Democracy doesn’t collapse overnight. It erodes, step by step, pushed along by leaders who see rules as obstacles instead of… Read more
Category: Policy
The Last Train to Somewhere: Chicago Has a Transit Problem. Illinois Has a Math Problem.
Chicago has always had a kinetic pulse. Stand at any Loop corner and you feel it: the steel skeleton of… Read more
The Housing Program So Effective That Lawmakers Are Fighting Their Own Party to Save It
There are moments in Washington when the ideological theater goes quiet and something like common sense breaks through. This is… Read more
Green Energy Won the Market. Ideology Won’t Let It Win the Narrative
There’s a peculiar dynamic at work in American energy policy right now, one that reveals something deeper about our political… Read more
The Subversive Power of Sharing Books
One of the quiet pleasures of middle age is scanning your own bookshelf, not for something new, but for the… Read more
The Heartland Pays the Price of Tariffs
On a quiet stretch of Indiana farmland, the combines should be humming. September is harvest season, when grain silos begin… Read more
Tariffs, Turbulence, and a Tumbling Job Market
Eighteen months ago, I wrote about an economy trapped in perpetual limbo, like a plane hovering above the runway, promising… Read more
The Battle Over Healthcare Insurance Subsidies
Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia is hardly the person you’d expect to be leading the charge to save Obamacare subsidies…. Read more
Three Blueprints for Healing Rural America
The story of rural healthcare in America is always a story of distance. Distance between patients and providers. Distance between… Read more
Build It and They Will Come: Musk Just Bought the Sky
The plumbing of progress is always invisible until it becomes indispensable. When telegraph cables first crossed the Atlantic, they seemed… Read more