Congress is preparing to bail out the federal highway program once again without paying for it. According to a July 9 score by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the House Transportation Committee’s BUILD America 250 Act (BUILD) would add more than $147 billion (about $1,100 per household) to the already unsustainable national debt over five years, while violating the user-pays principle.

BUILD is a five-year highway bill that authorizes $474 billion for roads, mass transit, and other surface transportation programs from the Highway Trust Fund (HTF) for fiscal years (FYs) 2027 through 2031.

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Congress is vastly overspending, and federal debt is rising by $2 trillion a year. Without major spending reforms, the government is headed toward a financial crisis. But it is also true that even if the federal budget were balanced, many spending programs would continue undermining the economy because their costs outweigh their benefits. 

Such negative-value spending is the focus of my recent “Leaky Bucket” study with Ryan Bourne. We argue that the federal budget is riddled with wasteful “leaks.” The government scoops up trillions of dollars into its budget bucket, but many of them spill out due to inefficiencies and policy mistakes. The Trump administration has focused on reducing fraud, but that is only one type of leak from the federal budget bucket.

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My colleague Stephen Richer has already weighed in with observations on the New Jersey voter registration fiasco, in which a software error mistakenly registered roughly 6,600 persons to vote between June 12, 2023, and June 25, 2024, even though they had affirmed they were not US citizens. Of these, somewhat fewer than 400 later voted. 

So far as I am aware, this is by far the biggest instance of unlawful noncitizen voting in the US unearthed in the past generation, so it may matter that it seems to be widely agreed that the mistaken registration did not result from intentional misconduct by the persons added to the rolls, the state, or its software vendor. Damningly, however, when the error was found and the software fixed, the state “never notified affected residents or removed their names from the rolls,” according to the NYT account. Incoming Gov. Mikie Sherrill at a press conference called this “unacceptable.” That’s for sure. 

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Re: Opinion, “How to Fix Social Security, in Six Words” (July 22)

Kathryn Anne Edwards promises the best of both worlds in her plan to fix Social Security—higher taxes to satisfy liberals and government investment in the stock market to appeal to conservatives. Instead, her proposal would deliver the worst of both: it avoids the difficult but necessary task of slowing Social Security’s unsustainable spending growth while expanding the government’s role in both the economy and financial markets.

Eliminating the payroll tax cap would push top marginal labor income tax rates above 60 percent in many states. This would discourage work, investment in human capital, and innovation among America’s most highly skilled professionals. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19 of the 20 highest-paying occupations are medical professionals, including surgeons, radiologists, psychiatrists, and cardiologists, whose services Americans increasingly struggle to access.

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Federal regulations can cause significant changes for governance or sectors of the economy. Yet it is quite striking for a proposed rule to overhaul more than $1 trillion of annual spending.

On May 29, 2026, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put forward a proposed rule that would overhaul grantmaking across the federal government. The Federal Register received roughly 100,000 comments on the rule through the July 13 comment deadline, demonstrating substantial interest. The OMB will now review the comments before issuing a final rule, which would then be subject to congressional review for 60 in-session days under the Congressional Review Act.

Understanding the rule’s stated purpose and potential effects is important for anyone interested in public policy. More importantly, the rule emphasizes the amount of control that the federal government has accumulated. This centralization is unhealthy for governance and contrary to American ideals of freedom and autonomy.

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Burritos are at the center of an affordability debate. Podcaster Matt Walsh took to X on Monday to emphasize that grocery prices should be “The number one priority of every elected leader.” Turning Point USA’s Andrew Kolvet added one college student’s take on affordability: “A burrito shouldn’t cost $20.”

Podcast producer Joel Berry disagreed in the now-viral post that kicked off the debate. “Last night, my wife made homemade burritos for our family of 8 and it cost less than $20 total for everyone. I’m beginning to think the affordability crisis is really an ‘I don’t know how to cook’ crisis.” AEI’s Marc Thiessen weighed in, too, dismissing the whining of college kids about the cost of their DoorDash.

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The Senate Commerce Committee this week advanced several bills that would radically restrict free expression, innovation, and privacy online. Most policymakers sincerely believe these bills will keep kids safe online, but the bills are dangerous attacks on online speech. The committee took up measures on both online platforms and AI; this article focuses on the two bills aimed at social media, gaming, and communications platforms: the SCREEN Act and the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA). 

The SCREEN Act

The SCREEN Act won a 15–13 committee vote but was not reported out because too few senators were physically present to meet the quorum requirement, so we will likely see it again. It aims to keep minors from accessing pornography. But any platform hosting any potentially pornographic content must verify the age of all its users. The bill also targets virtual private network (VPN) users.

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