President Trump wants Congress to deliver both a $1.5 trillion defense budget and emergency funding for the Iran war this year. As the midterms loom, Congress shows no appetite to give the president what he wants. Members from both sides of the aisle continue to raise concerns about munitions shortages, the war’s objectives and expected length, and the effect on readiness for deterring China. 

In most areas of national security policy, Congress has ceded its powers and prerogatives to the president. But its most powerful card, control of the nation’s budget, remains intact and available. Through the power of the purse, Congress holds leverage to limit the president’s prosecution of the Iran war and course-correct the strategic trajectory of the United States. The time to play the ace is right now, before course correction is no longer an option.

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On October 4, Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2023), won the first round of the presidential election with 47 percent of the vote over current president Lula da Silva, who received 45 percent. Polls initially predicted that Da Silva would win. Yet Bolsonaro is now expected to win the October 25 runoff, as the rest of the candidates are ideologically closer to him than to Da Silva.

Violence and corruption are among Brazilians’ top concerns, and the Da Silva administration has made little or no progress on them. Security featured prominently over the course of the campaign, with police killings on the rise and a stubbornly high homicide rate of 20 per 100,000. The Banco Master scandal, in which a bank collapsed after selling allegedly fraudulent investments, also reached allies of Da Silva and Supreme Court justices and became a major theme. Before being elected in 2022, Da Silva himself had been jailed from 2018 to 2019 over corruption. He was released on a technicality but not exonerated from his crimes.

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Financial scams cost American consumers and businesses billions of dollars a year, so it’s good that Republican and Democratic legislators are taking notice. The House Financial Services Committee voted unanimously to advance H.R. 4936, the Taskforce for Recognizing and Averting Payment Scams Act, and the Senate is considering a similar bill. The bills would create a bipartisan task force to address payment scams. The task force would bring together federal agencies, banks, online platforms, telecommunications carriers, and other key players in developing coordinated approaches to stopping scams.

Scams are a real problem. But how do concerns about scams intersect with concerns about growing federal power, enforcement abuses, and overregulation?

Unlike regulations such as price controls, catching bad actors who cheat people strengthens markets. The goal is market-friendly, but the mechanisms might not be. Policymakers addressing a crisis may, for instance, create institutions, rules, or practices that erode liberty, markets, and individual rights. With this caveat in mind, I offer recommendations below that a new task force on scams should consider:

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The big news on September 30 was that the Fed’s Inspector General released its report on the Eccles building renovation project. That’s the project that, back in 2025, President Trump and Senator Tim Scott (R‑SC) used to bash Fed Chair Jerome Powell. They criticized him for cost overruns, but it was clearly a political move to pressure Powell because Trump wanted “lower interest rates.”

As my colleagues and I wrote at the time, the Fed’s interest rate target shouldn’t be set based on anyone’s whims or desires, even if that person is the president of the United States. Powell was put in an unprecedented position and was right to stand his ground, regardless of anything else.

Ultimately, Powell decided to remain on the Fed Board of Governors until the criminal investigation was “well and truly over.” And that’s exactly where Powell remains, even though the new chair, Kevin Warsh, is now in charge. But the IG’s report finds “no evidence of administrative misconduct and no grounds to refer anyone for criminal prosecution,” so it could signal the end of Powell’s Fed tenure. (And who wouldn’t want to read his memoirs?)

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For much of the past two years, the debate over noncitizen voting has started from one seemingly uncontroversial premise: federal law makes it illegal for a noncitizen to vote in a federal election.

Yesterday, October 1, a federal judge in Florida complicated that premise considerably.

In United States v. Cox, US District Judge David Leibowitz dismissed a federal prosecution of a noncitizen accused of knowingly voting in the 2020 general election. The surprising reason was not that the defendant was entitled to vote. Florida law prohibits noncitizens from voting, and Judge Leibowitz went out of his way to emphasize that Florida remains perfectly free to prohibit and punish the conduct alleged in the case. Rather, Judge Leibowitz concluded that Congress lacked constitutional authority to enact the particular federal prohibition at issue, 18 U.S.C. § 611. (Order at 1–2.) 

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Two more federal equity deals with private companies were announced in September. That brought the total figure in Cato’s tracker to 34 companies, almost triple the number at the start of the year. (See the full list of companies at the bottom.) 

Elmet Group, which went public earlier this year, is a Portland, Maine-based producer of tungsten and molybdenum materials used in a range of defense products, including missiles and submarines. On September 14, the Department of Defense (DOD) committed $450 million to the company, with $200 million paid at closing. A separate Defense Logistics Agency supply contract sets a $150 million minimum for purchases of tungsten materials for the National Defense Stockpile, with a $2 billion ceiling.

The Pentagon says the deal was made through the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program, working with the Economic Defense Unit (EDU). It’s important to note that the statute underpinning IBAS authorizes support for defense production and supply chains but does not expressly authorize the Pentagon to acquire equity stakes in private companies.

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In most areas of life, when something isn’t working, we look for a better option. In K–12 education, though, children are assigned to public schools based on where they live—and if that school isn’t a good fit, the child is generally seen as the problem. School choice is changing that by expanding access to alternative learning environments. But educational freedom changes lives only if parents and teachers know what options exist, which is why Cato’s Friday Feature highlights the schools, policies, and organizations bringing those choices within reach.

When Meghan Pileggi left the Marine Corps in 2020, she was ready for a change. A former comptroller and financial management officer who had spent time at the Pentagon and deployed overseas, she wanted more time with her children. She started homeschooling and loved it. Eventually, several factors inspired her to create a school. 

For starters, one of her children is autistic, and Meghan didn’t feel equipped to homeschool her. But Meghan also wasn’t comfortable with the options available in the local public schools. North Carolina’s school choice programs offered another possibility: scholarship funding could help her hire experts who could support her daughter’s needs. 

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