Today the Cato Institute released the “Freedom in the 50 States” report for 2026. 

This revamped index consists of 97 policy measures over 10 categories sorted into either economic freedom or personal freedom. It assigns scores and letter grades to US states based on this general combined level of freedom. And, for the first time in the report’s history, this edition also scores and grades governors on how well or poorly they have advanced both economic and personal liberty in their states.

You can see the results here. And you can take a deep dive into the scores using the Data Dashboard and interactive maps. There’s plenty to see and analyze for yourself.

The project was over a year in the making. And when you spend that much time on a project, you usually accumulate plenty of insights. So you’ll be seeing more analysis from me based on the data in the index for Cato’s blog, in future policy reports, and elsewhere.

As my colleague Tad DeHaven announced here earlier this week, Cato just launched the Restoring Free Enterprise project to analyze the federal government’s growing and unprecedented ownership of private US companies and to propose ways to reverse this troubling trend. The United States’ new portfolio — now encompassing 35 different companies across a range of industries — raises numerous problems that the RFE project will document, and my latest Dispatch column covers what may be the most basic one: the complete lack of explicit legal authority to do any of these equity deals. 

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Eric Beinhocker, executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, and Nick Hanauer, a successful entrepreneur, give a preview of their forthcoming book, Market Humanism, in the detailed report, “Markets Built for Humans: Creating an Economy for People, Planet, and Democracy.” Their main argument is that “markets should be built to serve human flourishing, and when they are, they produce broader prosperity, stronger communities, and a healthier democracy.”.

In their view, neoliberalism or the “neoliberal consensus” includes “free market theories from neoliberal political economy, neoclassical economics, and libertarian philosophy” (“Markets Built for Humans,” p. 9). They argue that neoliberalism has failed and needs to be replaced by a new paradigm to improve economic well-being and social harmony. The authors blame the global financial crisis on failed markets rather than government failure; advocate for industrial and other activist policies (such as higher minimum wages) to empower workers; reject free trade in favor of managed trade, and propose a “middle-out” versus “trickle-down” theory of economic growth.

Today, the Cato Institute is launching Restoring Free Enterprise, a new project examining the federal government’s growing ownership and control of private companies and how to reverse it.

Washington’s expanding involvement in the businesses it regulates threatens the competition and innovation that underpin American prosperity. Our project will examine the consequences of that involvement and chart a path toward getting Washington out of the boardroom.

The site brings together several resources:

• An introduction by Scott Lincicome explaining the threats to American free enterprise posed by the government’s turn toward corporate ownership.
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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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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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On September 14, DC District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg ruled on the Cato Institute’s long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI—a case seeking the Bureau’s records about Cato itself. The opinion is mixed, though the court ruled against the Bureau on several points.

Boasberg rejected as “flimsy” the FBI’s claims that revealing the location of the Los Angeles Field Office’s Counterterrorism Division that investigated Cato (revealed in January 2025 in documents at issue in the lawsuit) would assist others in circumventing the law. 

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