Category: Policy

The Last Train to Somewhere: Chicago Has a Transit Problem. Illinois Has a Math Problem.

Posted on by cary

Chicago has always had a kinetic pulse. Stand at any Loop corner and you feel it: the steel skeleton of the L humming above, declaring that this city believes in motion. The tracks run not only through downtown corridors but through the city’s sense of itself. Chicagoans will tell you that you can navigate life Read More “The Last Train to Somewhere: Chicago Has a Transit Problem. Illinois Has a Math Problem.”

The Housing Program So Effective That Lawmakers Are Fighting Their Own Party to Save It

Posted on by cary

There are moments in Washington when the ideological theater goes quiet and something like common sense breaks through. This is one of them. Twenty-two House Republicans, led by Long Island Reps. Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota, have sent a draft letter to HUD Secretary Scott Turner with an unusual request: please do not disrupt the Read More “The Housing Program So Effective That Lawmakers Are Fighting Their Own Party to Save It”

Green Energy Won the Market. Ideology Won’t Let It Win the Narrative

Posted on by cary

There’s a peculiar dynamic at work in American energy policy right now, one that reveals something deeper about our political moment than mere partisanship. The facts themselves are straightforward enough. Seventeen of the twenty-two states drawing the highest share of their electricity from wind and solar now enjoy below-average retail power prices. Iowa generates nearly Read More “Green Energy Won the Market. Ideology Won’t Let It Win the Narrative”

The Heartland Pays the Price of Tariffs

Posted on by cary

On a quiet stretch of Indiana farmland, the combines should be humming. September is harvest season, when grain silos begin to fill and contracts with Chinese buyers typically bring relief to debt-laden families. Yet this year the bins stand conspicuously empty. China, once the world’s largest buyer of American soybeans, has turned off the spigot. Read More “The Heartland Pays the Price of Tariffs”

Tariffs, Turbulence, and a Tumbling Job Market

Posted on by cary

Eighteen months ago, I wrote about an economy trapped in perpetual limbo, like a plane hovering above the runway, promising a soft landing that never quite materialized. Back then, we had genuinely strong economic indicators that simply refused to translate into public confidence. The unemployment rate was low, wages were rising, consumer spending was robust, Read More “Tariffs, Turbulence, and a Tumbling Job Market”

The Battle Over Healthcare Insurance Subsidies

Posted on by cary

Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia is hardly the person you’d expect to be leading the charge to save Obamacare subsidies. A Republican, a Navy veteran, and a nurse practitioner representing one of the nation’s toughest swing districts, she has built a reputation as a team player in her caucus. But today, in her second term, Read More “The Battle Over Healthcare Insurance Subsidies”

Three Blueprints for Healing Rural America

Posted on by cary

The story of rural healthcare in America is always a story of distance. Distance between patients and providers. Distance between federal policy and local needs. Distance between what is possible and what is practiced. Two years ago, I examined three pioneering programs that sought to close these gaps through health literacy initiatives. Much has changed Read More “Three Blueprints for Healing Rural America”

Build It and They Will Come: Musk Just Bought the Sky

Posted on by cary

The plumbing of progress is always invisible until it becomes indispensable. When telegraph cables first crossed the Atlantic, they seemed like curiosities. Within a decade, no ship’s captain could afford to leave port without consulting the latest wire from London. The Suez Canal began as Ferdinand de Lesseps’ engineering fantasy. It ended as the jugular Read More “Build It and They Will Come: Musk Just Bought the Sky”