Strong patent protections are essential to preserving America's leadership in innovation, investment, and technological advancement. The Center for a Free Economy (CFE) recently submitted a letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary supporting S. 1546, the "Patent Eligibility Restoration Act of 2025," legislation that would replace court-imposed patent eligibility standards with clear statutory rules established by Congress. CFE argues that the bill would restore gr

America continues to produce more new millionaires than any other country in the world, offering fresh evidence that economic growth and opportunity remain widely available. While critics often argue that the middle class is disappearing because Americans are falling behind, long-term income data suggest a different trend. A growing share of households have moved into higher income brackets, reflecting rising prosperity rather than widespread economic decline. According to th

Millions of Americans purchasing health insurance through the Obamacare exchanges could face another year of double-digit premium increases. While those headlines focus on the cost of coverage, they overlook who ultimately pays for much of those increases. Obamacare's subsidy structure protects many exchange enrollees from rising premiums by shifting most of the added cost to taxpayers. As benchmark premiums rise, federal premium tax credits rise with them. Instead of reducin

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) continues to lose billions of taxpayer dollars to improper payments despite years of reform efforts. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), SNAP made $10.1 billion in improper payments during fiscal year 2025, representing 10.6 percent of all benefits distributed. More than $8.8 billion resulted from overpayments, meaning recipients received more assistance than program rules permitted. The latest figures a

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered an investigation into a tax exempt hospital that advertised childbirth services near the U.S.-Mexico border just days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down President Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship. With the Court reaffirming that children born on U.S. soil generally acquire U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment, Mission Regional Medical Center's campaign encouraging expectant mothers from Mexico to give birt

Conventional wisdom often suggests that cutting income tax rates inevitably reduces government revenue. Montana's experience tells a different story. After steadily lowering its top individual income tax rate from 11.0 percent in the 1980s to 5.4 percent today, the state has experienced substantial growth in income tax collections. Rather than shrinking the tax base, Montana's reforms appear to have strengthened it by encouraging greater economic activity. Lower Rates, Higher

Tax-exempt hospitals receive billions of dollars in federal, state, and local tax benefits each year in exchange for serving charitable missions. Too often, however, some large nonprofit hospital systems have used that privileged status to expand revenues, enrich executives, and exploit government programs while providing taxpayers with little transparency about how those tax subsidies are used. The U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means recently approved H.R. 9504, the Tax E

The Center for a Free Economy (CFE) submitted the following comments for the record to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in response to the agency's proposed rulemaking on Medicaid reimbursement reform. The Center for a Free Economy (CFE) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) proposed rule regarding Medicaid managed care State Directed Payments (SDPs) and Medicaid fee-for-service targeted payment policie

Tariffs have raised prices for consumers, increased costs for businesses, and offset part of the economic benefit of H.R. 1, the Working Families Tax Cuts. The Trump Administration now has an opportunity to correct course by pairing targeted tariff relief with the law’s strongest pro-growth provisions. The new U.S.-China Board of Trade is a useful start. According to Skadden, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking public input on roughly $30 billion in Chinese

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has spent years advocating for one of the largest payroll tax increases in recent history. She now has an unexpected Republican ally: Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH). Their proposal would eliminate the Social Security payroll tax cap, producing an estimated $3 trillion tax increase while pushing the top federal marginal tax rate above 50 percent for many affected taxpayers. Yet despite asking Republicans to support one of the largest tax increases

One year after President Trump signed H.R. 1, the Working Families Tax Cuts, millions of Americans are seeing the benefits in their paychecks, tax returns, and household budgets. Workers, seniors, parents, and families are keeping more of what they earn through lower taxes and expanded opportunities to save and invest. Over the past year, the Center for a Free Economy has tracked these reforms through research, blog posts, and educational videos that explain how the Working F

Social Security's financial outlook continues to worsen, yet many policymakers continue to promote higher payroll taxes as the primary solution. New analysis suggests that approach would impose significant costs on workers while doing little to address the program's underlying problem. A recent Cato Institute analysis found that Social Security's Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is now projected to become insolvent in 2032, one year earlier than previously expected.

The Biden administration's health care legacy continues to create problems for taxpayers, patients, and the broader health care system. Years after key policies were enacted, the effects are still visible in Obamacare enrollment data and in the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act's drug price controls. The Trump administration has begun reversing several of these policies, but significant work remains. Biden’s Drug Price Controls Continue to Raise Concerns A recent

A proposal to impose a wealth tax on Americans is drawing attention not only for the size of the tax increase, but also for the extensive financial reporting and international coordination that would be required to enforce it. Recent analysis from Americans for Tax Reform examined Graham Platner’s tax agenda and found that it includes a 6 percent annual wealth tax as well as support for international efforts to establish a coordinated minimum tax on wealth. Such proposals rai

Four state Medicaid directors will testify before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee this Thursday as lawmakers investigate billions of dollars in potential waste, fraud, and abuse within state Medicaid programs. The hearing, organized by the Committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, will examine fraud risks, oversight failures, and the safeguards states have in place to protect taxpayer-funded health care programs. State Medicaid directors from New Yor

The Trump Administration has taken a major step toward addressing a longstanding problem in the global pharmaceutical market: wealthy foreign governments benefiting from American medical innovation while using government price controls to pay artificially low prices for the medicines their citizens use. On June 18, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced the initiation of a Section 301 investigation into Germany's pharmaceutical pricing practices. The investigation

One of the more surprising developments in the retirement policy debate is coming from the political left. A new explainer from the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), an organization generally associated with progressive economic policy, acknowledges that the Trump administration's proposed TrumpIRA initiative could help millions of workers who currently lack access to workplace retirement plans. While disagreements remain over implementation and long-term

A federal program created to help vulnerable patients access affordable medications has increasingly become a financial windfall for large tax-exempt hospital systems. The Trump administration's proposed 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program seeks to bring greater transparency and accountability to a program that now exceeds $80 billion in annual discounted drug purchases. The Health Resources and Services Administration recently announced a request for information on a pilot progr

Americans are not imagining the affordability crisis. Real wages have stopped gaining ground, inflation remains embedded in household budgets, and new cost pressures from tariffs and energy instability are making everyday life more expensive. According to New York Times economics reporter Ben Casselman, inflation-adjusted wages have shown no net gain since President Trump returned to office. Price increases over the past few months have erased the real wage gains workers made

Obamacare created several costly federal programs, but the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) has become one of its clearest failures. The agency was supposed to reduce healthcare costs and improve quality through new payment models. Instead, it has spent billions of taxpayer dollars while producing little evidence that it has improved care or delivered savings. Congress now has an opportunity to end this wasteful experiment. Rep. Aaron Bean has introduced H.R