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Center of the American Experiment Issues Commentary: Minnesota Cannot Wait to Reform Child Care Licensing
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, April 11 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on April 10, 2026, by economist Martha Njolomole:* * *
Minnesota cannot wait to reform child care licensing
This article originally appeared in the Duluth News Tribune (https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/columns/statewide-view-minnesota-cannot-wait-to-reform-child-care-licensing) on April 8, 2026, and includes contributions from Edward Timmons (Archibridge Institute).
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Child care operates in a ... Show Full Article GOLDEN VALLEY, Minnesota, April 11 -- The Center of the American Experiment, a civic and educational organization that says it creates and advocates policies, issued the following commentary on April 10, 2026, by economist Martha Njolomole: * * * Minnesota cannot wait to reform child care licensing This article originally appeared in the Duluth News Tribune (https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/columns/statewide-view-minnesota-cannot-wait-to-reform-child-care-licensing) on April 8, 2026, and includes contributions from Edward Timmons (Archibridge Institute). * Child care operates in a"broken market," or so goes the popular explanation for its high costs and low wages. But the economics of child care are the same in South Dakota as in Minnesota, and yet parents in South Dakota spend less than half as much as their Minnesota counterparts on center care.
After adjusting for income differences, Minnesota ranked as the ninth least-affordable state in 2024, with day care costs for infants eating up 18% of the median family income. South Dakota was the country's most affordable state.
This difference alone should bolster legislative support for proposals by the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth, and Families, or DCYF, to loosen licensing rules and to make it easier for day care centers to hire staff.
Reflecting years of discussion among various stakeholders, the DCYF's proposed revisions are a chance to not only address what's truly ailing the child care industry -- overly strict regulations that restrict supply and raise prices -- but also move Minnesota away from the tax-and-spend approach that has characterized the Legislature in recent years.
In the State Childcare Regulations Index published this year by the Archbridge Institute, Minnesota ranked as the 10th-most-restrictive state nationwide. In the Midwest region, only Wisconsin, another high-cost state, maintains a more prohibitive regulatory climate. North Dakota and South Dakota both outperformed Minnesota on the index and on affordability, indicating a strong link between regulatory stringency and child care costs.
Indeed, a 2022 analysis by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that, "There is a negative relationship between child care affordability and the average child-to-staff ratio in each state." That is, states that allow a higher number of children per caregiver, spreading labor and overhead costs over more families, on average, see lower prices.
Published academic research (https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/econ_facpubs/934/) confirms this and estimates that states could lower costs for center-based infant care by up to $1,890, on average, by allowing an additional child per caregiver. Similarly, repealing rules that require a high school diploma for applicants could potentially reduce costs by up to $4,350 per infant. Compared to these reforms, DCYF is proposing much tamer changes.
If new rules are adopted, applicants for a center teacher position would still need a high-school diploma and some college-level education. But they would require significantly less work experience compared to the current state rules, which should expand the state's labor pool and make it easier for centers to find workers.
In 2024 alone, the DCYF issued more than 4,000 variances to allow centers to hire workers who did not meet Minnesota's hiring requirements. This indicates a structural mismatch between state rules and the qualifications of the applicant pool that is unlikely to be addressed by increased funding. It also suggests that some centers could be operating below capacity due to worker shortages, making reform urgent.
The length of training has no meaningful effect on quality. However, overly stringent requirements drive away day care centers from the market, pushing families into using lower-quality care or forcing mothers to exit the workforce entirely.
One published study (https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.101.5.1775) finds that an additional year of education for center directors potentially reduces the number of child care centers by up to 4%. These results were especially strong in poorer neighborhoods.
While positive interactions between teachers and children predict children's outcomes, achieving this level of care requires a much lower education threshold than Minnesota requires. A longtime child care researcher, David M. Blau, concluded in one of his studies that even one recent college course in early-childhood education was enough to improve quality.
Research also indicates that education beyond high school is all that is needed to reduce the incidence of accidents: Staffing ratios have little effect on child safety.
Taken together, academic research suggests that lawmakers can shorten training without jeopardizing the quality of child care. The state can instead utilize other avenues, such as preservice and annual training requirements, to expose teachers to early-childhood development.
The child care crisis is government-made. It is a result of stringent regulations that exacerbate worker shortages, restrict supply, and drive up costs for providers.
Amid mounting affordability challenges, reform cannot wait.
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Martha Njolomole is an Economist at Center of the American Experiment.
martha.njolomole@americanexperiment.org
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Original text here: https://www.americanexperiment.org/minnesota-cannot-wait-to-reform-child-care-licensing/
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Wall Street Journal: Battle Over Fort Sumter's Climate Sign
NEW YORK, April 10 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on April 9, 2026, by senior fellow Shawn Regan and legal policy fellow Jarrett Dieterle to the Wall Street Journal:* * *
The Battle over Fort Sumter's Climate Sign
Rising sea levels have made repairs to the historic site necessary. Some would rather fight global warming.
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The Trump administration has made headlines for removing signs in several national parks that reference climate change. One prominent removal occurred at Fort Sumter, the historic park in South Carolina where the opening shots of ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, April 10 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on April 9, 2026, by senior fellow Shawn Regan and legal policy fellow Jarrett Dieterle to the Wall Street Journal: * * * The Battle over Fort Sumter's Climate Sign Rising sea levels have made repairs to the historic site necessary. Some would rather fight global warming. * The Trump administration has made headlines for removing signs in several national parks that reference climate change. One prominent removal occurred at Fort Sumter, the historic park in South Carolina where the opening shots ofthe Civil War were fired in 1861. The sign had detailed changes to the fort's structure from rising sea levels.
The left has reacted as you would expect, interpreting the removals as an attack on science itself. But protecting sites like Fort Sumter shouldn't hinge on a political battle over climate change. Americans may disagree on the topic, but they share an interest in preserving national parks and historic landmarks. Instead of virtue signaling about the signage, policymakers should focus on building the funding mechanisms and policies needed to help parks adapt to environmental challenges, whatever their cause.
We already know how to protect Fort Sumter. Exposure to saltwater has made repairs to its brick walls necessary. Its surrounding sea walls need reinforcement. The National Park Service estimates more than $100 million are needed for maintenance and repairs at Fort Sumter and the nearby Fort Moultrie complex, much of it tied to stabilizing historic structures.
Continue reading the entire piece here at The Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/the-battle-over-fort-sumters-climate-sign-4aba58f0?mod=free-expression_lead_pos1)
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Shawn Regan is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. C. Jarrett Dieterle is a legal policy fellow for the Manhattan Institute.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/the-battle-over-fort-sumters-climate-sign
[Category: ThinkTank]
Manhattan Institute Issues Commentary to Wall Street Journal: Artemis II Is Important Step Toward Returning Astronauts to Lunar Surface
NEW YORK, April 10 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on April 9, 2026, by senior fellow James B. Meigs to the Wall Street Journal:* * *
Shoot for the Moon
Artemis II is an important step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface.
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Three enormous parachutes will open over the Pacific Ocean on April 10 and, God willing, bring the Artemis II mission's Orion capsule to a gentle but historic splashdown. No vehicle has ever carried humans so far from home. When the hatch opens, the mission's four crew members will emerge as celebrities, the kind of ... Show Full Article NEW YORK, April 10 -- The Manhattan Institute issued the following excerpts of a commentary on April 9, 2026, by senior fellow James B. Meigs to the Wall Street Journal: * * * Shoot for the Moon Artemis II is an important step toward returning astronauts to the lunar surface. * Three enormous parachutes will open over the Pacific Ocean on April 10 and, God willing, bring the Artemis II mission's Orion capsule to a gentle but historic splashdown. No vehicle has ever carried humans so far from home. When the hatch opens, the mission's four crew members will emerge as celebrities, the kind ofcelebrities the world needs today.
Commander Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, NASA astronaut Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen will be feted as heroes. And for good reason. Their mission required real skill, years of training, and, let's face it, enormous courage. Artemis II was essentially a test flight, the first crewed mission flying the massive Space Launch System rocket and Orion space vehicle. Both rocket and capsule have faced serious safety issues on the long road to this flight. A safe return wasn't guaranteed. Indeed, the spacecraft must still endure the blistering re-entry into Earth's atmosphere, when the capsule's heat shield will reach temperatures of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/free-expression/shoot-for-the-moon-7322a4dd?mod=author_content_page_1_pos_1)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.
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Original text here: https://manhattan.institute/article/shoot-for-the-moon
[Category: ThinkTank]
Capital Research Center Issues Commentary: What is a Labor Union, and Why Does That Question Matter?
WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on April 9, 2026, by Michael Watson, research director and managing editor for InfluenceWatch:* * *
What is a labor union, and why does that question matter?
Organized labor is, for long-standing and irreversible institutional reasons, left-progressive, even if the American working man (or woman) is not.
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What is a labor union?
The question is deceptively simple. A labor union is a representative organization of workers, if not "the working class." A labor union is a political advocacy group, especially ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Capital Research Center issued the following commentary on April 9, 2026, by Michael Watson, research director and managing editor for InfluenceWatch: * * * What is a labor union, and why does that question matter? Organized labor is, for long-standing and irreversible institutional reasons, left-progressive, even if the American working man (or woman) is not. * What is a labor union? The question is deceptively simple. A labor union is a representative organization of workers, if not "the working class." A labor union is a political advocacy group, especiallyone for government workers like public school teachers. A labor union is a social organization of working families.
And those deceptively simple answers all carry a share of the truth, but do not--even together--tell the full story. But back in the middle of the 20th century, perhaps in 1955, when the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations federations of labor unions merged into the modern AFL-CIO, one would not need to ask the question and even the off-hand answers would be more complete.
After all, just about every person, certainly every person with an interest in politics and public policy, would be familiar with labor unions and trade unionism. Roughly one-third of America's 51 million nonagricultural workers--over 16 million people--were members of labor unions, and the vast majority of those workers worked in private industries, many of which--like Detroit's auto factories, Pittsburgh's steel foundries, and Los Angeles's aircraft assembly plants--were on the cutting edge of the American economy.
Even if an adult worker were not himself a union member, he was likely very familiar with labor unionism. Perhaps a family member or friend would be one of the one-in-three. If not, at least one church elder, fellow member of a fraternal social club like the Elks or Moose, or comrade from military service or a veterans' society would have been. And if somehow none of that man's close acquaintances were union workers, he would still in his business have dealt extensively with unionized workplaces, likely experiencing union hostility to American enterprise firsthand.
But today, only one in sixteen or so private-sector workers are union members. It is unlikely that one of today's workers is a union member himself, unless he works for state or local government. It becomes even less likely if that worker lives outside the West Coast (including Alaska and Hawaii), the Acela Corridor, or Greater Chicago, three of the areas that retain relatively high unionized shares. Today's labor unionist is unlikely to be a factory-line worker, housebuilder, or trucker, and far more likely to be a public schoolteacher, Department of Motor Vehicles clerk, or even a graduate student.
The labor union leaders of the past--men like the AFL-CIO's George Meany, the United Auto Workers' Walter Reuther, or the Teamsters' Jimmy Hoffa--had a plausible claim to speak for the American working class. Their members constituted a large chunk of the workforce, and their members worked in the industrial occupations driving mid-century economic growth.
Today's union bosses are largely anonymous except to politicos, and the "working class" they claim to represent and the often non-working class they do represent are very different. The AFL-CIO's Liz Shuler, the SEIU's April Verrett, and the NEA's Becky Pringle are largely unknown, except when conservative activists clip their more radical or emphatic statements and share them online.
They still pretend to speak for American workers as a class; indeed, they insist that only evil Republicans stand in the way of every single American worker joining their cause. But today's union members are not, largely, the men powering the engines of economic growth by the sweat of their brows. Instead, they are a self-selected group of ideologically compliant left-wing special interest factions, a majority of whom either work directly for the government or work for nominally private employers utterly dependent on Big Government for their revenues like Medicaid-dependent hospitals, "private" universities dependent on federal research grants and student loans, and casinos that exist at the sufferance of municipal and state legislatures.
The "Long Decline" in union membership tells the story. Today's union members number 14.6 million, almost 1.5 million fewer than Meany, Reuther, and Hoffa commanded three-quarters of a century ago. Meanwhile, today's labor force has over 100 million more workers than the mid-20th century. As its membership has fallen and shifted from the broad economy to historically bound slivers of mass employment (like the decreasingly important Detroit Three automakers), specialized occupations whose industries are designed with collective bargaining in mind (like actors, airline pilots, and professional athletes), and government workers who are often ideologically committed to social and economic Everything Leftism, organized labor increasingly radicalized to the socialist left. Moderating workers have left unionism, and its activist cadres were formed in socialist and other leftist activism.
Today, some argue that the solution to the American worker's ills is more power for Shuler, Verrett, and Pringle; the leftist cadres they employ; and the rump labor unions they command. They are wrong. Conservative efforts to limit union power have been an eight-decade success, promoting freedom in political association, public accountability, and economic stability through labor peace.
Those who seek to empower Shuler, Verrett, and Pringle play on the entirely understandable ignorance of organized labor among Americans, especially right-leaning Americans. This project seeks to give readers the answer to the question "What is a labor union," and to inoculate them against manipulation and political-economic error.
What labor unions are
...unionists have argued since the origins of trade unionism that workers must form a united class interest opposed to employers ("capitalists" in the Marxist phrasing) or the employers would trample them underfoot and reduce workers to de facto slavery.
At the simplest, economist's toy-model level, a labor union is a group of workers who have elected to "collectively bargain" with their employer. Instead of pursuing their individual workplace interests, the workers in a union agree on wages, hours, and working conditions to cover them all in a set contract, known as a "collective bargaining agreement" (CBA). Under American law, that CBA covers workers whether or not they wished to give up their independence to bargain collectively themselves, and it covers them whether or not they joined the union after its establishment.
Collective bargaining is designed to be adversarial and fundamentally zero-sum; "more" for the workers is expected to mean "less" for the employer, and vice versa. There is no pretension or attempt to secure mutually beneficial growth (an "expanding pie"), and rhetoric during negotiations invokes armed combat between workers and managers as a matter of course. Historically, the combat was often literal rather than rhetorical, on both sides.
Today, the typical final weapon in collective bargaining is the work stoppage--if called by the union, a strike; if called by management, a lockout. Professional sports fans will be unusually familiar with lockouts; for practical reasons, legal protections given to locked-out workers against replacement that mainstream businesses try to avoid don't matter to sports team owners or leagues when disputing with professional athletes or sports officials.
The striking (or locked-out) workers make a bet that the employer will lose enough revenue that he will have to give in to their demands to reopen his business and resume production. The shut-down employer bets that workers will have to take what he has offered and no more because they need their paychecks. Both sides are damaged by the stoppage, which disrupts the normal functioning of the workplace. The employer can try to reduce the damage by hiring replacement workers (subject to legal regulations), and the workers can try to supplement their pay with outside work, but the loss to the public and the economy remains.
Workers who do not support the union's collective bargaining agenda or its strike strategy are essentially out of luck, and that can be a serious infringement on their expressive rights when that agenda focuses on non-economic matters like immigration policy, LGBT interests, or even foreign affairs.
Major labor unions represent many "bargaining units"--the wonky term for groups of workers who participate in collective bargaining with an employer--or very large bargaining units with thousands of participants. There are ideological and practical reasons for unions being organized this way.
Ideologically, unionists have argued since the origins of trade unionism that workers must form a united class interest opposed to employers ("capitalists" in the Marxist phrasing) or the employers would trample them underfoot and reduce workers to de facto slavery. From that perspective, all consolidation of worker interests into a larger organization -- "one big union" -- is good. That an ideologically formed, socialist vanguard would lead the "one big union" was taken as read.
More practically, CBAs are negotiated for a period of years (typically three to five) and require less effort to enforce than to agree. This would leave one-unit unions with little to do in most years and big wind-up efforts in negotiation years. Instead, unions (typically organized geographically, hence "union local") pool resources of multiple bargaining units into a single union representing multiple groups of employees in the same occupation, profession, or industry.
These unions form regional and national associations to coordinate regional and national collective bargaining strategies and political activities. The largest associations are the national labor federations, of which there is as of 2026 only one, the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations, almost always referred to by its initialism, AFL-CIO. The AFL-CIO is a membership association of national labor unions, and most are members. Not all major unions are; the National Education Association (NEA) and International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) are prominent "independent" unions that, while aligned with Democrats politically and with the AFL-CIO on most discrete issues, are not AFL-CIO members at the national level.
How unions function
...unions frequently demand (and, because such programs are cheap compared to actual pay and benefits, often receive) mandatory left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings for staff...
With any interest group in public policy, the first question that many ask is "Who funds that?" In the case of organized labor, the answer is "the members of the union, mostly." The largest share of union revenues, both for government-worker and private-sector bargaining units, is membership dues. Strictly speaking, "dues" are the regular, usually per-pay-period or monthly, assessed charges to remain a union member in "good standing" with the power to vote for union officers and to vote on approving a negotiated contract. Typical union dues are one or two percent of gross pay.
Unions also levy large fees on union members, including initiation fees and special assessments. Unions have the power to fine union members for offenses against the union's interest. Unions that operate electoral advocacy committees, which includes the major national unions and the AFL-CIO federation, collect additional "separate segregated" political contributions from members, which are legally required to be voluntary.
Most controversial are "agency fees," better known (especially among conservatives) as "forced dues." In 24 states, unions may require employers to agree to a so-called "union security clause" that requires workers who do not wish to be union members to pay a portion of union dues, the extent of which is dictated by Supreme Court precedent. The remaining 26 states have a "right to work" law that prohibits enforcing these contract clauses, allowing dissenting non-union-members not to pay for collective representation that they would prefer to reject (but cannot, because unions demand exclusive representation power regardless of the presence of an enforceable security clause).
Unions spend the money they collect on numerous programs. Some is lost to overhead and administration--keeping the staff paid, the account books kept, and the office lights on. Some is spent on contributions to charitable causes and social funds, continuing unions' tradition of being fraternal-style organizations for their members. And the majority of the typical local union's expenses go toward collective-bargaining-related expenses, such as negotiating and administering contracts and recruiting new workers and new bargaining units into the unions.
But a substantial proportion of regional, national, and federation-level union expenditures go toward political activities and lobbying. Unions are treated by the IRS as 501(c)(5) organizations alongside local farm bureaus, with the attendant exemption from corporate income tax. Unlike charities but like social-welfare groups (501(c)(4) organizations), unions may directly intervene in elections under tax regulations, and they routinely endorse candidates for offices at all levels of government--almost without exception Democrats or, in jurisdictions where the Democratic Party is too weak to form governments, centrists or Republicans otherwise weakly tied to conservatism or the broader GOP.
Once union-friendly candidates who owe their positions to Big Labor's favor are elected to office, labor unions spend dues revenues to lobby those candidates. Often the subjects are core socialist economic policy: higher minimum-wage and other employer mandates, increased spending on welfare programs, greater powers for labor unions over business operations, and forced dues-collection powers. But the subjects of lobbying also include non-economic-core issues, including immigration (unions are anti-anti-open borders, as a general rule), LGBT interests (unions are almost without exception completely committed to maximalist transgender recognition), and abortion (unions frequently demand employers to pay for abortion under health insurance programs, and support abortion access policies).
Conservatives make a frequent error in their internal model of how unions lobby and for what they advocate. Many treat national labor unions as if they were simply special interest groups, like the National Rifle Association or Planned Parenthood, which will prioritize their single interest over coalition politics if forced. Unions may be perceived to have a "single interest" in employment levels and compensation in the represented industry, but they do not function as single-interest groups. Across represented industries and economic sectors, with rare exceptions often involving police and other law-enforcement unions, labor unions align with not just the mainstream of the Democratic Party but the bleeding edge of the progressive movement.
In collective bargaining, unions frequently demand (and, because such programs are cheap compared to actual pay and benefits, often receive) mandatory left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) trainings for staff. Some even demand that DEI considerations be taken in business-operations decisions; Minneapolis's teachers union demanded and was given contract language that layoffs should be conducted on the basis of race, which drew a lawsuit by the second Trump administration against the school system.
Unions and Everything Leftism
...union members make up only six percent of the private workforce, and even those numbers are padded out by "para-statal" workers -- workers whose employer is nominally not the government, but whose employer depends on Big Government...
There are a few reasons that explain organized labor's commitment to "Everything Leftism," the contemporary progressive issue-set and institutional structure that holds that all left-wing issue positions are mutually dependent on one another.
First, there is--as is often an explanation for labor unions acting oddly--the Long Decline in union membership. When union members were one-third of the workforce and largely in the private sector, their sheer numbers made organized labor an independent institutional force in American politics. Their power might best be demonstrated by the notation that accompanied the entry for Lane Kirkland, then number-two at the AFL-CIO, on Richard Nixon's list of political enemies: "but we must deal with him."
But today, union members make up only six percent of the private workforce, and even those numbers are padded out by "para-statal" workers -- workers whose employer is nominally not the government, but whose employer depends on Big Government for its continued existence. See, for a clear example, New York state's hospital system--while the hospitals are nominally privately operated, their revenues rely on Medicaid and other government programs, and the labor unions representing their workers know it. With smaller numbers padded out by legions of government workers, unions cannot stand independent of the rest of the liberal-left-progressive coalition.
The second principal reason for union Everything Leftism looks to leadership and staff cadres. Being a "union boss"--the derisive term for union officers and business managers (the de-facto CEOs of construction and other manual-labor unions) who get fat on big pay packages and domineer over the tradesmen they nominally represent--is a good job for a college-educated professional, not a lucrative one. Six-figure salaries for union leaders are fairly common; Department of Labor records show over 1,000 union officers and over 3,000 union employees made at least $100,000 in gross salary in unions' 2025 fiscal years, with Brent Booker, general president of the Laborers International Union (LIUNA), topping the single-source-union table for ordinary labor unions (that is, excluding professional athletes' unions) with a salary of $672,500.
Six hundred seventy-two thousand dollars is a lot of money. It is also not a lot of money compared to what a CEO could make in private industry, where seven-or-more-figure salaries are the province of more than professional athletes. (The grand champion salary-taker in 2025 among union employees was Tony Clark, a former Major League Baseball first baseman who took home over $3.5 million running the MLB players' union.) That means that union leadership has functionally two "pots" of people who might be interested in rising to the very top of the union pyramid.
The first group are crooks, nepotists, and other purveyors of public sleaze. (Among whom we may allegedly count Tony Clark, who resigned his union office in early 2026 amid a wide-ranging investigation into the MLB players' union's administrative and financial practices.) Unions' positions at critical nodes of the economy, especially transportation, warehousing, and shipping, create powerful stress points where a dishonest union officer can extract kickbacks, steal from members' dues and pension contributions, or use the threat of labor disruption to collect protection money from businesses.
But not all--indeed, thanks to aggressive federal law enforcement against organized crime since the 1970s, almost assuredly not most--union officers are corrupt. So that leaves committed ideologues, those willing to take what amounts to a pay cut relative to selling out to high-flying consultancies like McKinsey, Big-Law firms like Boies Schiller, or political consultancies like BerlinRosen, to hoist the flag of the vanguard of the proletariat. There is a historical pattern of "bent unions" run by crooks or near-crooks being supplanted by "red unions" run by ideological leftists of a sometimes-outright-Communist alignment. In recent years, the rise of Shawn Fain to the leadership of the United Auto Workers followed this model; a leftist radical, he won election following a federally enforced regime change at the UAW that sent two former national union presidents to prison for taking kickbacks from employers.
The networks linking ideological progressivism and organized labor stretch down the ranks of union staff to line organizers and representational attorneys. In 2019, approaching the height of ESG-woke social liberal coercion by major businesses, a reader of Christian-conservative writer Rod Dreher said to be in a position to know responded to some unionism-curious mutterings on the right with a warning:
My perspective is very different than that of your conservative SEIU-member friend. The political departments of unions tend to be the 'wokest' spaces in left-of-center politics. There seems to be a pretty massive generational divide, as there is with anything these days, and the 20- and 30-somethings who staff these jobs tend to be further to the left than people who work for Democratic candidates and committees. There's definitely a lot of cross pollination between the two worlds (after all, unions are effectively an auxiliary of the Democratic Party, perhaps now than ever before), but at D.C. headquarters of any union, you'll find a subset of true-believers who want to smash capitalism and re-engineer society in a way that the average party hack generally does not.
...
When it comes to the type of protection your friend is looking for, I basically see unions coming to the same fork in the road that the ACLU has faced in recent years as younger activists challenge its free speech fundamentalism (see this memo that got a lot of attention last year). A healthy labor movement should see a place for someone like a religious civil servant who's on the wrong side of a coercive, lefty manager, but I don't think my old colleagues see it that way. The optimist's retort is that things are much better in the locals than the D.C. milieu, but I'm not so sure that's true, especially in public sector unions.
Major figures in social liberalism, not just economic liberalism, got their start in union-related activism. Cecile Richards, the late nepo baby (daughter of Texas's most recent Democratic governor as of 2026) longtime former head of Planned Parenthood, was an organizer for the SEIU. Vicki Saporta, leader of the National Abortion Federation from 1995 through 2018, was a Teamsters Union alumna. Patrick Gaspard, former head of George Soros's philanthropic empire and former head of the Democratic Party establishment think tank Center for American Progress, made his name in politics at the union representing New York's para-statal hospital workers (1199SEIU).
These are merely the most prominent cases. Across left-of-center activism, union activity (and union-adjacent activity) is a resume builder and key source of activist employment. Government-sector unions, especially teachers' unions, are intimately tied to state and local-level Democratic parties and liberal state and local governments; it is often the case that the state teachers' union office is one of if not the closest interest group headquarters to the state capitol building.
Responding to labor unions as they are
In a forthcoming book-length project, I, other researchers from Capital Research Center, and allies from across the conservative movement will survey the causes and consequences of the alliance between organized labor and Everything Leftism.
Activists like Liz Shuler, April Verrett, and Becky Pringle who run America's labor unions face a continued slide into irrelevance as a forcing mechanism for broad, Everything Leftist change. In response, they have sought to expand the powers the government at all levels gives them to compel workers to support their agendas both with money and with public action.
In this, they have support from a faction of supposed conservatives backed by a major institutional left-of-center funder. The Hewlett Foundation, which has a longstanding program to oppose capitalism and close ties to alumnae of the Biden administration, has funded a network of political operatives and think tankers through American Compass to support expanding Shuler, Verrett, and Pringle's power. The Hewlett money men and money women have very good reason to do this: they are fully aware that empowering organized labor advances their entire agenda, which promotes radical environmentalism, expansive abortion access, and Black Lives Matter-style racial agitation.
To the extent these nominal conservatives are not simply pay-for-play cases or politicos looking for an angle for promotion, their errors derive from a desire to help American workers. Specifically, they derive from a desire to help the people whom they believe still make up organized labor: salt-of-the-earth, 9-to-5 men (as in males) hoping to raise their 2.2 kids while their wives work or don't work as they prefer. They contend, based on decades of organized-labor propaganda ritually repeated by the media, that union-boss power made the 1950s America they remember (despite not having lived through it). And therefore they hope to, in the Roman-inscription misspelling, "RETVRN" to the political economy of rose-tinted memories of a past that was not as clean as the AI-slop postcards pretend.
But one need not follow the path of those who fail to know that they are serving their political adversaries. In a forthcoming book-length project, I, other researchers from Capital Research Center, and allies from across the conservative movement will survey the causes and consequences of the alliance between organized labor and Everything Leftism. I will survey the historical development of American labor unions and governmental policy toward them, demonstrating the consistency and thoroughness of unions' allegiance to the progressive cause over the first two centuries of industrial America. We will examine how the labor movement is integrated into the broader Everything Leftist institutional structure, including its alumni networks, its connection to donor collectives like the Democracy Alliance and Arabella Advisors/Sunflower Services, its direct influence on elections, and the union-controlled official banker to the Democratic Party, Amalgamated Bank of New York. We will examine the effects these connections and integrated networks have on policies, including labor and employment, state budgets, health care finance and government control, education, energy and environmental regulation, social issues, and foreign relations including immigration.
At the conclusion of the survey, we will have demonstrated, as I hope I have begun to do here, that organized labor is, for long-standing and irreversible institutional reasons, left-progressive, even if the American working man (or woman) is not. Then we will look forward, to determine what policies might actually improve the situation of working Americans as they are today, not as mythology says they were a lifetime ago.
For eighty years since the passage of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, the best policies have followed a three-pronged approach. They have granted or protected workers' rights to refrain from participating in unions' highly politicized activities, subjected unions to public scrutiny as the price of the extensive powers governments have given them, and defended the public against economic fallout from labor disputes. Further actions might include protection of workers' benefits and pensions from politicized organized labor-directed investing decisions, expanding employer-sponsored worker-feedback mechanisms outside the adversarial framework of collective bargaining, and clearing pathways for workers seeking more-independent arrangements like "gig work" contracting to arrange with clients or brokerage-style firms to obtain traditionally employer-provided fringe benefits.
Unions will oppose all these reforms because they allow workers to exercise political and social independence from what Democratic politicians and often-Marxist theoreticians have decided is "best" for them. They break what the theoreticians contend is a natural, logical, and morally just unity between the "working class" and Democratic politicians against decadent capitalist pigs and rats who serve the pigs over their fellow workers for a few crumbs more.
But as American workers have shown for the better part of seven decades, that unity is not natural. Working Americans have rarely seen themselves as a distinct class, with everyone from janitors to Wall Street traders aspiring to and sometimes believing that even if they will not get to live life on Easy Street, with hard work and a fair shot their children might. Politically, exit polls suggest the closest group America has to a "working class" (people with a high-school education) have picked the winner in every presidential election from 1980 through 2016, breaking the streak by voting for a losing Republican in 2020. For their part, while union leadership and leadership-directed political contributions make organized labor look as Democratic as Washington, D.C., exit poll results show that union-member families (union households) are only about as Democratic as Colorado or Maine.
Truly standing for workers requires standing with workers where they are, not where theoreticians and activists think they should be. This project will show that Big Labor is not where they are, and that pushing workers back into its arms would be a profound error.
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Michael Watson
Michael is Research Director for Capital Research Center and serves as the managing editor for InfluenceWatch.
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Original text here: https://capitalresearch.org/article/what-is-a-labor-union-and-why-does-that-question-matter/
[Category: ThinkTank]
CSIS Issues Critical Questions Q&A: Preparing for the Consequences of Collapse in Cuba
WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following Critical Questions Q&A on April 9, 2026, involving deputy director and senior fellow Christopher Hernandez-Roy and associate fellow Henry Ziemer, both of the Americas Program, Katherine E. Bliss, director and senior fellow for Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience in the Global Health Policy Center, deputy director Zane Swanson and non-resident senior associate David Michel, both of the Global Food and Water Security Program, and Andrew Friedman, director and senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative:* ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The Center for Strategic and International Studies issued the following Critical Questions Q&A on April 9, 2026, involving deputy director and senior fellow Christopher Hernandez-Roy and associate fellow Henry Ziemer, both of the Americas Program, Katherine E. Bliss, director and senior fellow for Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience in the Global Health Policy Center, deputy director Zane Swanson and non-resident senior associate David Michel, both of the Global Food and Water Security Program, and Andrew Friedman, director and senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative: ** *
Preparing for the Consequences of Collapse in Cuba
Only days after the January 3 military action to remove Nicolas Maduro from power in Venezuela, the Trump administration signaled that it wanted some type of regime change in Cuba, with the president telling the island's leaders to "make a deal, before it is too late." The United States swiftly imposed an oil blockade to apply economic and social pressure on the Cuban regime, stopping any Venezuelan shipments and threatening other suppliers with tariffs should they send oil to the island. The oil embargo has also collapsed the tourism industry, a crucial source of hard currency for the regime. While speaking on March 27 about U.S. military action in Venezuela and Iran, President Donald Trump said "Cuba is next." These measures have produced some initial discussions with members of the Cuban leadership, as well as signs of potential economic opening, including an announcement that members of the Cuban diaspora would be allowed to invest in and own businesses on the island. But on March 30, President Trump allowed a Russian tanker to make a delivery of crude to the island. The reversal can be understood as (1) the administration wishing to avoid a confrontation with Russia as the United States is consumed with the conflict with Iran, (2) a gesture of goodwill because negotiations with the Cuban regime might be proceeding well, (3) an acknowledgement that the humanitarian situation on the island is reaching a breaking point which could threaten stability, or (4) all three. Much has been written on what comes next for Cuba--in terms of U.S. pressure, regime change or regime management, and who might be Cuba's "Delcy"--with less focus on the impact that U.S. policy is having on the people of Cuba, who already faced a dire humanitarian situation created by their leaders. What consequences would stem from a sudden collapse of the regime, and what should the United States and the international community be doing to prepare for this eventuality?
Q1: How might Cuba reach the breaking point?
A1: A recent New York Times interactive article interviewing Cubans on the island in February describes how the country's deepening fuel crisis is disrupting nearly every aspect of daily life. To be sure, conditions on the island were terrible even before the Trump administration began stopping the deliveries of oil. The Cuban Human Rights Observatory's 2025 annual report (describing conditions in 2024) points to a deep and systemic crisis. According to the report, extreme poverty affects 89 percent of the population, while 91 percent negatively view the government's economic and social management. Food insecurity is widespread: 70 percent of Cubans have skipped meals due to lack of resources, and only 15 percent can consistently maintain three daily meals, with the elderly, unemployed, and those without remittances most affected. As conditions worsen with the U.S. imposed oil blockage, frustration is rising among citizens, increasing the risk of social unrest and further destabilizing an already fragile economy.
Thus far, there have not been nation-wide protests similar to the ones that occurred on July 11, 2021, when the largest demonstrations in Cuba since the 1990s took place. Following the 2021 protests, the Cuban government brutally cracked down on dissent, and imprisoned almost 2,000 people. Despite the fear of a new crackdown, a growing number of Cubans are banging pots at night in protest. During the month of March, the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts recorded 1,245 protests, including a new record of 556 "Challenges to the Police State." On March 13, protesters ransacked the headquarters of the ruling Communist Party in the city of Moron, making a bonfire with the office furniture, after the city had been without electricity for 30 hours. Conditions today are much worse than in the years before the 2021 social explosion.
There is no doubt that the pressure brought by the U.S. oil blockade is increasing the chances of a new island-wide challenge to the regime. The risk is that the Trump administration will wrongly calibrate the balance between creating enough pressure to force concessions, and societal collapse. Should the regime fall or should the existing slow-motion humanitarian crisis simply continue for a prolonged period, there would be grave humanitarian consequences for the people of Cuba.
Q2: What impacts would lack of oil and the collapse of the electrical sector have?
A2: The U.S. embargo and sanctions on fuel shipments are crippling Cuba's power systems. Imported fuels make up two-thirds of Cuba's total energy supply, according to the International Energy Agency. The same source states that oil and natural gas, in particular, generate 95.9 percent of the island's electricity. Deprived of sufficient fuel, Cuba's electric grid has suffered multiple nationwide blackouts. Rationing, shortages, and prolonged power outages affect multiple territories around the country.
Ongoing energy shocks threaten cascading breakdowns across power-dependent water, food, and public health systems. Water and sanitation services, for example, require reliable energy to collect, treat, and deliver safe water. The United Nations estimates that 84 percent of Cuba's water pumping equipment rely on electricity, while one-in-ten Cubans receive their drinking water from tanker trucks--which need fuel to make their rounds. The energy crisis hobbles these vital distribution networks, disrupting supplies and pushing underserved communities to draw on potentially unsafe alternative sources.
Energy shortages similarly risk weakening food security at each stage of agricultural production. Three-quarters of Cuba's irrigated farmland relies on electric or diesel pumps to move water from source to field for growing food. Lack of fuel could curtail farmers' use of machinery to properly harvest and process certain crops. Post-harvest, power cuts and fuel constraints could compromise food storage, transport, and preparation, upending supply chains and undermining affordability, especially for vulnerable populations.
The U.S. fuel blockade compounds long-standing strains on Cuba's energy, water, and food systems. Decades of inadequate investment (limited by restricted access to foreign capital), deferred maintenance, and reliance on substandard crude oil--which exacerbates wear and tear from power generation--have saddled the nation with neglected energy infrastructure, precipitating recurrent grid failures. Outdated policies and inadequate regulations likewise afflict the water sector, curbing progress toward ensuring safe water availability. In Havana alone, 40 to 70 percent of water produced is lost to leaks in the increasingly dilapidated pipe system.
Natural disasters have worsened matters. Hurricanes Oscar and Rafael in 2024 and Melissa in 2025 repeatedly damaged critical water infrastructure with little interval for recovery. One-third of the population in the affected areas, on average, lack safely managed water services. Cuban farmers, too, have long faced multiple challenges, including energy shortages and limited access to fertilizer, seeds, and machinery. From 2016 to 2024, production of major crops such as corn and rice plunged 38-58 percent. By 2025, the UN World Food Programme furnished 1.5 million Cubans with direct assistance for food security and nutrition. Now, as the current crisis deepens, risks of a potential "humanitarian collapse" in Cuba are rising.
Q3: As systems degrade, what would a deepening humanitarian crisis look like?
A3: For several decades, affordable, accessible high-quality primary healthcare was a key element of Cuba's revolutionary program. A high ratio of doctors per person, elevated spending per capita on health, and investments in biomedical research and development all contributed to low infant mortality and rates of infectious disease transmission comparable to those in higher-income countries.
But in recent years, the Cuban health system has experienced significant stress, with limited resources for repairs and infrastructure improvements at labs, hospitals and care centers. Recent hurricanes also damaged clinics, and the ongoing fuel shortages are choking a once promising model of community-based health care.
U.S. export regulations limiting the sale to Cuba of items having 10 percent or more U.S.-origin components have made it challenging for the island's health system to procure critical pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and supplies. The U.S. government exempts medical supplies for humanitarian purposes from the economic embargo and allows exporters to request waivers to the Export Administration Regulations, but the government's process of determining that medical supplies will be used to deliver care and not sold or reexported can be time-consuming. Supply constraints are making it difficult for clinics to deliver routine services, such as dialysis for people living with chronic kidney disease, and they are affecting treatments for infectious diseases as well. With limited access to antibiotics, doctors are reporting higher rates of maternal and child death. Estimated deaths among children under the age of one have risen from 4.8 per 1,000 in 2012 to 6.8 per 1,000 in 2024. Deaths among children under the age of five have also risen sharply, from 6.0 per 1,000 in 2012 to 8.6 in 2024.
The ongoing fuel shortage is further stymying the health sector, as fuel is needed to run water pumps, power hospitals with electricity, and transport patients, as well as care providers, to clinical care sites. The Cuban government reports a current backlog of nearly 100,000 surgeries that have had to be postponed due to lack of electricity and available staff.
Many supplies, such as vaccine components, arrive by air, but deliveries have been canceled because of airlines' inability to refuel in Havana. If fuel to support backup generators runs out, the refrigerators in which vaccines are stored may break down, leading to spoilage of existing supplies and increasing the number of children--currently an estimated 30,000--who have missed critical immunizations. The prevention and treatment of vector-borne diseases is also at risk. With limited fuel for transportation, delivering insecticide to sites where mosquitoes proliferate has been a challenge, increasing the risk of dangerous dengue, oropouche, and chikungunya outbreaks, which a struggling health system may not be prepared to address.
Q4: How would a weakened or absent central authority impact governance?
A4: A recent UN report on the situation in Venezuela after Nicolas Maduro's ouster provides a key lesson for the future of governance in Cuba. The report states that while the president has been removed, the repressive engine of the state continues unabated. While President Delcy Rodriguez has stated that Venezuela is entering a new era and has released some political prisoners, the country has seen 87 arrests of human rights defenders since Maduro's ouster, and "ongoing harassment of opposition figures and journalists."
This reality demonstrates a fundamental dichotomy in dictatorships: Political leadership may change rapidly, sometimes even espousing policy that is both more open and more free, but it takes substantial effort and time to dismantle the day-to-day engine of oppression.
The lasting nature of state engines of repression pairs uneasily with the potential for the collapse of the Cuban regime. Should such a collapse transpire, not only is it likely that repressive elements will continue on, but also that the ensuing chaos and lack of formal government will further empower malign actors. This includes the expansion of black markets and illicit economies, potentially putting greater resources into the hands of criminal actors, at the same time as reduced formal security structures but the continued existence of security forces who likely are no longer paid by the government. In Guatemala, individuals who had perpetrated violence on behalf of a military dictatorship seamlessly created and perpetrated violence on behalf of clandestine criminal networks when those dictatorships fell.
A dystopian scenario is not, however, pre-ordained. In situations of national government collapse, local-level and informal governance structures take on a new importance. Informal government structures can reinforce problematic power dynamics, creating a "might makes right" or wholly non-inclusive structure, but they can also serve to reinvigorate inclusive democratic mores and serve as a seed for democracy across the island. In Cuba, neighborhood groups known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) already exist, creating an easy structure for local-level coordination. CDRs already serve some community functions, including vaccination drives and other social services. However, CDRs will have to contend with a lack of national-level coordination that had previously existed and a deeply autocratic history, having once served as the "eyes and ears" of a repressive regime, to become an agent for democratic reform.
Q5: What should the United States and the rest of the international community be doing to prepare for collapse?
A5: Current reports suggest the United States is more interested in pursuing a strategy of regime management, not wholesale regime change, in Cuba. However, the precarity of conditions on the island means that developments on the ground could evolve faster than the governments in either Havana or Washington would like, and the possibility of political collapse should not be ruled out. The outbreak of mass anti-regime protests, departure of key Cuban Communist Party leadership like Diaz-Canel, or a breakdown in U.S.-Cuba talks could all seriously exacerbate the humanitarian crisis faced by Cuban citizens. Collapse would most likely trigger a major exodus from the island, while those without the means to migrate--including a significant portion of the 300,000 elderly Cubans who live alone--would be left to confront even more acute food, fuel, and medical shortages.
It is difficult to predict the exact timing of a political collapse, making it all the more imperative that the United States and international community take steps immediately to prepare for a range of humanitarian contingencies. The United States, Canada, and the European Union, among others, need to establish communication channels with international organizations including the World Food Programme, World Health Organization/Pan American Health Organization, and International Committee of the Red Cross. These entities should also stand up a diplomatic contact group to engage whatever authorities remain on the island and coordinate aid, access, and basic order during fragmentation. The United States can also work to pre-position assistance, including generators, fuel, water treatment units, and emergency food logistics to keep electricity, water, and supply chains functioning. Military and Coast Guard assets will likely be among the first responders, and U.S. Southern Command should consider reallocating airlift assets from Joint Task Force Bravo to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay alongside the pre-positioned aid in order to surge assistance on short notice.
Aid providers will also need to be able to cut through sanctions architecture in order to deploy assistance quickly and consistently. Cuba is far more unforgiving territory than Venezuela in this regard, as U.S. sanctions are codified in law thanks to a series of congressional acts, instead of executive branch prerogative. Statutes such as the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, for instance, subject the president to stringent requirements for what constitutes a political transition in Cuba, including "public commitments to organizing free and fair elections for a new government to be held in a timely manner within a period not to exceed 18 months." Meanwhile, the 2000 Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act prohibits "United States Government assistance, including United States foreign assistance . . . for exports to Cuba." Congress should work with the White House to amend key provisions of these acts in order to decouple life-saving assistance from political transition. To be sure, statutory restrictions have a role to play ensuring U.S. commitments to a democratic transition in Cuba remain more than mere rhetoric, but in the wake of a humanitarian crisis, the U.S. government and its international partners alike will need more flexibility than current sanctions infrastructure offers.
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Christopher Hernandez-Roy is a senior fellow and deputy director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. Katherine E. Bliss is director and senior fellow for Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience in the Global Health Policy Center at CSIS. Andrew Friedman is director and senior fellow in the Human Rights Initiative at CSIS. David Michel is a senior associate (non-resident) with the Global Food and Water Security Program at CSIS. Zane Swanson is deputy director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at CSIS. Henry Ziemer is an associate fellow with the Americas Program at CSIS.
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Original text here: https://www.csis.org/analysis/preparing-consequences-collapse-cuba
[Category: ThinkTank]
CPA Applauds Whirlpool Corporation's Major Ohio Investment as Proof U.S. Trade Policy Is Driving Domestic Manufacturing Growth
WASHINGTON, April 10 [Category: ThinkTank] -- The Coalition for a Prosperous America posted the following news release:* * *
CPA Applauds Whirlpool Corporation's Major Ohio Investment as Proof U.S. Trade Policy Is Driving Domestic Manufacturing Growth
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WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today applauded Whirlpool Corporation's announcement of a $60 million investment in a new manufacturing facility in Perrysburg, Ohio. The investment is clear evidence that U.S. trade policy is driving a resurgence in domestic production and job creation. This new investment underscores ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, April 10 [Category: ThinkTank] -- The Coalition for a Prosperous America posted the following news release: * * * CPA Applauds Whirlpool Corporation's Major Ohio Investment as Proof U.S. Trade Policy Is Driving Domestic Manufacturing Growth * WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) today applauded Whirlpool Corporation's announcement of a $60 million investment in a new manufacturing facility in Perrysburg, Ohio. The investment is clear evidence that U.S. trade policy is driving a resurgence in domestic production and job creation. This new investment underscoresWhirlpool Corp.'s long-standing commitment to the U.S. market and creating high-quality American jobs.
The investment will create 100-150 new jobs and builds on Whirlpool Corp.'s recent $300 million commitment to its Ohio operations, which is expected to generate hundreds of additional jobs and strengthen domestic supply chains. U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer visited the company's Clyde, Ohio, facility as part of a broader tour highlighting American manufacturing.
Whirlpool Corporation stands apart in the appliance industry. Approximately 80% of the major appliances it sells in the United States are produced domestically, compared to an average of about 25% for competitors. The company employs 20,000 U.S. workers, including 14,000 in manufacturing, and operates 11 production facilities nationwide.
"Whirlpool Corporation proves that American manufacturing can compete and win when policy supports domestic production," said Zach Mottl, Chairman of CPA. "This investment didn't happen by accident-it's the result of policies that create a fair playing field for companies that build in America. The administration must continue to hold the line, maintain strong tariffs, and ensure enforcement so more companies follow Whirlpool Corporation's lead."
Whirlpool Corporation's success reflects a broader shift in U.S. industrial policy-one that prioritizes domestic production, supply chain resilience, and long-term economic security. Unlike many foreign-owned competitors that rely heavily on imports, Whirlpool Corp. has maintained a deep manufacturing presence in the United States, sourcing approximately 96% of its steel domestically and spent $23 billion in U.S. manufacturing, labor, and logistics over the past decade.
"Whirlpool Corporation's investment is exactly what strong, pro-domestic trade policy is designed to deliver-more factories, more jobs, and more production here in the United States," said Jon Toomey, President of CPA. "When companies are given a stable and competitive home market, they invest with confidence. Whirlpool Corporation has made that commitment for over a century, and today's announcement shows that those decisions are a result of sound policy decisions."
The new Perrysburg facility will further strengthen Whirlpool Corporation's U.S. manufacturing base, bringing more production in house and supporting its Clyde and Marion, Ohio plants.
CPA will continue working with policymakers to ensure that U.S. trade policy remains focused on expanding domestic production, strengthening supply chains and creating high-quality American jobs.
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Original text here: https://prosperousamerica.org/cpa-applauds-whirlpool-corporations-major-ohio-investment-as-proof-u-s-trade-policy-is-driving-domestic-manufacturing-growth/
America First Policy Institute: Education Freedom Tax Credit: Kansas' Time Has Come
WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on April 9, 2026:* * *
Education Freedom Tax Credit: Kansas' Time Has Come
Kansas has achieved a veto override allowing Senate Bill 361 to become law and opting the state in to the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC). The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) celebrates yet another state bringing education freedom to their families.
The EFTC created by the Working Families Tax Cut Act gives states a tremendous opportunity to expand educational freedom. The law allows taxpayers to claim up to ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, April 10 -- The America First Policy Institute issued the following news release on April 9, 2026: * * * Education Freedom Tax Credit: Kansas' Time Has Come Kansas has achieved a veto override allowing Senate Bill 361 to become law and opting the state in to the federal Education Freedom Tax Credit (EFTC). The America First Policy Institute (AFPI) celebrates yet another state bringing education freedom to their families. The EFTC created by the Working Families Tax Cut Act gives states a tremendous opportunity to expand educational freedom. The law allows taxpayers to claim up to$1,700 in dollar-for-dollar federal tax credits for contributions to nonprofit Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs).
"Now Kansas families will benefit from critical scholarships to support the education their kids need," said Erika Donalds, chair for Education Opportunity at AFPI. "This action by the legislature ensured that Kansans did not watch hundreds of millions of dollars in scholarships walk right out the door. Thankfully those dollars will now stay in Kansas and work for Kansas families."
According to AFPI's recently released scholarship calculator, Kansas families could have lost up to $420 million in scholarship funds in just three years, a total of 75,000 student scholarships. Kansans' charitable contributions will now remain in-state, supporting local students. These funds will expand educational opportunities for K-12 students through scholarships for private school tuition, tutoring, homeschooling, special education services, books, supplies, and more.
Because scholarships will be funded by private donations, participation in the credit would not cost state governments a single penny. This is the first time the federal government has established a tax credit incentivizing K-12 scholarships and is a historic step toward school choice for every student in every state.
Kansas has more than a decade of experience operating a similar state level tax credit program--and has already certified a dozen SGOs--which makes opting in to the federal initiative a natural next step.
The 28 states that have already committed to participate are sending a clear signal to families, school leaders, and investors that a major expansion of education freedom policies are coming in 2027. Kansas lawmakers have passed a straightforward statutory modification that will have an enormous and lasting positive effect on Kansas students.
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Original text here: https://www.americafirstpolicy.com/issues/education-freedom-tax-credit-kansas-time-has-come
[Category: ThinkTank]