Earlier this week, the Center for a Free Economy pointed to economist Mark Perry’s well-known “Chart of the Century” to make a simple point. The prices that have risen fastest in America are not random. They are concentrated in sectors where government plays the biggest role. That pattern is hard to miss. Hospital services, college tuition, child care, and medical care services have all risen far faster than overall inflation since 2000. By contrast, products and services wit

The latest IRS migration data shows that Americans are still moving to low-tax states and taking income, investment, and economic opportunity with them . From 2022 to 2023, Florida alone posted a net adjusted gross income gain of about $21 billion. At the same time, high-tax states such as California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and New Jersey posted some of the largest losses. The pattern is hard to miss. People and money are flowing toward lower-tax, faster-growing s

This week, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee will mark up five narrow bills that would each, in their own way, make the tax code work better for taxpayers. The Center for a Free Economy is proud to endorse all five bills. They are: H.R. 2347, the "Survivor Justice Tax Prevention Act," sponsored by Congressman Lloyd Smucker (R-Penn.) This bill would make it clear that monies taxpayers receive as damages for sexual assault do not require invasive and re-traumatizing inq

Hospital prices have been out of control for years, and Congress is finally starting to ask why. At a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing last week on health care affordability, lawmakers focused on one of the biggest drivers of rising costs: large nonprofit hospital systems that enjoy major public subsidies while doing too little to justify them. That is a welcome shift. Washington often talks about health care costs in broad terms. But this proble

The Working Families Tax Cuts, enacted through H.R. 1, expanded education choice in the tax code by creating a new federal scholarship tax credit and broadening how families can use 529 savings. That is a meaningful shift in the right direction. Families need more than one path. Parents should be able to choose the school, tutoring, or support that fits their child instead of being boxed into a one-size-fits-all system. A New Federal Tax Credit for Education Freedom One of th

Washington’s priorities are badly out of balance. As Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said in Senate Finance Committee testimony , the federal government allocates about $6 to seniors for every $1 it allocates to children under 18. That would be troubling enough on its own. It is worse because children are now the poorest cohort in America, while seniors as a group are no longer. Washington is allocating more to the politically pow

One of the biggest success stories of the Working Families Tax Cuts was permanent full business expensing for the business assets covered by the law. That reform strengthened investment by letting businesses deduct costs upfront instead of dragging those deductions out over years. Now the next step is clear. Policymakers should move toward full expensing for business structures too, including multifamily housing, factories, offices, warehouses, and other buildings that help t

Democrats rarely stop at taxing the rich. They start there. That is the real lesson from tax history. A tax is sold to the public as a narrow hit on a small group of wealthy households. Then the threshold comes down, the rates go up, inflation does the rest, and the burden spreads far beyond the original target. That pattern has played out before, and it is playing out again now. A New York Example Shows the Problem Bloomberg recently reported that Zohran Mamdani wants to sl

For too many Americans, buying a home has become more complicated, more expensive, and more frustrating than it needs to be. That is why President Trump’s March 13, 2026 executive order matters. Working with HUD Secretary Scott Turner, the administration took a step toward making the homebuying process simpler, faster, and more modern for creditworthy borrowers who are ready to purchase a home. The most useful way to understand this order is not as a final answer to the housi