Blog
The week in regulations: Neck floats and glazed bus portals
President Trump opened a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. He also proposed capping credit card interest rates at 10 percent, effective January…
Blog
The week in regulations: Taconite and label shapes
President Trump deposed Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and embarked on a nation-building project. ICE agents killed an American citizen in Minnesota. Agencies issued new regulations…
Blog
Politicians need to think beyond stage one on credit card price controls
President Trump, in a Friday news dump on social media, proposed price controls on credit card interest rates. He wants to cap annual rates…
Blog
New CEI study: Zero-based regulations
A new CEI study by Alex Adams looks at a regulatory reform approach that succeeded in Idaho: zero-based regulation. The idea is similar to…
Blog
The week in regulations: 2025 year-end special
Happy New Year, everyone. The final numbers for 2025’s regulations are in. The first half of this post summarizes those numbers and compares them with…
Blog
Best books of 2025: Johan Norberg’s Peak Human
Johan Norberg’s latest book, Peak Human, is a history of golden ages. After starting in Ancient Greece and then Rome, Norberg tours the Abbasid…
Blog
The week in regulations: Neck floats and stablecoins
Unemployment went slightly up, and inflation went slightly down. President Trump gave a primetime speech, and earlier in the week commented on Rob Reiner and…
Blog
Time to end the Christmas tree tax
Fun holiday fact: the federal government has a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. It works a bit like a trade association does in the private…
Blog
The week in regulations: Fuel casks and water beads
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates. President Trump proposed $12 billion in giveaways to farmers harmed by his tariffs. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from…
Blog
The week in regulations: Cable television rates and estate sales
President Trump announced an easing of vehicle fuel economy standards. Netflix struck a deal to buy Warner Bros. and HBO. The Defense Secretary is in…
Blog
The week in regulations: From postal possession to foreign atomic energy
It was a four-day week due to Thanksgiving. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from postage pricing to non-endangered woodpeckers. On to the data: Agencies issued…
Blog
The week in regulations: Airport fees and pesticide fragrances
September’s jobs report came out after a shutdown-related delay. The FTC lost its antitrust case against Meta. Agencies issued new regulations ranging from postage pricing…
Blog
Shutdown lesson: Depend less on DC
The record-length shutdown showed how dependent many Americans are on Washington. This is one of the biggest flaws in the ongoing nationalization of politics. In…
Blog
The week in regulations, the final shutdown edition: Manifest mailing and broken trash incinerators
The federal shutdown is over. Since the Federal Register has a few days’ lag time for publishing agency documents, it will likely take until this…
Blog
Swiss trade deal could be a good start towards mutual recognition
Switzerland’s government announced today that it reached an agreement on a trade framework with the United States. America’s Liberation Day tariff rate on Swiss…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Medicare payments and arms trafficking.
The Supreme Court held oral hearings for the V.O.S. Spirits tariff case. Former Vice President Dick Cheney passed away. Democrats had a very good election…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Student loans and foreigners’ biometric data
President Trump announced a trade deal with China. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates. The continued federal shutdown meant another slow week in the Federal…
Blog
Rare earths and China: Choose deregulation, not price controls
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to implement price controls on unspecified goods if China continues to restrict rare earth mineral exports. Over at the…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Visa fees and regional haze
President Trump demanded that the Justice Department pay him $230 million. He also cut off all trade negotiations with Canada because of a tv commercial…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Mackerel and helicopters
The continuing shutdown made for another slow week in the Federal Register. The four-day week’s total of five proposed regulations, six proposed regulations, and 131…
Blog
A Nobel for human progress
This year’s economics Nobel Prize went to three students of the two most important questions in economics: Why have living standards in rich countries improved…
Blog
The week in regulations, shutdown edition: Pot gear and hot air fuel
Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize. The partial federal shutdown meant there were no proposed regulations and five new regulations…
Blog
The week in regulations: Poultry improvement and painful scars
The federal government shut down on Wednesday. Thursday’s Federal Register had 60 final regulations; normal is about 10. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth flew in hundreds…
Blog
The week in regulations: Airplane seats and Irish potatoes
President Trump signed an executive order to effectively end the H-1B visa category for high-skilled immigrants. He also raised tariffs on pharmaceuticals, argued without evidence…
Blog
New tariffs for pharmaceuticals, furniture, and trucks
On the night of September 25, after markets closed, the Trump administration announced on social media that a new bevy of tariffs will take…
Blog
The week in regulations: Sausage colors and patriotic education
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates. Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to prosecute hate speech. ABC pulled late night host Jimmy Kimmel off the air…
Blog
The week in regulations: Date taxes and manifest mailing
Political commentator Charlie Kirk was killed while speaking at an event. While the Producer Price Index went down in August, the Consumer Price Index climbed…
Blog
The week in regulations: Coachella air quality and yogurt vitamins
The Federal Register, which tracks daily regulatory activity, has become less transparent. Jobs numbers for August were disappointing and actually shrank in June for…
Blog
The week in regulations: Deepwater ports and ASCII relays
A court ruled President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs unconstitutional. The case now moves to the Supreme Court. Countries around the world stopped shipping parcels to…
Blog
The week in regulations: Bird hunting and food coloring
The Federal Register’s website became less transparent about rule counts and other data. President Trump threatened to send the military into a third city. The…