On Friday morning (May 29), the United States Postal Service issued proposed mail voting rules in furtherance of President Trump’s second executive order on election administration (“Ensuring Citizenship Verification And Integrity In Federal Elections.”). That March 31, 2026, executive order faces multiple legal challenges, one of which it survived earlier this week because the judge ruled that the challenge was insufficiently ripe.

The proposed USPS rule envisions greatly expanded USPS involvement in mail voting. Previously, local election jurisdictions determined the eligibility of voters, kept lists of mail voters, designed the mail ballot packets, and simply used USPS as a reliable vendor for delivery and return. Under the proposed rules, however, the USPS will play a significant role in assessing validity of the mail ballot, finalizing the lists of mail voters, tracking each mail ballot, and designing the ballot envelope. Much of what the rule contemplates is already done by the vast majority of states and local jurisdictions. It just now adds a second layer of responsibilities for those actions. 

The proposed rule also asks USPS to step into some dicey territory. DMM 705.24.5 contemplates the USPS rejecting allegedly invalid returned mail ballots. Currently, the validity of each mail ballot packet is determined by state law implemented by the local jurisdiction. The proposed rule is concerningly vague on this front. What must USPS do if it rejects a mail ballot? Does it have to contact the voter? Does it have to contact the relevant election office? How quickly?

But the biggest question is, can USPS really shoulder this burden? The proposed rule does not apply to primaries (which is kind of weird) or UOCAVA voters (military and overseas). Even so, the general election is only five months away. And some states (e.g., Delaware and North Carolina) send out mail ballots 60 days ahead of Election Day. The proposed rule has a 30-day comment period, so it’s not even “go time” yet. That means USPS will have two months or less from when the rule goes into effect to when it needs to oversee its first mail ballots. 

That’s a lot. Count me as a skeptic. I don’t think the vote by mail infrastructure that states have cobbled together over many years can be reproduced in large part by the USPS in a matter of months.

Of course, all of this is moot if Trump’s executive order is eventually enjoined in relevant part.

Stay tuned. Never a dull moment in American election administration!

My recent piece in the Washington Post explained how people concerned about American workers’ declining share of national income should blame government policy—particularly labor regulation and the health insurance tax exclusion—for depressing wages by discouraging both employers from hiring/​firing and workers from changing jobs. Among the research I cited was a 2022 paper by NYU economist Niklas Engbom on the strong relationship between wage growth and labor market fluidity, which regulation stymies in places like Europe. Engbom just published an update of that paper with even more dramatic findings: Labor market fluidity has even broader effects than previously thought.

In his first paper from January 2022, Engbom analyzes 23 OECD economies between 1991 and 2015, broadly finding that those countries with higher labor market fluidity (“where job-to-job mobility is more common”) enjoy faster life-cycle wage growth. He also finds that various tax and regulatory policies tend to reduce labor market fluidity, thereby depressing wage growth in the economies at issue. That’s because a fluid labor market allows workers to sort into the positions that best employ their skills and encourages them to further develop those or new skills, boosting overall productivity. (See Figure 1 below, taken from the follow-up paper, for the graphical representation of this relationship.)

Engbom’s May 2026 update looks at worker-level data across individuals from 15 OECD countries, confirming his earlier finding that life-cycle wage growth is steeper in more fluid markets, but also demonstrating two additional, and important, findings.

First, the benefits of a fluid labor market do not solely accrue to job-switchers—even individuals in “continuing employment spells” experience faster wage growth in more fluid labor markets. Engbom offers two explanations for this result: human capital accumulation and employer competition for workers. In particular, workers in less rigid labor markets will see more job opportunities and thus have a stronger incentive to invest in their skills and make themselves better candidates. Their improvements increase their productivity and output—and, subsequently, their wages—even if they never leave their current job. At the same time, the heightened labor market fluidity pushes firms to raise pay to retain their employees who face lower barriers to switching jobs. 

Second, Engbom finds that labor market fluidity has important implications for early-career individuals. In a dynamic labor market, workers will not only choose to develop their skills in the chance of a better opportunity elsewhere, but also actively sort themselves into “high learning” positions that might further this opportunity. This increased sorting leads young professionals to experience higher early-career wage growth as they become more productive. Rigid labor markets, meanwhile, experience the opposite results.

To illustrate these findings, Engbom models the steep costs of job lock. Using individual-level panel data, he shows that moving from a low-fluidity labor market to a high-fluidity market increases life-cycle wage growth and per-worker output increases by around 20 percent and 40 percent, respectively (see Table 8 from the paper below for a breakdown of this result). These substantial increases demonstrate the acute harm of laws and regulations that reduce labor dynamism and, in turn, discourage human capital accumulation over time. In short, labor market fluidity doesn’t just offer better jobs but better careers. 

As I explained at the Post, the policy implications of Engbom’s research and related analyses are clear: by making workers more costly to employers or less willing and able to switch jobs, government policies ostensibly intended to “protect workers” are actively harming them and the economy overall. Policymakers legitimately concerned with American workers’ earnings and well-being should therefore focus on fixing these policies and enacting new ones that enhance workers’ autonomy and mobility. Too often these days, “pro-worker” policies are anything but.

The Supreme Court is soon expected to rule on the future of birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara. If the Court rules in favor of the Trump administration, birthright citizenship will be restricted. Not only is birthright citizenship enshrined in the United States Constitution by the 14th Amendment, but it has also greatly benefited the United States economy. 

A new peer-reviewed study in the Journal on Migration and Human Security, authored by researchers at Princeton University, Cornell University, and Notre Dame University, conservatively estimates the economic impact of birthright citizens’ incomes to be $7.7 trillion in 2024 USD. This means that the United States would be leaving trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk by restricting access to United States citizenship.

The president’s executive order on birthright citizenship not only bars citizenship to the children of unauthorized immigrants, but also to the children of parents on work (H‑1B, O‑1, etc.) and study-based visas (F‑1, M‑1, J‑1, etc.). Even without birthright citizenship, these children may eventually be eligible for US citizenship through other pathways, but granting these children United States citizenship at birth minimizes needless government red tape and boosts the economic productivity of children of immigrants and their parents by encouraging them to invest in their education and skills.

A child who is born a US citizen is a child who is incentivized to adopt American culture from birth. As United States citizens, they know they can live their entire lives in this country and make full use of American institutions. Birthright citizens are incentivized to invest in their human capital—to focus on their studies and to develop skills that will make them economically productive, tax-paying adults. 

If, instead, children of immigrants are born with only the citizenship of their parents’ country of origin, they will sense the risk that any investment in skills valuable to the US economy may be wasted if they are forced to leave. While some skills are transferable across economies, some are country-specific (e.g., language) or have lower returns abroad. Rather than focusing on their studies and fully embracing American culture, children of immigrants denied birthright citizenship may focus their energies on less productive activities. Why should they invest in their human capital if they are uncertain about their future in this country? 

Similarly, the parents of these children are incentivized to assimilate into the United States when their children are granted birthright citizenship. Even if the parents of birthright citizens do not gain a pathway to citizenship for themselves, they will be grateful for the opportunities United States citizenship provides their children. Parents will do everything they can to allow their children to succeed in this country, such as joining parent-teacher associations and encouraging their children to speak English and study for high-earning careers.

The value of granting citizenship to children of immigrants at birth is not speculative. Prior research by economists in the Journal of Law and Economics found that after reforms to its nationality law, the parents of birthright citizens in Germany were more likely to adopt their host country’s language and interact more with the local community. Birthright citizenship in the United States likewise promotes loyalty and assimilation from its beneficiaries and their families.

Restricting birthright citizenship would, instead of promoting civic-minded, economically productive new Americans, create an underclass of noncitizens who, even if eventually eligible for United States citizenship through other means, could be harmed by exclusion from public life during their formative years. Youth is when people form strong bonds with their communities and the nation and when key decisions are made about the formation of human capital, such as investments in skills. 

The Journal on Migration and Human Security study uses established econometric methods to estimate the economic impact of birthright citizens’ incomes between 1975 and 2074. The study relies on identifying the children of two unauthorized or temporary visa parents in the United States Census’ American Community Survey and supplementary data products. 

Since the study estimates the effect of birthright citizens who have two unauthorized or temporary visa parents, it underestimates the economic impact of birthright citizenship. It does not count the children born to mixed-status households. Nor does the study account for previous beneficiaries of birthright citizenship who emigrated, died, or were otherwise not accounted for in the latest census data. It measures incomes, so it does not account for the value of goods, inventions, businesses, and other economic value created by birthright citizens. For these reasons, the estimated $7.7 trillion economic impact, measured by birthright citizens’ income, is a conservative calculation.

Table 1 presents the number of birthright citizenship beneficiaries by state/​region of residence, and over time. Among current working-age beneficiaries, those born between 1960 and 2009, a majority live in the Western United States, with approximately 40 percent of them residing in California and an additional 18 percent in Texas. The geographical distribution of beneficiaries is expected to change. The number of working-age beneficiaries living in the American South and Midwest will more than double soon. These prime-age workers will help rustbelt cities turn around demographic decline in the Midwest and further grow metropolises in the South.

The labor force created by birthright citizenship is, and is expected to remain, predominantly skilled. The study estimates that approximately 69 percent of birthright citizens work or will work in occupations that require some college, and 14 percent of those employed in skilled occupations are estimated to be working in the healthcare industry. Birthright citizenship not only provides the United States with a boost to its labor force but also a boost to its skilled labor force. Even many beneficiaries employed in occupations not requiring a college education work in essential services that increase the productivity of the US workforce.

The economic contribution of birthright citizens is only expected to grow over time. Between 1975 and 1979, birthright citizens are estimated to have contributed approximately $2 billion in 2024 USD to the United States economy. Between 2025 and 2029, the economic impact of birthright citizens as measured by income is estimated at $438 billion in 2024 USD; a staggering 200-fold increase. The increase in economic impact is partly driven by a growing population of working-age birthright citizens, but also by improvements in education and skills. The economic impact of birthright citizenship beneficiaries is only expected to increase as birthright beneficiaries continue to invest in their human capital.

As my colleague David Bier has previously noted, second-generation Americans as a group have the greatest fiscal upside: at any given age, they make the highest net contribution to all levels of government. Birthright beneficiaries contribute to the United States economy, work in skilled and needed professions, revitalize cities, create businesses that employ United States citizens, and generate more than their fair share of taxes. 

Birthright citizenship has been a great economic benefit to the United States. Even if the Supreme Court rules that the federal government can restrict birthright citizenship, it would be an economically disastrous public policy decision that would leave the United States poorer. America should preserve its highly successful policy of birthright citizenship.

If you’ve driven in the Palmetto State, chances are the government watched you do it. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) oversees a vast network of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) throughout the state. SLED’s ALPR database is not a modest record-keeping tool but a comprehensive statewide surveillance. As of early 2025, this system was capturing nearly 150 million observations a year—99.8 percent have no connection to criminal activity.

SLED decides which agencies or officers may access it, on what terms searches may be conducted, and how long data is retained. Once given access, a user can search any full or partial license plate number and instantly retrieve a detailed location history of that vehicle—including the date, time, and place of every ALPR capture—potentially exposing sensitive information about a person’s religious beliefs, political affiliations, or medical care. What’s more, officers need not meet any evidentiary threshold before running a search.

The Appellants filed suit alleging that the Legislature’s broad delegation of power to SLED to collect records of people’s movements—and retain them for future review and inspection—violates the separation of powers, nondelegation doctrine, and South Carolina Administrative Procedures Act. However, the circuit court ruled in favor of SLED.

Cato filed an amicus brief urging the South Carolina Court of Appeals to reverse that decision. Surveillance technology does not stay within the boundaries its operators initially envision. Systems justified as tools for solving serious crimes end up being abused for routine enforcement, political monitoring—even personal vendettas. The history of law enforcement’s use of database technology is one of mission creep and misuse, enabled not only by bad actors but by the absence of meaningful external constraints. When an agency writes its own rules, conducts its own audits, and answers to no independent authority, the question is not whether distortions will follow, but only when.

Moreover, the circuit court’s rule would invite the warrantless deployment of still more technologies to surveil the public. ALPRs, military-grade drones, financial “audit trails,” and other means let the government monitor millions of people with ease, tracking movements, detecting faces, recording digital conversations, and then storing everything for later review. Left unchecked, such tools result in panopticon.

The Court of Appeals should foreclose a surveillance apparatus that silently records the movements of everyone in South Carolina who dares to venture onto a public street.

Speaking at a congressional hearing, Representative Warren Davidson (R‑OH) didn’t pull any punches when describing the Bank Secrecy Act. He said, “Over the decades, [the Bank Secrecy Act] has become a bloated surveillance machine demanding endless reports without delivering proportional results.”

Representative Davidson went on to point out that the Bank Secrecy Act’s “reporting thresholds have never been adjusted for inflation. $10,000, the initial threshold established in the 70s for [currency transaction reports], would be more than $80,000 today.”

Looking to the future, Representative Davidson also warned that central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are the next step in financial surveillance and financial control. 

He ended his opening remarks with a powerful message about the need for change:

If we truly want to stop money laundering by the criminals, scammers, and terrorists of this century, not the last, it’s time we change course. … Put simply, we can continue to pile up reports on lawful activity, or we can exchange volume for actionable intelligence. It’s time to make this trade.

The congressman is correct on all counts.

The Bank Secrecy Act is a bloated surveillance machine. It forced banks to file 28 million reports on their customers last year. The $10,000 has never been adjusted for inflation—meaning that more transactions get reported each year as the dollar loses value. And a CBDC would take this surveillance to the next level by giving governments access to your money by default. 

As Representative Davidson often says, freedom surrendered is rarely reclaimed. But the tide is turning. More people are recognizing, each day, just how bloated and ineffective the Bank Secrecy Act has become, and more are seeing CBDCs for what they are: surveillance tools. The question now is which of Davidson’s colleagues will step up and join the fight to defend financial freedom.

Memorial Drive in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is typically a picturesque landscape. Yet on the afternoon of May 11, that serenity was shattered when 46-year-old Tyler Brown opened fire on passing vehicles. By the time a state trooper and an armed civilian exchanged gunfire with Brown, ending the rampage, two people had been critically injured.

I know these streets intimately. I attended college and law school in neighboring Boston and worked at the Royal Sonesta Hotel, located in the immediate vicinity of where this harrowing scene unfolded. I’ve strolled that stretch of the Charles River waterfront countless times. While I remained free to navigate those streets with ease, Tyler Brown should not have been.

As a libertarian, my guiding principle is that the government ought to leave peaceful people to their own devices. But my perspective on the proper role of the criminal justice system often places me at odds with the prevailing narratives of both the right and the left.

The right’s tough on “crime” narrative collapses the distinction between violent crime and a government that seeks to enforce its own version of morality through heavy-handed policing. When policing is concentrated in specific zip codes, the resulting criminal history of a resident may reflect the frequency of law enforcement contact rather than a unique propensity for violence. This creates a feedback loop where past contact justifies future surveillance, regardless of the severity of the underlying conduct. 

Conversely, some on the left advocate for defunding the police and abolishing prisons. They subscribe to the utopian assumption that all societal ills can be cured through social welfare spending—failing to acknowledge that some individuals pose an existential danger to others. 

Ultimately, both frameworks struggle to address the nuance of human behavior. The former creates an expansive police state while the latter compromises community safety.

My view is different. As a dedicated advocate for criminal justice reform, I believe that the primary role of the criminal justice system should be to protect the public from dangerous individuals. Accordingly, we must dramatically reduce the size and scope of the criminal code to ensure the criminal justice system serves as a measure of last resort rather than a primary tool for managing societal ills. By narrowing this focus, we can significantly shrink the prison population. 

If an adult chooses to consume drugs, for example, the state has no business intervening. However, if someone is using in public and leaves needles behind in a public park where they pose a risk to kids or dogs, the state then has an obligation to step in.

Tyler Brown’s presence on Memorial Drive was a direct result of the system’s failure to adhere to this principle. In 2021, Brown pleaded guilty to eight counts, including armed assault with intent to murder and discharging a firearm at Boston Police officers in the city’s South End.

Despite the gravity of these crimes, the sentencing reflected a total lack of concern for community safety. The District Attorney requested 10 to 12 years—a recommendation that was arguably insufficient for someone willing to fire at human beings. The judge went even further, however, sentencing Brown to only 5 to 6 years at a time when Brown was already on probation for assault and battery with a knife and witness intimidation.

Sentencing an individual who shot at police officers to such a short stint behind bars represents a fundamental failure of the state’s duty to protect the public. Such leniency not only endangers the community but also provides ammunition to those advocating for the retention of an overreaching and bloated criminal code.

This phenomenon isn’t isolated to Massachusetts. Just steps from my Washington, DC, apartment, Marvin Urquhart, a beloved security guard at Wunder Garten, was brutally stabbed to death in the early morning hours of May 2. The suspect, 50-year-old Cardoza Sims, had previously pleaded guilty to murder. In both cases, the system treated a violent crime as something that could be negotiated away, rather than a clear signal that the individual was too dangerous to remain in society.

Serious reform requires a clear distinction. We must ensure that those who prove themselves a lethal threat are incapacitated for as long as necessary to protect the public. While declining crime statistics are often celebrated, they offer little consolation to the family of murder victims like Marvin Urquhart. The criminal justice system ought to concern itself with guaranteeing that people actually feel safe in their neighborhoods. 

A series of reports this week shows what happens when government equity stakes and, by extension, policymaking decisions are routed through the White House’s deal-making machine. State corporatist industrial policies start with grand promises but inevitably succumb to political favoritism. 

And at some point, the appropriate word becomes corruption.

That word has legal meanings, and I am not alleging facts beyond what has been reported. But corruption also has a plain English meaning: When government power is exercised through opaque, discretionary channels to confer private benefits, reward political proximity, and make access to the president’s circle a business asset, the word fits.

Vulcan Elements and Pete Navarro

As my colleague Clark Packard explained yesterday, Vulcan is a small North Carolina rare earth magnet startup backed by 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. About three months after 1789 took an undisclosed stake, the Trump administration announced a $670 million deal with the company in exchange for federal equity and warrant rights. 

When I wrote about the Vulcan deal in March, I acknowledged that Trump Jr.’s fund’s investment didn’t prove the administration’s deal was awarded because of it. The company, Trump Jr., and 1789 all denied any connection. But the optics were terrible, and the episode showed exactly why federal ownership stakes in private companies are so problematic. 

But Clark highlights a critical piece of new information: “Based on interviews and Defense Department records, ProPublica reported today that the push to fund Vulcan came directly from Peter Navarro, President Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing and a close friend of Trump Jr.” One Pentagon official said Vulcan was the only deal among dozens under consideration that a top aide to the president initiated. Another person involved in the deal said staff were pushed to move unusually fast, with the message: “The call came from the White House: We have to get this done.”

The Pentagon says “outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role” in its decisions. 

Fine—then the administration should prove it by releasing the full deal terms, the scoring and due diligence materials, the communications between the White House and the Pentagon, the decision timeline, and any conflict-of-interest reviews involving companies in which members of the president’s family have financial interests. Congressional Democrats have already demanded records and briefings on these equity deals; the administration has stonewalled them, and House Republicans have blocked a subpoena seeking Donald Trump Jr.’s testimony about Vulcan. 

Sure, Democrats smell political blood—because it’s there. Regardless, as is often the case, the GOP-controlled Congress appears more interested in covering up than uncovering. 

The Portfolio Continues to Grow

Nor is Vulcan the only government ownership deal with a Trump-family financial connection. Last week, the administration announced equity deals with nine quantum computing companies, including another company in which Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital invested, PsiQuantum.

And the number could grow: the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that the administration is discussing possible equity deals with drone companies, including Unusual Machines, where Trump Jr. is both an investor and advisory board member. 

Under policymaking by deal, once companies see that Washington isn’t just a regulator or customer but also a potential shareholder and protector, markets start asking, “Who has the right access?” rather than “Who has the best product?” Indeed, ProPublica quoted one mining executive seeking Pentagon money as saying, “It’s like any industry: A lot of what it is, is who you know.” Another quote should make every taxpayer cringe: “We’re hopeful you don’t need to be chums with Trump Jr. to get a project across.” 

That’s a patronage system, not American free enterprise. 

The rare earth and magnet sectors are a useful case study precisely because the underlying strategic issue is real. China’s subsidized, state-directed supply chain was built over decades, and there’s no quick or easy way around it. But in trying to counter China’s model, the US risks needlessly copying it, right down to government ownership and state control over private firms. 

As Clark notes, China dominates key parts of the rare-earth supply chain. Permanent magnets require rare earth elements such as neodymium, praseodymium, terbium, and dysprosium, according to a Department of Energy supply-chain report. And the hard part isn’t simply digging rocks out of the ground; it’s processing them from the mine to magnet-making. There are significant steps, each with its own bottlenecks. 

This reality should make policymakers more humble, not less.

Instead, the administration has been placing asymmetric bets with other people’s money. Bloomberg recently reported that the Pentagon has considered pulling back an $80 million conditional loan offer to ReElement Technologies, Vulcan’s primary supply chain partner, after officials raised concerns about ReElement’s ability to scale its technology and long-term revenue projections. The idea was for ReElement to produce rare earth oxides that Vulcan would use to manufacture magnets. Still, it’s an integrated supply chain solution that may just become an integrated problem for Vulcan, ReElement, and the White House.

And that’s exactly why this isn’t a job for political officials acting like venture capitalists. When the White House picks winners in a complex, technical industry, it distorts investment by steering capital toward politically favored firms and away from possibly better-positioned competitors or promising upstarts. It can also create national security risk by giving federal backing to companies that may not be ready or able to deliver. 

The broader rare earths picture is getting messier by the day. Last week, MP Materials filed a lawsuit against USA Rare Earth, accusing the company of stealing the technology that’s key to reducing the use of heavy rare earths in magnets. Prior to this, the administration finalized an equity deal with MP Materials and announced one with USA Rare Earths. Regardless of who’s right and wrong, the episode underscores the larger problem. When the government inserts itself directly into market competition, especially in a sector as complex as rare earths, it elevates certain firms to the status of national champions—leaving everyone else to deal with the unintended consequences.

The market distortion doesn’t stop with the companies in which the government takes an ownership stake. Reuters reported this week that mining companies are rushing toward US listings, with many explicitly pitching themselves around defense demand and Pentagon-linked funding. Investors understand what the administration is signaling, which shows why the administration’s ownership spree is corruptive even when a particular deal doesn’t violate criminal law. 

And it’s not limited to rare earths or drones.

The Art of the Deal?

Yesterday’s New York Times profile of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick describes an administration official wielding federal power in disturbingly aggressive ways, pressuring companies and foreign governments while pushing legal boundaries to drum up money that the president can tout (and embellish).

In one example, automakers reportedly felt misled after tariff-credit terms changed—costing Ford alone $1 billion in expected relief—but executives were reluctant to speak publicly because Lutnick maintained substantial influence over their business interests. The article also noted that “four tech industry executives said they had counseled colleagues against future meetings with the Commerce Department for fear that Mr. Lutnick would exhort them to give the government shares in their companies or make other concessions.”

That’s what governance by deal looks like, and it’s ugly—not to mention un-American. 

The same pattern has appeared across the administration’s deal-making agenda: the president’s personal investments overlapping with government decisions, a Pentagon investment apparatus that resembles a pseudo-sovereign wealth fund, and the creation of an “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that frankly reeks of corruption. And that’s just scratching the surface.

The administration says it is rebuilding American industry. What it is actually building is a system in which political access becomes a form of capital.