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

Joe Rogan’s discussion of nonprofit hospital abuses pushed a long-running health care problem into the national spotlight: many of America’s largest tax-exempt hospital systems are operating more like corporate conglomerates than charitable institutions. The Center for a Free Economy has been working extensively to expose this problem and advance reforms that bring more accountability, transparency, and competition to the hospital sector. CFE has repeatedly highlighted how la

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions is considering S. 2658, the "Medication Affordability and Patent Integrity Act," a bill that supporters claim would improve transparency between the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In reality, the legislation would weaken intellectual property protections, encourage more litigation, and burden federal agencies with new paperwork that could slow innovation and dr

President Trump has put a long-running problem in clear terms: foreign governments are using drug pricing policies that leave American patients paying too much of the world’s pharmaceutical research and development bill. Congress now has legislation that would help turn that concern into action. H.R. 4780, the “USTRx Act,” introduced by U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington and other lawmakers, would create a Chief Pharmaceutical Trade Negotiator within the Off

A new report from the Paragon Health Institute finds that 28 states now have more low-income Obamacare exchange enrollees than eligible residents in the income range receiving the program’s most generous subsidies, a striking sign that the program’s enrollment problems remain far from resolved. Paragon estimates that 6.2 million individuals are improperly enrolled in Affordable Care Act exchange plans in 2026. While that figure is slightly below the institute's estimate of 6.

A growing coalition of conservatives is raising alarms about S. 4668, the "Protect College Sports Act," arguing that the legislation would move far beyond establishing rules for college athletics and instead place Washington at the center of the industry. The latest warning came from House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who told Politico that the Senate bill faces serious obstacles in the U.S. House. Scalise specifically cited concerns over student-athlete employment status a

A new Health and Human Services study adds a major data point to the Medicaid reform debate: community engagement requirements for able-bodied adults should lift between 1.6 million and 2.9 million people out of poverty. The finding strengthens the case for H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and its effort to restore work, accountability, and fiscal discipline to welfare programs. The study, released by HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluatio

The Trump administration is taking direct aim at one of Washington's least scrutinized spending pipelines: the federal grant system. Last week, the Office of Management and Budget unveiled a sweeping overhaul of how more than $1 trillion in federal grants and assistance are distributed, reviewed, and monitored. The new rule follows President Trump's Executive Order 14332, "Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking," and represents one of the most significant attempts in deca

America had a corporate flight problem before the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Companies had powerful incentives to move headquarters overseas, shift profits abroad, and escape a tax code that made the United States one of the least competitive places to do business. The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act changed those incentives. It made America more competitive, helped stop corporate inversions, and delivered stronger revenue than critics predicted. New analysis from the Committee t

New enrollment data strengthen the case for Medicaid and CHIP integrity reforms in H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” New data from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) show that 74.9 million people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP in February 2026, about 3.5 million more than in February 2020, the month before the pandemic. That figure complicates the familiar claim that Congress is gutting Medicaid. The program remains larger than it was before COVID, even after stat

The Trump Accounts app is now live, marking another major step toward the July 4 launch of one of the most significant family wealth-building reforms in decades. The Treasury Department announced this week that the app is available in major app stores and will serve as the main public interface for Trump Accounts as families prepare to enroll. As Daily Wire reported, the app is designed to help families learn about the accounts, follow the rollout, and use financial literacy

Large nonprofit hospital systems are drawing the scrutiny they have long avoided. The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, led by Chairman Jason Smith, is continuing its oversight of hospital affordability, tax-exempt hospital networks, and the federal policies that have allowed major systems to expand while families face higher medical bills. The committee’s work is overdue. Hospital spending has become one of the largest cost pressures in American health care, and many of t

Thomas Massie and his supporters have long presented him as one of Congress’s leading libertarian voices. That reputation deserves scrutiny after his vote against H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which delivered the Working Families Tax Cuts, major welfare reforms, and $1.3 trillion in net spending cuts over the first decade. Massie’s defenders can respect his rhetoric on spending restraint. They cannot ignore the record. When Congress had a real opportunity to preve

Colleges are facing two pressures at once: fewer freshmen and less federal loan money to prop up tuition. Fertility peaked in 2007, and the post-2007 baby bust is now starting to reach college campuses. At the same time, H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” capped graduate student loans and is already pushing universities to cut prices. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board highlighted the shift in a new op-ed on MBA programs cutting tuition after Congress limited fede

Washington does not need another expensive housing program to see why buyers are struggling. Millions of homes already exist, but too many are being kept off the market by a tax code that has not kept up with reality. New data from the National Association of REALTORS (NAR) confirms what the Center for a Free Economy has been warning for months. The federal capital gains exclusion for primary home sales is outdated, unindexed, and increasingly out of step with home prices. Th

CFE has been warning CMS and Congress that Medicaid financing schemes are draining taxpayers, weakening program integrity, and turning a safety-net program into a payment machine for states and politically favored providers. CMS is now moving in the right direction. A new CMS proposed rule would strengthen oversight of Medicaid state directed payments, align more payments with Medicare standards, and bring more transparency to payment arrangements that have grown far beyond t

The Center for a Free Economy submits these comments in support of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s interim final order concluding that federal law preempts the Illinois Interchange Fee Prohibition Act. The OCC is right to act. Illinois is attempting to impose a state-level price control on the national payments system by prohibiting national banks and federal savings associations from charging or receiving payment card fees on the tax and gratuity portions of

American families are already paying more for groceries, gas, housing, insurance, and everyday goods. The latest inflation report shows the problem is not over, and Washington should stop pretending cheaper money will solve a price problem caused by too much money. Inflation Is Moving the Wrong Way Again CNBC reported that overall inflation rose 0.6 percent in April and 3.8 percent over the last 12 months, the highest annual inflation reading since May 2023. Core prices, whic

Americans keep hearing that Washington is cutting Medicaid. Paragon Health Institute looked at the actual numbers from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and the claim does not hold up. CBO’s new presentation on federal health subsidies shows federal Medicaid spending rising every year. Medicaid is projected to grow from $708 billion in 2026 to $981 billion in 2036, a 39 percent increase. CBO also projects federal Medicaid spending will total $8.4 trillion from 2026 throu

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz delivered a blunt warning about Medicare fraud in Los Angeles during a recent Fox News interview: “We believe that at least half of the hospices in the entire area around Los Angeles are fraudulent.” On May 13, CMS followed with a major enforcement action, suspending payments to roughly 800 hospices that billed federal taxpayers $1.4 billion last year. Those providers will no longer be paid while off

Washington debates often sound abstract until the results show up in family bank accounts. The final filing-season numbers now show that the Working Families Tax Cuts did exactly what supporters said they would do: return money to working families quickly, directly, and at a scale large enough to strengthen household budgets. According to final tax filing-season data highlighted by U.S. House Ways and Means Republicans, taxpayers received more than $310 billion in refunds thi

School choice keeps gaining ground because parents want options, students need opportunity, and political leaders in both parties are starting to recognize the demand. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has now signaled that New York intends to opt into the federal scholarship tax credit program, a major development for one of the nation’s largest and bluest states. According to the Commonwealth Foundation, Hochul has not yet formally submitted New York’s opt-in form to the IRS, but

Hospital spending is the biggest cost driver in American health care, and Washington keeps protecting the same hospital systems that drive costs higher. Patients need more competition, not more consolidation, facility fees, and payment rules that steer care into expensive hospital settings. New Congressional Budget Office projections show the problem clearly. From 2023 through 2034, fee-for-service Medicare hospital inpatient spending is projected to rise from $145 billion to

Senator Elizabeth Warren wants ordinary taxpayers pushed into an IRS-run tax prep system, but when her own taxes got complicated, she hired a CPA. That choice tells taxpayers plenty about why independent tax help still has value. Fox News reported that Warren did not use Direct File, the IRS-run tax filing system she spent years promoting, when it became available in Massachusetts. Her publicly released tax return showed that she used a private accountant instead. Fox also re

Large “nonprofit” hospital systems have spent years using tax preferences, payment rules, and market power to enrich themselves while patients and taxpayers carry the cost. Congress is finally taking a serious look at how that system works, and the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee is right to put hospital costs under the microscope. A new analysis from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget shows how much money is on the table. The options include reforms that coul

SNAP enrollment is finally moving in the right direction. A new analysis from Jack Salmon at The Unseen and The Unsaid finds that participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program fell by nearly 4.3 million people between January 2025 and January 2026, with roughly 3.5 million of that decline occurring after Congress passed and President Trump signed H.R. 1, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” This is good news for taxpayers and for the program itself because SNAP

It is wrong when one part of the business sector uses government power to enrich itself and mug its competitors. It is even worse when that effort is sold as a plan to protect ordinary people. The “Main Street Depositor Protection Act,” S. 4198, fits that pattern. The bill sounds like it protects small businesses, but it would expand government-backed deposit insurance, weaken market discipline, and let smaller banks shift the cost of their preferred subsidy onto larger compe

New York City’s budget mess is quickly becoming a warning to every small and family-owned business in the country. Mayor Zohran Mamdani and City Council Speaker Julie Menin are pressing Albany to cut the New York City Pass-Through Entity Tax credit from 100 percent to 75 percent. They are presenting the plan as a way to raise new revenue from high earners while the city faces a budget crisis. The political sales pitch is familiar, but the target is far broader than the slogan

The fastest way to make a credit card useless is to let Washington decide who deserves one. A new Committee to Unleash Prosperity analysis reinforces the warning CFE has already made: capping credit card interest rates would hurt the same consumers politicians claim to protect. Supporters may call it relief, but a government cap would push millions of Americans out of the credit market, shrink credit lines, weaken rewards programs, and leave families with fewer safe options w

Hospital giants went before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee and showed why Washington’s health care affordability debate should start with the hospital industry. The system pays hospitals more, taxes many of them less, shields them from competition, and then asks patients and taxpayers to cover the bill. The hearing featured CEOs from some of the nation’s largest health systems, including major for-profit and tax-exempt hospital chains. Under questioning from Ways and

Health care fraud is not a paperwork problem. It is a taxpayer rip-off that drains money from patients who need care, providers who follow the rules, and workers who fund the system. At Paragon Health Institute’s National Press Club event, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz laid out the scale of the challenge facing federal health programs. Dr. Oz estimated health care fraud at about $100 billion per year and warned that fraud in Medicare,

The Labor Department just delivered a major win for 401(k) workers, retirees, and Main Street investors. Under the guidance, proxy advisory firms can be treated as fiduciaries under ERISA when they exercise control over shareholder voting rights or provide paid advice to retirement plans about how to vote. That means these firms cannot use other people’s retirement money to push ESG, DEI, or other political agendas. They must act for the financial benefit of workers and retir

Congress should stop treating the Highway Trust Fund like a slush fund. The fund was created to support roads and bridges, paid for largely by drivers through the gas tax. But new analysis from EPIC for America’s David Ditch shows that in fiscal year 2024, roughly $22.4 billion of Highway Trust Fund spending, or 30.1 percent of the total, was diverted away from the nation’s core highway system. Reform should be a top priority when Congress writes the next highway bill in 2026

The Justice Department’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center should force a broader reckoning over how much power corporations gave one activist group to police the nonprofit world. The charges are allegations, and SPLC is entitled to defend itself in court. But the indictment raises a basic question that conservatives have been asking for years: why was SPLC treated as a trusted gatekeeper for charities, platforms, and public debate in the first place? DOJ Alleges

The 340B drug discount program was supposed to help low-income patients get cheaper prescription drugs. Instead, it has become a taxpayer-subsidized profit center for large nonprofit hospital networks that buy drugs at steep discounts, bill insurers and government programs at higher rates, and keep the spread. The Washington Post editorial board’s new op-ed calls the program what it has too often become: corporate welfare for hospitals. The Center for a Free Economy and more

The Center for a Free Economy has been highlighting how the Working Families Tax Cuts are delivering broad relief for workers, families, seniors, small businesses, and family-owned farms. Through a growing series of short videos tied to CFE blog posts, CFE has explained how the law lowers taxes on tips and overtime, strengthens the Child Tax Credit and standard deduction, expands education choice, improves Health Savings Accounts, provides auto loan relief for American-built

The 2008 housing collapse showed what happens when mortgage risk is ignored, understated, or pushed onto someone else. A new DC Journal op-ed by Ryan Ellis warns that Washington should not weaken one of the basic safeguards that helps lenders understand borrower risk before a mortgage is approved: tri-merge credit reporting. Tri-merge credit reporting requires lenders to review credit reports from all three national credit bureaus when underwriting a mortgage. That full view

A new Brookings Institution chart book by Jessica Riedl delivers a blunt warning for Washington: the federal budget problem is being driven by spending, not a lack of tax revenue. The charts show that even extremely aggressive tax hikes would fall far short of stabilizing the long-term budget, while higher tax rates on work, investment, and business would threaten growth and competitiveness. The Math Does Not Support a Tax-Hike-Only Strategy The most striking chart shows that

A new national poll released by the American Property Owners Alliance shows voters are ready for Congress to fix one of the most outdated parts of the tax code: the capital gains tax on home sales. The survey, conducted by OnMessage Public Strategies, found that 70% of voters oppose the current capital gains tax on home sales, including majorities across the political spectrum. The poll also found that 82% of Americans support adjusting the tax to account for inflation, with

Millions of Americans are paying taxes on gains they never chose to realize, and Congress has a clear opportunity to end this unfair treatment. The “Generating Retirement Ownership Through Long-Term Holding Act,” or “GROWTH Act,” H.R. 2089 and S. 1839, would fix one of the stranger features of the tax code by allowing mutual fund investors to defer taxes on reinvested capital gain distributions until they actually sell their shares. In a recent op-ed in The Hill , CFE Presid

Massachusetts taxpayers just received a costly reminder of why welfare reform cannot stop at writing bigger checks. According to Massachusetts Daily News , a new Fiscal Alliance Foundation study found that Massachusetts paid out more than $1 billion in improper SNAP payments between 2022 and 2024 while as many as 75% of able-bodied recipients were not working. That scale of waste should concern anyone who wants the safety net to work for the people who truly need it. Food sta

Social Security was created in 1935 as a hedge against “poverty-ridden old age.” That mission is hard to square with the system Washington runs now. A couple claiming the maximum benefit at age 70 can receive about $124,000 a year in Social Security, even as younger and generally poorer workers keep paying payroll taxes into a program projected to hit insolvency in 2032. That is not a focused safety net. It is a sign that Social Security has drifted far from its original purp

Affordability keeps getting worse in many states for a simple reason: government spending has grown far faster than taxpayers’ ability to support it. Vance Ginn recently pointed to a clear benchmark for fiscal discipline, and the numbers make the case. From 2016 to 2025, aggregate state spending excluding federal transfers rose 65.8%, while the sustainable benchmark of population growth plus inflation rose just 32.4%. That gap helps explain why so many states keep talking ab

The first filing season under the Working Families Tax Cuts is already showing what certainty and tax relief look like in practice. Families and businesses no longer have to guess whether key parts of the tax code will vanish after one more election cycle. The law made major tax relief permanent, and now millions of Americans are seeing the results in their returns, refunds, deductions, and long-term planning. According to new Treasury Department data, the first tax season un

Tax season is when tax policy stops being abstract. Small business owners see it in what they owe, what they can deduct, and how much they can reinvest in the future. That made the recent podcast featuring CFE President Ryan Ellis and Brian Reardon of the S-Corporation Association especially timely, as the two discussed how the Working Families Tax Cuts improved the tax code for small and family-owned businesses. The conversation focused on the parts of the law that do the m

Tax Day is one of the most dreaded days of the year. This year, it also came with a reminder of what Congress prevented. If the family and business tax relief enacted in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act had expired, American households would now be facing a broad and immediate tax increase. Instead, The Working Families Tax Cuts stopped what could have been one of the largest tax hikes in decades. What Congress Prevented Had that 2017 tax relief expired, taxpayers would have fa

Washington can project 3% real GDP growth for the next decade. That does not make it plausible. If the labor force is barely growing , the only way to hit that kind of sustained economic growth is to assume an extraordinary, long-running surge in productivity. That is not serious budgeting. It is wishcasting. The Trump budget leans on roughly 3% real GDP growth for years to come. But the economy does not grow by magic. Real growth comes from more workers, more output per work