Mental health practitioners have long known that cigarette smoking is prevalent among people with schizophrenia. Research estimates as many as 88 percent of people with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes, a rate much higher than in people with other psychiatric disorders and almost three times the rate of the general population. The heavy smoking rate causes many people with schizophrenia to develop smoking-related illnesses, from cardiovascular disease to cancer, significantly lowering their life expectancy.

Recent studies suggest that nicotine normalizes cognitive deficits, called “hypofrontality,” in people with schizophrenia. There is evidence that nicotine improves short-term memory in schizophrenic patients. Nicotine’s beneficial effects on schizophrenia have led many researchers to suspect that people with this disease are self-medicating.

Today in Filter, journalist and filmmaker Helen Redmond unveiled a new short documentary film that she and her colleague, Marilena Marchetti, produced profiling a multicenter trial underway called the Genesis Trial, led by Dr. Pasquale Caponetto of the University of Catania, to see if nicotine-containing e‑cigarettes can successfully help schizophrenic patients who are long-term smokers to quit tobacco. The study is a 12-month randomized, double-blind, smoking cessation trial that compares the effectiveness of 5 percent nicotine and 1.5 percent nicotine vaping devices.

The filmmakers flew to Sicily to interview several trial participants at two psychiatric residential facilities. Watch the video “Switch: A Documentary About Smoking and Schizophrenia” here.

Lawmakers and policymakers in the United States and around the globe seek to make it more difficult for adults to obtain nicotine-containing e‑cigarettes, especially those with flavors, even while research shows tobacco quitters prefer flavored vaping,

Harm reduction advocates have long argued that nicotine e‑cigarettes are helpful smoking cessation tools and more effective than nicotine patches or gum. When it comes to smokers with schizophrenia, nicotine vapes may reduce cognitive dysfunction at the same time.

Today we received the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Long-Term Trend results, this time for 13-year-olds in math and reading. As you can see below, they are not good, with scores dropping precipitously.

The COVID-19 disruption almost certainly had a lot to do with the plunge from 2020 to 2023, but the drop between 2012 and 2020 is harder to attribute to COVID. The 2020 testing was conducted from January to March of that year, so maybe the tail end saw some COVID effect, but probably little if any.

So why have scores been dropping since 2012?

Here’s where it becomes hard to determine causes from just NAEP results. It is likely, as I discussed when NAEP U.S. history and civics results came out, that the No Child Left Behind Act and its focus on standardized tests boosted scores between the act’s start in 2004 and 2012, perhaps in part by gearing schools much more toward standardized testing generally. NCLB was replaced by the less test-centric Every Student Succeeds Act in 2015, which is, of course, between 2012 and 2020, so the drop between 2012 and 2020 might reflect a real decline in math and reading acumen, a deemphasis on testing and testing strategies, both, neither, and maybe a whole lot else.

Should we be alarmed? I think more than by the civics and U.S. history results, but not unduly. These are appreciable declines, and all other things equal, it’s preferable to see scores rise. These are also about basic skills. But as I’ve noted before, standardized test scores are not necessarily powerful predictors of important outcomes such as lifetime earnings and health.

A couple of other suggestive points are worth noting.

A major concern during COVID was that public schools were staying closed unnecessarily and hurting children. Less dire NAEP results for Roman Catholic schools, which tended to re-open to in-person instruction much faster than public schools, suggests that was a substantial problem. As seen in the charts below, between 2020 and 2023, Catholic schools (the only private schools with results that can be pinpointed) saw relatively small dips that were not statistically significant, meaning that we can’t be sure there was an actual decline in math and reading acumen rather than statistical chance resulting in lower scores.

This does not prove that COVID caused the huge score declines, or that Catholic schools are on average more effective than public – Catholic schools might have had more resilient families, their student composition could have changed between 2020 and 2023, and more – but it does bolster the case that public schools broadly dropped the ball, and families might have been better off with greater ability to choose private alternatives.

Finally, it’s worth noting what we’ve spent as we’ve gotten these results. The overall historical trend is basically flat after these losses, but total, inflation-adjusted per-pupil spending, as seen below, rose from $7,089 in the 1971–72 school year to $17,013 in 2019–20 (the latest available data), a 140 percent increase. Importantly, there is increasing evidence that spending can make a difference in outcomes, and many people value other things in education above standardized test results. So increased spending accompanying ultimately flat scores – especially with a pandemic toward the end – is hardly proof spending does not help. But it is difficult to look at this as either supporting oft-heard accusations that we are starving public schools, or that more money can simply be assumed to always produce higher test scores.

These results are bad news. But knowing why we got them is important, and we need more information for that.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in the United States for a state visit that is expected to highlight India’s importance as a rising economic and military power, and the only country in Asia that can be a counter to China in the 21st century. Modi’s Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) has long promoted its Hindu nationalist agenda by claiming that India was the world’s richest region under glorious Hindu rule for thousands of years before being conquered by Muslim invaders in the 11th century and British invaders in the 18th century. The BJP says foreign invaders transformed a sone ki chidiya—a golden bird—into an impoverished chattel. Modi has promised to make India a great world power again, and his U.S. visit aims to be a step in that direction.

The BJP often cites historian Angus Maddison, who estimated that India accounted for 32 percent of world GDP in 1 CE (during the Hindu period), a share that sank to just 4 percent by the time British rule ended in 1947. However, the BJP is cherry picking data from Maddison’s work to create a false historical narrative of a once-rich country impoverished by foreign invaders. For a full picture, read my new Cato Policy Analysis, “Indian Nationalism and the Historical Fantasy of a Golden Hindu Period.”

A close look at Maddison’s magnum opus, Contours of the World Economy 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro‐​Economic History, tells a less flattering story. India’s high share of world GDP in 1 CE was due mainly to its high share (33.2 percent) in world population. Since this yielded a GDP share of 32 percent, India per capita income was slightly below the world average at just $450 per year. This did not rise at all in a thousand subsequent years of Hindu rule. So, this supposedly golden period was one of stark poverty and economic stagnancy. Conditions were almost as bad in the rest of the world. High mortality, arising from disease, drought, and war kept India’s population stagnant at 75 million for a thousand years till 1000 CE. Simply staying alive was a challenge.

Under Muslim and British rule, India’s GDP edged up. Falling mortality rates meant a significant rise in the population too. This rising population partly offset the rise in GDP, so per capita income grew slowly. Maddison estimates it at $550 in 1700, towards the end of the Muslim period. This edged up to $619 by the time British rule ended. Progress was very slow in the thousand years of Muslim and British rule yet was better than the stagnancy in the preceding thousand years of Hindu rule.

Colonial-era history books spoke of the great blessings that British imperialism had brought to India. Maddison’s figures show those claims to be absurd. But they also disprove the claim that colonial rule impoverished India.

After becoming independent, India’s GDP rose much faster and mortality rate fell more dramatically than ever before. By 2003, says Maddison, India’s per capita income was up to $2,160. Both in terms of income and life expectancy, India’s golden period—if you can call it that—is today, not in the ancient Hindu past.

India is still a lower middle-income country, but in PPP (purchasing power parity) terms is already the third largest economy in the world. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund estimate that it was the fastest-growing major economy in the world in 2022 and will continue to be so this year. It runs a fiercely independent foreign policy and has refrained from condemning Russia for invading Ukraine. India is a major buyer of Russian oil. Even so the United States sees India as an important strategic partner, though not an ally. That is why Modi’s visit is expected to include the signing of military deals for U.S. supply and coproduction of high-tech aircraft engines and drones. Despite foreign policy disagreements and worries about the suppression of dissent and liberal values in India, the United States wants to help Modi build an India that will become a major Asian power that can check China’s dominance.

President Biden has received significant criticism from people who want to see more immigration enforcement for supposedly “gutting” Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). While most measures of ICE enforcement remained below pre-pandemic levels, they also have almost uniformly increased since President Biden took office in January 2021, recovering from significant declines under the Trump administration in 2020.

More Immigrants Deported

Figure 1 shows the monthly number of “removals” (occurring under Title 8 immigration code) and expulsions (occurring under the Title 42 health code before it was rescinded in May 2023). Altogether, the number of removals and expulsions increased from about 9,000 to about 16,000 in September 2022 (the latest month made available). Most reports about ICE removals have not acknowledged the ICE’s Title 42 expulsions, which have replaced many formal “removals” under Title 8 authority, creating a false impression that ICE has been forcing out fewer immigrants overall. Expulsions accounted for a majority of ICE-forced departures in 2022.

Tom Cartwright of the advocacy group Witness at the Border collects important data on the number of ICE flights by destination, and ICE is conducting more flights than ever. Figure 2 shows the number of ICE flights by type: international removal or expulsion flights with a destination outside the United States, a “lateral” flight along the U.S.-Mexico border to expel someone under Title 42, and other purely domestic flights. These other flights include the first legs of a removal fight as well as transfers to open detention space.

One explanation for why the number of people removed or expelled has not fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels might be that people expelled following a “lateral flight”—which fly along the U.S.-Mexico border to expel the person to a different Mexican state (at Mexico’s request)—are probably not included in the number of ICE Title 42 expulsions. If these “lateral” flights were included in the removal figures for ICE, there would be no overall decline in removals.

Another explanation could be that ICE is flying to a more diverse set of countries than they were pre-pandemic. It is easier to fill planes to traditional destinations, and it appears that there were fewer people onboard each ICE flight at least from late-2020 to the middle of 2021. Title 42 expulsion policies at the border have also meant fewer transfers of Mexicans to ICE custody because they can just be quickly expelled to Mexico. But despite fewer ICE removals, they are still being sent back to Mexico by Customs and Border Protection, which contributes to the slower recovery in ICE removals.

More Immigrants Detained

ICE has also increased the number of people that it is incarcerating in ICE detention facilities since January 2021. From January 2021 to June 2023, the number of people in ICE detention doubled from 15,097 to 30,005. Figure 3 makes clear that Biden reversed the downward trend in ICE detention that started before the pandemic. While it is true that ICE has used detention more judiciously than before the pandemic, when detention was a goal in and of itself, Biden’s ICE has certainly not “gutted” detention either. In reality, it has increased detention use since Biden came into office.

Another measure of enforcement activity is the number of ICE administrative arrests (i.e. people ICE charges as removable from the United States). Monthly ICE arrests have fully recovered in 2022 to their pre-pandemic monthly rate during the first half of 2020. Border Patrol aided this recovery by releasing people at the border without charging them and telling them to check in with ICE to finish the charging process—most of whom did so.

More Interior Enforcement

The Border Patrol release policy shifted some workload off Border Patrol and onto ICE, but this initiative has now ended, so it is possible that administrative arrests have fallen since the end of the 2022 fiscal year in September. However, ICE also releases monthly statistics on the number of people arrested and booked into ICE detention facilities, which would exclude Border Patrol releases and other arrests not ending in ICE detention. These statistics also show a rise from January 2021.

ICE removals of people who were arrested in the interior of the United States also show a similar pattern. The number of removals declined from about 7,500 in October 2019 to about 2,400 in January 2021 before doubling to about 4,800 by September 2022. If the Biden administration had maintained interior removals at the same level as in January 2021, it would have removed about 14,000 fewer immigrants than it has in reality.

Official ICE enforcement guidelines have undergone several iterations under President Biden. Court rulings have repeatedly forced it to alter its stated policies on prioritizing enforcement of criminals and recent border crossers. Nonetheless, ICE has ended workplace raids, and ICE prosecutors have dismissed tens of thousands of cases against low-priority immigrants. But despite the claims of critics that immigration enforcement is too low, ICE activity is increasing steadily and in many cases outperforming its capacities at the end of the Trump era.

Senators Christopher Coons (D‑DE) and Kevin Cramer (R‑ND) introduced a bill, the PROVE IT Act, on June 7, 2022, that lays the groundwork for a carbon tariff. A carbon tariff is a tax on imports based on their carbon intensity, a measure of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) per unit of activity (e.g. manufacturing). The PROVE IT requires the Secretary of Energy “to conduct a study and submit a report on the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of certain products produced in the United States and in certain foreign countries.” Presumably, this report would be used to compare the intensities of similar products produced in the United States and elsewhere, and then a carbon tariff would, theoretically at least, be used to tax imports from countries whose products have higher intensities to offset any economic benefits gained from producing in countries with fewer environmental restrictions.

However, carbon tariffs are not the only proposal for taxing imports based on their carbon intensity. For example, the European Union recently implemented a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), a device designed to “adjust” for the fact that companies headquartered in different countries face different levels of environmental regulation. The CBAM is also a tax on imports, but the “border adjustment” piece requires a domestic carbon tax to adjust (and a pure border adjustment should also include a rebate for exports). The U.S. does not have a federal carbon tax, so any “CBAM” implemented without one would simply be a carbon tariff.

Regardless of the name, there are several reasons to be highly skeptical of a consequential U.S. carbon tariff bill and to be worried that it would do more economic harm than environmental good. Here are three:

First and most obviously, a carbon tariff would impose significant new costs on American consumers, companies, and workers. For example, recent U.S. tariffs on more than $350 billion worth of imports have been found to cost Americans over $50 billion per year. The PROVE IT Act targets over $600 billion worth of imports, suggesting the cost of carbon tariffs could be even higher than the Trump-Biden tariffs. Import taxes hurt Americans by increasing prices, particularly those in the lowest income brackets, and U.S. companies’ competitiveness by raising their production costs or insulating protected firms from market competition. For example, President Trump’s imposition of tariffs on imported steel inflicted significant damage on steel-consuming U.S. companies (like nail manufacturers)—the new taxes cost their workers directly through layoffs and the companies became less competitive as they were forced to either share the costs with their customers by raising prices, reduce production, or decrease investment. As a result, the tariffs did little to “level the playing field,” instead the President surrendered home-field advantage and gave the edge to foreign competition, who faced no such taxes.

Second, the history of U.S. tariff policy raises serious concerns that a carbon tariff would not be administered in a sound and impartial manner. Instead, these tariffs would simply be a vehicle for rote protectionism. A prime example of such protectionism is the steel tariffs imposed or maintained under the Bush II, Trump, and Biden administrations, which had political motivations far exceeding any economic ones. At the same time, U.S. trade remedies (antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/​CVDs)) law utilizes a process to calculate dumping or subsidization of imports that “injures” domestic industry but can be “remedied” by imposing duties (tariffs). Similar calculations are likely to be used for carbon intensity. However, AD/​CVDs law is notorious for being strongly biased against imports and American consumers. Even worse, in reality, the law is used as a way to deliver protectionist rents to a handful of well-connected companies (including, again, steel).

Indeed, some already propose that the CVD law—the remedy for U.S. industry alleged to be injured by unfairly subsidized imports—could be used to impose carbon tariffs and thus avoid the need for new legislation. Doing so, however, would subject carbon tariffs to the same problems—regulatory capture, rent-seeking, etc.—that already afflict U.S. trade remedies proceedings, and worse, invite abuse in similar proceedings determining carbon tariffs. For example, one major problem with AD/CVDs law is the discretion they give to the government when data is missing: if the Commerce Department deems information provided by a foreign company during an investigation to be unreliable or insufficient during an AD/CVD investigation, the agency will use various methodologies to fill it in, inevitably resulting in import duties that unreasonably favor the U.S. companies who lobbied for relief. If Commerce followed similar procedures for carbon intensity, similarly biased results are sure to emerge. In other words, the U.S. government could easily make foreign businesses look like they emit more carbon or GHGs than they truly emit, resulting in high tariffs on foreign products in the name of climate change that really serves to protect American businesses from competition.

Thirdly, U.S. carbon tariffs would likely violate the World Trade Organization (WTO) non-discrimination rules, which state that WTO members must treat like imported products equally and give imports the same treatment as the same products made domestically. Many legal scholars argue that a border adjustment imposed uniformly on all imports and in concert with an equivalent carbon tax applied to domestically-produced goods/producers—similar to the EU’s CBAM—might not violate these WTO rules. However, the PROVE IT Act, if turned into carbon tariffs, would satisfy neither condition: the envisioned report applies to only certain countries, and the United States today has no federal carbon tax. Thus, many of the same trade experts who think the CBAM passes the WTO must think a U.S. carbon tariff would fail.

Finally, it is far from certain that carbon tariffs would provide significant climate benefits. The consensus on the efficacy of carbon taxation, including through a CBAM, to reduce carbon or GHG emissions is mixed. While economic theory supports that taxing an item would reduce emissions production, the likelihood of calculating the “right” price for emissions and appropriately administering it is low. Indeed, the level (country, industry, factory) at which a tax is applied could have the opposite effect by encouraging more carbon-intensive production and there are myriad other factors affecting carbon intensity; energy prices and subsidies (making production cheaper), to name a couple. Moreover, carbon and GHG emissions are not limited to the countries that tax them or the imports from countries chosen for a tariff.

Policymakers would do well to remember that freer trade promotes cleaner environments. Thus, a more effective solution to reducing emissions would be a multilateral commitment such as finalizing the WTO’s environmental goods agreement that reduces tariffs on environmental goods. Making it cheaper to adopt cleaner technologies will increase the availability of products to improve the environment and create a sustainable tree with branches ripe for new opportunities in the trade and environment nexus. Although reducing emissions should be a global effort, Congress and the Biden administration should do their part and breathe some (clean) air into the U.S.’s trade and climate policies by resisting the protectionist path which continually demonstrates the dirty business of rent-seeking and will do little for clean and renewable technologies innovation.

In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office notwithstanding the 2020 election, many lawyers who assisted him along the way are facing disciplinary and disbarment proceedings. New York and District of Columbia bar authorities suspended Rudolph Giuliani’s license to practice after finding him to have broken various rules, and former Justice Department lawyer Jeffrey Clark faces similar proceedings in D.C. Colorado bar authorities censured attorney Jenna Ellis saying that she violated a “duty of candor to the public” by repeatedly misrepresenting facts about the supposed election theft. And in proceedings that begin this week, California bar authorities are seeking to strip John Eastman of his license to practice over a course of conduct including, but not limited to, preparing a memo arguing that Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to block certification of the election. (Eastman’s lawyers have said the memo merely lays out scenarios and deny that it “proposes any particular course of action.”)

The various proceedings raise issues of wide interest, but I’d like to focus on an issue that may seem narrow. If, with Milton Friedman and many other liberty-minded writers, we take a skeptical view of occupational licensure as tending to do more harm than good, does it follow that we should also take a dim view of lawyer disbarment and discipline? After all, if clients should be free to choose the doctor they want, why should they not be free to choose a lawyer who may have displayed “moral turpitude,” lied to the public or courts, or behaved disloyally toward the Constitution or laws, to name some of the allegations in these cases? If a lawyer engages in some kind of misconduct that clearly merits punishment, such as submitting falsified documents, then – the argument might go — perhaps that punishment could be meted out by way of direct criminal prosecution.

There are many reasons, however, why such a critique may get ahead of itself.

To begin with, lawyers play multiple roles in society, and a correct analysis may not lead down the same path for all the roles. Some things lawyers do, such as drafting wills and advising on the state of the law, are relatively private and peaceful. When lawyers botch these roles, the consequences most often fall on the client. If we go along with Milton Friedman’s argument that a free marketplace would provide patients with adequate ways to avoid quack doctors, maybe by analogy we can go along with the idea that clients can steer clear of incompetent contract-drafting lawyers.

But lawyers also wield powers to initiate coercive legal process – powers that are in effect delegated by the state, and that have no real equivalent among dentists, barbers, or plumbers. When they use this set of powers, lawyers can compel you – a stranger who never chose to hire them — to attend court dates against your will, reveal your private secrets and thoughts against your will and under oath, and shoulder the costs of a defense that might drain you of every penny you own. Not surprisingly, many schemes of lawyer regulation (though not ours) recognize a distinction between lawyers with a primarily advisory role, who are less regulated, and lawyers who act in serious court proceedings, who are held to higher standards. (Britain’s solicitor-barrister distinction tracks a similar, though not quite identical, line based on “rights of audience.”)

As we have seen, the response to the problem of shoddy advisory and document-drafting lawyers will often take place under a rationale of own-client protection. But when lawyers misbehave in court, those they injure will very often be adversaries or actors in the court system itself. (The lawyer’s own client might be okay with the misconduct or even approve of it as a way to win.)

A related point is that while licensing in other occupations arises from powers of the legislative and executive branches of government, lawyer discipline springs historically from the courts’ inherent powers, powers that were jealously guarded by the common law courts. And while protection of consumer interests did figure into the picture – mishandling client funds remains a good way to lose a law license – the common law judges were particularly intent on excluding lawyers whose conduct might threaten the work of justice. It is true now, as it has probably been immemorially, that one of the surest ways to get the hammer of legal discipline to land on your head is to get caught lying to the judge.

There are yet more complications. In practice, courts tend to delegate a lot (too much?) of the disciplinary process to bar panels and other ostensibly independent actors, and much could be and has been said about the hazards of the resulting mystique of “self-regulation.” Still, the courts continue to play key roles in lawyer discipline. At the front end, judges disgusted at a lawyer’s conduct in court can flag it as suitable for discipline, as has happened repeatedly in the Trump election saga. And the supervision is more explicit at the back end when a relevant court (such as a state high court) serves as the final arbiter of whether to exclude a lawyer from practicing in the future before its judges.

The power of courts to regulate their own proceedings and participants, as they have done under centuries of common law, is one we tamper with at our peril.

The recent debt-ceiling deal put caps on discretionary spending for 2024 and 2025. But House conservatives want larger reforms and are seeking additional cuts in fiscal 2024 appropriations bills. House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger is right that “the debt ceiling bill set a ceiling, not a floor” for 2024 spending.

What should the GOP cut? One place to look is appropriations that are “unauthorized.” Federal discretionary programs are supposed to be authorized before appropriators spend, but authorizations have lapsed for many programs and Congress spends anyway. Romina Boccia argues that this rise in “zombie spending” reduces oversight and increases waste.

Consider the Economic Development Administration (EDA), which hands out hundreds of millions of dollars a year in subsidies to state and local governments and the private sector. EDA spending has soared from $264 million in 2019 to $1.53 billion in 2023, as shown in the figure. The EDA budget received a boost from recent legislation including the American Rescue Plan and CHIPS acts.

EDA spending authorization lapsed after 2008. The last serious attempt to reauthorize it was in 2011, which failed in the Senate by a 49 to 51 vote. Supporters at the time touted such things as, “For every dollar spent in EDA, $7 of private investment is attracted,” as Senator Barbara Boxer suggested. But opponent Senator Tom Coburn said that such claims were anecdotal and made up by the EDA and grantees themselves. He pointed to the lack of rigorous analysis of EDA spending and opined that the agency “has been used as a congressional slush fund to direct money to friends of Members of Congress.”

The EDA was created in 1965 and says its role is to “lead the federal economic development agenda.” The agency sprinkles grants widely to congressional districts across the nation in a vast range of activities. EDA leaders make lofty claims about jobs and investment that are not sufficiently challenged by members of Congress, who are eager to secure grants for their districts.

Cato has critiqued the EDA, and federal auditors have been skeptical about some of the agency’s claims. The Government Accountability Office testified that the EDA’s reliance on grantee estimates “may lead to inaccurate claims about program results.” Analysts have long noted the “gulf between promise and performance” at the EDA.

What sorts of things does the EDA fund? The following are some projects highlighted in EDA annual reports from 2018 to 2021 (see here) that fit into two categories: 1) projects that, if useful, should have been funded by the states, and 2) projects that, if useful, should have been funded by the private sector.

Should have been funded by the states:

• $8,350,057 to improve the International Parkway Bridge in Tracy, California (2021).
• $7,899,000 to make levee upgrades in Hamburg, Iowa (2020).
• $5 million to renovate the University of Texas Coastal Ocean Science building (2019).
• $1,975,800 to Delaware Technical and Community College for a skills training facility (2018).
• $3,806,761 for a new generator at the University of South Alabama (2021).

Should have been funded by the private sector:

• $2,546,760 to the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research to purchase equipment for training employees (2021).
• $10,214,022 for Leon County Research and Development Authority to build a business incubator in Tallahassee (2020).
• $7,872,090 to Blue Lake Rancheria, California, to build a local business incubator (2019).
• $2,030,000 to help Cedars-Sinai Biomanufacturing Center purchase equipment (2018).
• $1,996,160 to purchase equipment for training at the Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center Trust (2021).

The EDA does not have special skills for boosting economic growth that the states and private sector do not have. Federal funding of local industrial parks, incubators, equipment, and other items just adds bureaucracy. Taxpayers pay for the federal EDA bureaucracy of more than 300 employees, and then those folks impose rules and regulations on local partners, which further raises costs. To receive EDA funding, for example, regions must complete central-planning-style “Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies.”

The EDA often claims that it garners high returns on projects, but if true we would not need the agency because the states and private sector would eagerly fund such projects. In other cases, the EDA says that it is filling unmet needs. The head of EDA testified that “without the support and funding of EDA, many projects would struggle to attract necessary capital.” But maybe those projects struggle because they have poor management or are economic losers.

Another problem with EDA projects is that they can pit jurisdictions against one another in a zero-sum game. In his study of the EDA, David Bier says that the agency gave $2 million to Visalia, California, to expand an industrial park, but then that subsidy induced a medical equipment manufacturer to relocate hundreds of jobs from elsewhere within the state. In such cases, EDA subsidies create winners and losers and probably no net value.

The EDA is one of many programs that spread federal subsidies around the country for local development. But local areas needing development can reform their own taxes and regulations to spur entrepreneurship and private investment. Jurisdictions that create inviting climates for businesses and skilled workers can prosper without subsidies.

Federal funding of local projects is inefficient for many reasons, and it is not affordable given ongoing federal deficits of more than $1.5 trillion a year. Both the Reagan and Trump administrations proposed eliminating the EDA. House Republicans should take another shot at reform.