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About American Enterprise Institute

The American Enterprise Institute is a public policy think tank dedicated to defending human dignity, expanding human potential, and building a freer and safer world. The work of our scholars and staff advances ideas rooted in our belief in democracy, free enterprise, American strength and global leadership, solidarity with those at the periphery of our society, and a pluralistic, entrepreneurial culture.

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Abandoning Ukraine Now Will Shred America’s Global Credibility — and Highlight Short-Lived US Promises

Just how long is “as long as it takes?”

Unless the House of Representatives surprises us upon its return to Washington next week with a vote on the supplemental bill providing military assistance to Ukraine, we may soon know the answer: less than two years.

Adoption After Dobbs

On September 12, AEI’s Naomi Schaefer Riley and a panel of experts discussed the latest survey research on adoption and how policymakers and adoption agencies can help birth parents understand the current adoption landscape in a post-Dobbs world.

China’s Defense Budget Has Only One Trajectory: Up

Amid its ongoing military buildup, Beijing recently announced a 7.2 percent increase in its defense budget for 2024—reaching a new record. This plentiful military budget hike is the latest in a 20-year long streak of China’s hefty annual defense spending increases that far outpace America’s spending handcuffs, fits-and-starts, and delayed enactment of military spending.

Goodbye, San Francisco. Hello, Nashville. Americans Are Fleeing Dysfunctional Cities.

The pandemic exposed dysfunctional cities like San Francisco and New York. In the years since the initial covid lockdowns, “opportunity metros” between the coasts have flourished in the wake of this urban mismanagement.

How Important Are Minimum Wage Increases in Increasing the Wages of Minimum Wage Workers?

It is easy to overstate the minimum wage’s relevance as a source of low‐​wage workers’ wage gains.

How Mayor Eric Adams Wants Wealthy Donors to Save NYC: “All-Hands-on-Deck”

Can private philanthropy bail out New York City?

Late last year, Mayor Adams pleaded with wealthy New Yorkers to help fill the gaps in the City’s budget.

“This is . . . an all-hands-on-deck moment,” Adams said at a Police Athletic League luncheon. “I’m going to need you more than ever to support many of these organizations like PAL, Robin Hood Foundation, and others.”

Lawmakers Should Avoid Temporary and Retroactive Tax Policy

In this year’s extenders package, lawmakers are likely to address two tax provisions related to the treatment of business investment. They should avoid making these policies temporary and retroactive.

The post Lawmakers Should Avoid Temporary and Retroactive Tax Policy appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.

Let’s Stop Romanticizing the Cult of Protest

The current campus demonstrations are a reminder that of all the mossy clichés and puffed-up pieties of polite (and impolite) American discourse, the sanctity of protest is the hardest to question.

Doubting the loftiness of protest invites elite scorn more than any other skepticism about a constitutional right. Proposing limits on free speech, for example, attracts far less outrage. Indeed, people question free speech all the time: in debates about “hate speech,” campaign finance, social media, and more. (Let’s not even get into the fashionableness of questioning Second Amendment rights.)

Lives Cut Short: A Project to Document Child Maltreatment Fatalities

On May 2, AEI hosted the launch of Lives Cut Short, a project of AEI and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) dedicated to documenting child fatalities from maltreatment in the US and understanding the circumstances and policy failures that led to them.

Proven Results: Highlighting the Benefits of Charter Schools for Students and Families

In 2002, I became a fifth-grade teacher at the lowest-performing public school in the South Bronx, New York City’s lowest-performing school district. A mere 16 percent of PS 277 students could read at grade level. The first charter schools were just opening up in the neighborhood back then; there were virtually no alternatives to the schools that had failed children for decades.

Rethinking School Testing After the Pandemic

In the pandemic’s wake, we need good information on how students and schools are faring. But no one wants to sacrifice learning time or human connection in the name of endless test-taking. Here are three points to consider.

The post Rethinking School Testing After the Pandemic appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.

The (Federal) Benefits of Marriage

Reviewing Tim Carney’s new book Family Unfriendly, Robert VerBruggen cautions against going too far with aid to stay-at-home parents: “U.S. tax and entitlement policy is already quite favorable to breadwinner households — who generally receive a “marriage bonus” from the income-tax system and extra Social Security benefits to support the non-working spouse — and further reforms should bear these existing features in mind.”

The Awfulness of Elite Hypocrisy on Marriage

“Is it morally wrong to have a baby outside of marriage?”

The Economics and Implications of Compliance with Minimum Wages

Recent research suggests that wages below legally established minimum wages are surprisingly prevalent. This column reviews ‘wage theft’ in the US and its impact on the wage gains workers might otherwise enjoy. Most firms comply with increases in the minimum wage, especially when they have time to plan for the increase, but evasion and avoidance are also qualitatively important features of the low-wage labour market. Young African American workers experience the largest erosion of their potential wage gains following a minimum wage increase. Whether greater enforcement would improve the welfare of low-wage workers, however, remains an open question.

Whatever Happened to Biden’s Iran Policy?

Mere months into his new administration, U.S. President Joe Biden told a Rose Garden press conference that he was “pleased that Iran has continued to agree to engage in discussions, in direct discussions with us and with our partners on how we move forward and what is needed to allow us to move back” into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal. It was his clearest statement, as president, about the Iran policy he was committed to pursue.

White House Rescinds Student Loan Forgiveness for as Many as Four Million Borrowers

In a surprise move, the Biden administration limited eligibility for its previously announced student loan jubilee—potentially leaving up to four million borrowers expecting relief out to dry.

The post White House Rescinds Student Loan Forgiveness for as Many as Four Million Borrowers appeared first on American Enterprise Institute – AEI.

Why Putin’s Going Big With Nuke Threats — and Why We Need to Be Ready

Russian President Vladimir Putin lies.

With abandon, ecstatically.

“There are no Russian troops in Crimea!” he said as spetsnaz units were occupying the peninsula in March 2014.

“Russia will never start a war on Ukraine!” he repeated virtually up to the invasion two years ago.

Putin’s annual state-of-Russia address last week was no different. (Moscow is “not the one who started the war in Donbas,” the Kremlin’s master said.)

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