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2 weeks ago | 
aei.org | Tanner Nalley
Tariff day did not stabilize trade policy. It won’t stabilize until the tax cut is settled and possibly not until well into 2026, as the effects appear. Until President Trump can stick to a strategy, tariffs will keep shifting.
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3 weeks ago | 
aei.org | Kori Schake |Tanner Nalley
Today the Senate Armed Services Committee held a confirmation hearing for Lieutenant General Dan Caine, President Trump’s underqualified nominee to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump has publicly extolled that when they met, General Caine donned a MAGA hat and effused that he would give his life for Donald Trump. The only question that was going to matter for Caine’s confirmation was “Did you wear it and did you say it?” Senator Wicker asked it in the first round of questioning.
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3 weeks ago | 
aei.org | James Pethokoukis |Tanner Nalley
America’s electricity landscape is rapidly shifting. As Wall Street Journal economics commentator Greg Ip writes in a great new piece, “Economic Growth Now Depends on Electricity, Not Oil”: Americans have long equated energy security with oil. The country wanted as much as possible because of the havoc an interruption to supply — from wars, disasters and political convulsions — can cause. In coming years, though, energy security will mean electricity.
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4 weeks ago | 
aei.org | James Pethokoukis |Tanner Nalley
Here in the DOGE era, the specter of inefficient bureaucracy haunts many government agencies. Yet the Social Security Administration (SSA) offers a surprising counter-narrative—at least in parts. As civil servants go, those administering retirement benefits are a relatively efficient bunch, according to AEI scholar Mark Warshawsky, who until 2021 served as the agency’s deputy commissioner for retirement and disability policy.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Brent Orrell |Tanner Nalley
We appear to be approaching the break-out phase of artificial intelligence’s diffusion across the American economy. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, recent data from the University of Maryland’s AI job tracker finds that nearly 25 percent of tech job postings earlier this year mentioned AI skills. And it isn’t just the tech sector that’s hiring—finance, professional services, retail, and manufacturing are all on the hunt for staff who can help them integrate AI into their operations.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Matt Weidinger |Tanner Nalley
On March 20, President Donald Trump issued an executive order headlined as “stopping waste, fraud, and abuse by eliminating information silos.” The order directs federal agency heads to secure “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, data, software systems, and information technology systems,” while removing impediments to “the inter- or intra-agency sharing of unclassified information.” It also directs federal agency heads to ensure that “the Federal Government has...
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Samuel J. Abrams |Tanner Nalley
After attending a party celebrating the release of a friend’s book, I left feeling deeply saddened. It would seem that the whole reason why I became a professor—intellectual diversity and open and engaged dialogue—is long gone on our nation’s college and university campuses. Many of the attendees were older professors, some well-known and respected for the books they have written. The guests were overwhelmingly left-of-center and ideologically progressive.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Karlyn Bowman |Tanner Nalley
This is the fourth in a series of AEIdeas posts to celebrate Women’s History Month. The posts look at the progress women have made in different areas. As the world knows by now, Sunita Williams touched down after nine months in space. Among her many accomplishments, Williams, the Commander of the International Space Station, has walked more miles in space than any other female astronaut.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | James Pethokoukis |Tanner Nalley
When you think of the greatest innovation of the 21st century, what comes to mind? I would guess it might just be the smartphone and its ability to give us anywhere, anytime, high-speed access to the internet. And I wouldn’t disagree. What’s more, the value of smartphones should only increase going forward since they allow us to carry not just the stock of human knowledge in our pockets, but also powerful artificial intelligence as well.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Samuel J. Abrams |Tanner Nalley
Bans on cell phones in schools have become popular across the country and abroad. Adults should follow the school’s lead. Despite the cell phone’s profound impact on society, our mobile devices are damaging the public sphere and disconnecting us from each other. Without question, phones have given individuals more power to connect, compute, share, and consume than most could have imagined mere decades ago.
