RealClearPolicy Articles

As former senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, we sparred on many policy issues. But we agreed that First Responders needed the most innovative, interoperable communications technology the competitive marketplace had to offer. When a 911 call gets placed, when an emergency siren cries out, when our communities are in their greatest need, public safety communications must work without fail. And that means Congress must again ask tough questions about policies supporting those technologies – in this case, whether FirstNet is fully achieving the goals we...

Bankers are relentless in their efforts to tear credit unions down. The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), in a new “report”, claimed that credit unions harm communities. And the American Bankers Association’s (ABA) witness, during Senate testimony on deposit insurance, questioned credit unions’ tax status. Bankers falsely claim that credit unions misuse their tax status by serving more people, or that they don’t do enough to serve the communities they’re in. How can both be true? Credit unions meet their mission as not-for-profit financial...

The Charlie Kirk tragedy again reminds me of how similar our current times are to the late 1960s. Then, we were getting ever more deeply involved in the Vietnam War. Today, the same pivotal questions confront us in the Near East and Ukraine. Should we increase our commitment to support another democracy? Would such an increased commitment risk WWIII? In April 1968, the preeminent civil rights leader of the 20th Century, Martin Luther King , Jr. was gunned down in Tennessee. In June 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, a presidential candidate who had a very good chance of being elected, was killed in...

In an era dominated by quantum computing, self-driving cars, LLMs, and dancing robots, you probably aren't seeing much TikTok content about PC web browsers. You should be. The PC browser enables you to communicate, shop, bank, learn, work, all in one place, and is very much part of the technological shift we're all experiencing right now. Entirely new takes on the browser, like Perplexity’s Comet and OpenAI’s Operator, are reimagining the tool for the AI era. And hundreds of other companies and organizations are building unique tools they know consumers want. For example, some...

Unless you’re an industry analyst or work at the Surface Transportation Board (STB), you likely did not notice this week’s one-two punch which knocked the wind out of proposals for merging America’s few remaining major railroads. After a long history of consolidation, just four big American and two Canadian-owned railroads serve the freight transportation needs of the entire United States. Two of them – Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern – sent shock waves through the transportation sphere when they announced their intention to merge, creating what would be a...

Nearly two years have passed since the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Nearly two years since families were butchered in their homes, since babies were taken hostage, since thousands of rockets rained down on Israeli cities. And nearly two years into this war, Israel has achieved much. And yet, the war is not over because Hamas is not yet destroyed. True, Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the massacre, is dead. So is Mohammed Deif, his chief engineer. So is Ismail Haniyeh, the suave terrorist politician. The tunnel systems in Khan Yunis and Rafah have been collapsed, although, as a...

It’s back-to-school season, which means renewed rhetoric from equity boosters lamenting insufficient public education funding and the “digital divide” between rich and poor. But the last thing our schools need is immense public spending to put iPads and AI assistants in the hands of every child. In fact, the best way to help students is to strip classrooms down to the essentials: a whiteboard, classic books, and a great teacher. Repeated studies prove what any parent with eyes can see: using screens limits...

Farmers feed and fuel this country and provide it with vital energy security. They also make significant contributions to their local economies. Yet, these farmers who do so much to provide for America are in the middle of a crisis. Without immediate action from Congress and the president, they will soon struggle to keep their farms. A Call for Government Action After Record Production ReportA report recently released by the Department of Agriculture speaks to the urgency of the issue. It projects that this year’s corn crop will be the largest on record by far with 1.4 billion bushels...

At more than 140,000 acres, the Dragon Bravo Fire near the Grand Canyon’s north rim is the largest wildfire in the United States and one of the largest in Arizona’s history. Coverage of the blaze has produced stunning videos and images of airplanes dropping red or pink fire retardant from the sky to stop the flames from spreading. Those images are certainly dramatic, but they should also give us pause. When it comes to the fire retardant dropped by those planes, no one knows the exact chemical mixture because it is a trade secret known only to the company...

America just got over a decade of leftist virtue signaling in the name of Black Lives Matter, which ended up killing dozens of police officers and thousands of Black people. With President Trump’s proposal for a federal takeover of policing in Washington, D.C., and five other cities to cut crime, we may be entering a period of conservative virtue signaling about law and order. All Americans, but especially Black Americans, need a better way. First, let’s admit where President Trump is right. As two of us show empirically in “Black Deaths: How Black Lives Matter Took Lives...

In the global race to reduce plastic pollution, manage packaging waste, and create new jobs in the process, the United States risks falling behind - not because of a lack of innovation, but because of outdated federal regulations. At the heart of the problem lies a little-known provision in the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) that is stifling the adoption of compostable packaging, even as states like California push forward with ambitious waste reduction goals. The NOP was established under the Organic Foods Production Act in 1990. It sets and enforces standards for...

Democratic mayors have failed to lead. Consider: Los Angeles has a visible and corrosive homeless crisis; Chicago’s homicide numbers increase yearly; New York’s felony assaults have skyrocketed. As a result of decay and disorder, urban populations in all three cities have decreased significantly, especially in the years since the Covid-19 pandemic. While their cities crumbled, Democratic mayors and municipal officials insisted they were pioneering a more compassionate form of government, one that addressed “systemic racism,” “prosecutorial overreach,”...

In an industry that operates at the mercy of Mother Nature and the markets, the last thing farming families like mine – and the thousands more represented by the Modern Ag Alliance – need is more uncertainty, but the conversation in Washington over crop protection tools has American agriculture on edge. As the MAHA Commission prepares to issue its policy recommendations this week, farmers are watching closely. After the commission’s deeply flawed and concerning initial report, recent signals from the administration have been encouraging. We should all...

My daughters pressured me into getting tickets to the Netflix hit movie KPop Demon Hunters recently. I was not very excited about going to it and expected to be annoyed by all the teenage girls singing along. To my surprise, I very much enjoyed the movie. Evidently, I am not the only one because this product of South Korean artists is the most watched Netflix animated original film of all time and the most popular Netflix English-language film ever. Entertainment shapes culture and can be a good or bad influence domestically. It is also an amazing tool for education about other cultures and...

Last month, former President Joe Biden made headlines lamenting that his legacy and accomplishments are rapidly being undone by the Trump Administration. On that point, there is no doubt Mr. Biden’s mental acuity is sharp as a tack. In just six months, President Trump has made much of Mr. Biden’s four-year tenure appear as a mere blip in the rearview mirror. A few notable examples: border crossings are nearly non-existent, lower tax rates have become permanent, the federal workforce and agencies themselves are being slashed, federal lands are opening for energy...

In a recent New York Times op-ed, former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Lina Khan praises Zohran Mamdani’s primary campaign for New York City mayor, attributing his success to his focus on small businesses.  Khan believes that Democrats can be the political party that reclaims the trust of small businesses in the years to come by modeling this example and adopting her “Big is Bad” antitrust philosophy. However, one crucial element is missing from her argument: the truth.  During her tenure, American small businesses suffered from overregulation...

American voters are famous for our focus on domestic, not international affairs. However, conservatives and libertarians in the US should be paying close attention to events across the pond—and not just because President Trump recently wrapped up a visit to Scotland so we’ve seen plenty of British and Scottish flags flying on our TV screens of late. While debate in the US rages about whether and how to further regulate Big Tech, with a huge number of our Members of Congress continuing to push the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), the United Kingdom just put our version of the law...

Republicans have plenty to tout in their One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), including its extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, improved border security, and  strengthened national defense. But the new law also is noteworthy for leaning on key welfare reforms with a proven track record of success. Those policies—namely, applying work requirements and creating a financial interest for states to limit benefit rolls—achieve significant benefit savings now and should be expanded in the future to further boost work and keep federal deficits in check. The Congressional...

The second Trump Administration is committed to reversing decades of government-sanctioned wokeism funded by taxpayer dollars but working against taxpayers’ wishes. The Department of Justice (DOJ) is spearheading this effort, using every tool at its disposal to obliterate every shred of DEI patronage, gimmickry, and red tape that hinder efficacy. Executive orders fly, newly negotiated settlements with DEI-captured institutions drop daily and DOJ memos warn against the "legal pitfalls" of racial preferences under a colorblind Constitution. But despite the administration’s...