Chile and Latin America’s Disposable Constitutions
Ian Vásquez Chile votes this Sunday on a proposed, new constitution. It is a far-left document that would undermine fundamental rights and impoverish the country. Chileans should reject it. My colleagues and I have discussed the Chilean success story under the current constitution, the political conditions that gave rise to a constitutional convention that began […]
Friday Feature: Teachers‐Turned‐Entrepreneurs
Colleen Hroncich A recurring theme of the Friday Feature is public school teachers who start their own alternative educational options—such as Deeper Root Academy, Safari Small School, Urban Cottage Educational Collaborative, and Valley Troubadours. A new report out of Florida, Leaving a Classroom But Starting a School, highlights the experiences of 10 former public school teachers who […]
Valid Grounds for Objections in the Electoral Count Reform Act
Andy Craig As Congress moves forward with the proposed Electoral Count Reform Act, there is broad, bipartisan consensus on the need to reform the ECA and how ECRA would go about doing so. Attention has therefore turned to a variety of technical drafting details that have been flagged for concern. At the recent Senate Rules […]
Cancelling Student Debt Could Inflate College Prices? Suddenly, People Don’t Like It
Neal McCluskey “Debt” is an unpleasant word, evoking an obligation that people can feel hangs over them. Given that, it would be no surprise if mass cancellation of federal student loans, as President Biden declared last week, had intuitive appeal to many people. Indeed, new polling from Cato’s Project on Public Opinion reveals just such […]
New NAEP Scores Show Drops in Reading and Math
Colleen Hroncich Pandemic schooling didn’t work for a lot of kids. While this is widely acknowledged, it helps to have data to back up the assumption. And now we have it, for 9-year-olds at least. Scores were released today for the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which is often called the nation’s report card. […]
Gorbachev’s Russia
David Boaz In 1990, after the liberation of Eastern Europe but while Mikhail Gorbachev was still in power in the Soviet Union, I visited Moscow and St. Petersburg as part of a Cato Institute conference. One evening at dinner I was seated next to a young Russian woman, a graduate student or young researcher. She told me she was studying […]
Chile’s Prosperity Is at Stake in Sunday’s Plebiscite
Daniel Raisbeck Chileans will head to the polls on Sunday to approve or reject a proposal for a new constitution, which The Economist has described as “a fiscally irresponsible left-wing wish list.” As I mention in my latest video for Reason, the new constitutional draft bans “job insecurity,” expands welfare programs, mandates gender parity in […]
New Poll: 76% of Americans Oppose Student Debt Cancellation if It Drives up the Price of College, 64% Oppose if It Raises Taxes
Emily Ekins Majorities oppose cancelling federal student debt if it raises their taxes, primarily benefits the wealthy, increases college prices, or causes more employers to require degrees. The Cato 2022 Student Debt Cancellation National Survey, a new national poll of 2,000 U.S. adults, finds 64% of Americans support the federal government forgiving up to $10,000 in federal […]
Housing Innovation Faces Many Barriers
Vanessa Brown Calder It is well understood that regulatory policy prohibits the private sector from producing enough housing to meet housing demand. Despite the obstacles, private industry continues to develop innovative strategies for meeting housing needs: for example, modular home manufacturers have expedited the home building process while managing to design aesthetically appealing homes at […]