests set a 26-year-old woman on fire on a Chicago train. Another Chicago man,...

Millions of older Americans struggle every day to afford the medications they need. Too often, they make impossible choices: splitting pills, skipping doses, or forgoing prescriptions altogether because of the price. President Trump recognizes the problem. His administration is weighing whether Medicare should cover GLP-1 medications for weight loss, a decision that could have major implications for access and cost. The White House has also recently worked with several pharmaceutical companies on voluntary "most favored nation" deals, which will secure more affordable access by expanding...

Throughout the post-New Deal expansion of the administrative state, conservatives have warned against the dangers of giving too much power to unelected bureaucrats. Those concerns have been borne out in recent years as federal agencies have promulgated increasingly sweeping rules addressing energy, climate, and healthcare based on vague authority from Congress. In a series of recent decisions, the Supreme Court has acted to restore the balance between Congress, federal agencies, and the courts.  It overruled the so-called “Chevron” doctrine, which afforded deference...

Since former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced she will not run for re-election, retrospectives have poured in on everything from her role in passing Obamacare to her skill in stock trades. But tributes have been noticeably missing on one theme Pelosi often stresses: that “we’re here for the children,” as she put it while surrounding herself with children in a 2007 photo-op on first becoming Speaker. There are good reasons why. In his recent valedictory, Pelosi’s successor Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)...

Congress took an important step this year to bring digital assets into the mainstream economy. By passing the GENIUS Act, lawmakers created for the first time a federal framework for payment stablecoins that recognizes their growing role in commerce and establishes regulatory clarity to promote innovation and economic growth. In an effort to establish clear rules and distinctions, key provisions in the law are intended to draw an important line between stablecoins and traditional banking products, both to protect consumers and our financial system. However, that distinction is already being...

For generations, the United States has been the world’s top destination for ambitious students, pioneering scientists, and entrepreneurial risk-takers. Global talent has powered American progress and prosperity, but the foundation of that success is cracking. We have failed to modernize our immigration system for decades – since before the end of the Cold War, modern biotechnologies, semiconductor manufacturing, the internet, and our connected global economy. With the demolition of our ability to attract and retain people from around the world, America is no longer the default...

On the eve of the historic meeting in Washington between President Trump and HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, I reflect on the great progress in Saudi Arabia under MBS’ leadership and the opportunities of Saudi Arabia to benefit from the “Texas Miracle”.  Texas is the only region in the World that has successfully evolved from an oil dependent economy to a much larger fully diversified economy. Energy-rich regions can leverage innovation, investment, and entrepreneurship to secure long-term stability as we have witnessed in Texas. Saudi Arabia is in a similar...

The Trump administration has renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America while also promoting the statehood of Greenland and Canada. Instead, a much more attractive, strategic move would be to gain statehood for Puerto Rico, which would include a socially conservative voting bloc in the United States election process, and play a crucial role in the direction of future elections and potential policy decisions. But many forget the fact that Puerto Ricans are already citizens of the U.S., residing in a limbo between independence and statehood. The nation’s yearning for statehood is...

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was conceived as a pro-business agency, but over time it has strayed from that ideal.  Current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson has the opportunity to promote change at the agency. One way to do that is by shortening the length of FTC consent orders to ten years. The current practice of binding businesses to 20 year or indefinite consent orders is unduly burdensome on businesses, out of step with the length of other agencies’ practices, and hinders innovation.  It would be a good idea for Chair Ferguson’s FTC to shorten the length of FTC...