Last week, a federal court upheld D.C.’s licensing regulation, which requires child care providers to have a college degree in order to care for children. In so doing, the court gives D.C. officials the go ahead to implement the regulation, which will make D.C. the most restrictively regulated state or territory in the country in this regard. This is unfortunate news, as the new regulation will have a negative impact on child care professionals, parents, and children alike.

Perhaps most obviously, D.C.’s rulemaking acts as a barrier to employment for existing and would-be child care providers. One of the plaintiffs in the case, Ilumi Sanchez, is an example of such a care provider. Sanchez is a mother herself, and has provided care to children since the mid-90s, only to be told in 2016 that her qualifications do not meet new D.C. standards that require a college degree to care for small tots. 

Perhaps D.C. officials need to be reminded that caring for small tots does not require a college degree. In 2021, 54 percent of U.S. children lived in a household where neither parent would qualify to care for small children by D.C.’s standard that requires child care directors to have a bachelor’s degree. And 43 percent of U.S. children live in a household where neither parent would qualify to care for small children based on D.C.’s requirement that child care staff have an associate degree.

Moreover, a majority of adults in 56 of D.C.‘s neighborhoods would not qualify to care for children by its bachelor’s degree requirement, and a majority of adults in 25 of D.C.’s neighborhoods would not qualify to care for children by its associate degree requirement. Many of these “unqualified” adults are, of course, parents themselves.^[i]

In addition to being a senseless barrier to work for would-be carers, D.C. regulations also act as a barrier for parents looking for child care: a study on the impact of child care regulations found that imposing just minimum educational requirements on staff reduced the number of child care centers in associated markets. That is bad news for parents, as it means that they are likely to have even fewer choices at a time when the child care industry is still recovering its pre-pandemic workforce and child care is hard to come by.

Finally, having fewer care options is similarly problematic for D.C. children: in the same study, the authors conclude that imposing regulations on the childcare market creates winners and losers, where the losers are primarily children in lower income zip codes.

The authors report that children in more regulated areas were pushed into home-based day care, resulting in more children in home-based day care. But because the home-based day cares did not or could not hire more adults, individual children likely received less care and attention.

Unfortunately, D.C.’s licensing regulation goes beyond child care center staff and applies to some staff in home-based day cares, too. So for D.C. children, informal care is more likely to be the fallback option, which may mean that D.C. kids have less predictable care providers, less consistency, and less developmentally enriching environments than they would without the regulation.

It should not be a surprise that child care regulations, like many regulations, are regressive. But it is a shame that in the most expensive child care market in the country, D.C. officials seem intent on making care harder to come by. Particularly under these circumstances, it is a disgrace to put devoted, experienced workers out of a job; eliminate perfectly good child care options for parents; and keep children from consistent, reliable, developmentally appropriate care.

The United States is second to none in terms of creating the most financial regulatory agencies. Between the Federal Reserve (the Fed), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), and a host of others, the financial regulatory regime in the United States towers over the regimes in the United Kingdom, Canada, and many other developed countries (Figure 1).

Comparing regulators across countries, however, is not as straightforward as it may sound. While many regulators cover the same general issues (e.g., banks, the stock market, etc.), the powers afforded to them can differ significantly. Therefore, we have generally limited this list to regulators with the authority to examine or investigate private businesses, issue rulemaking or guidance, and conduct enforcement on the national level. We have also excluded both international and state-level regulators. The table below features a breakdown of each regulator considered along with sources that describe their relevant authorities.

If you have suggestions regarding including or excluding certain regulators, please email us at CatoCMFA@​cato.​org with “Financial Regulators” in the subject line. Also, be sure to check this page periodically as we will add additional countries over time.

This past Sunday, Social Security – the single largest federal government program – turned 87 years old. The world has changed, but this massive federal program has not kept up with the times. Change is overdue.

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law on August 14, 1935, he referred to it as “a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family…against poverty-ridden old age.” From a modest income support program, targeted toward individuals who lived beyond the age of life expectancy, Social Security now redistributes more than $1 trillion annually from working Americans toward those in retirement, despite the much greater wealth owned by retirees. And the program’s annual spending is projected to double to nearly $2 trillion over the next decade.

It will come as no surprise to anyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to how government works, that even modestly conceived programs tend to bloat far beyond their intended purpose. And as one of the longest running federal programs, Social Security has had plenty of time to transform from an old-age poverty program to a politically convenient entitlement. Congress should not delay on making the following commonsense changes:

Increase the Social Security eligibility age

Over Social Security’s lifespan, life expectancy at birth in the United States has increased by nearly 20 years. Yet, Social Security’s full retirement age has increased by only two years (from 65 to 67—to be fully phased in by 2027), and the early retirement age has not budged at all – despite significant improvements in health and lifespan. By encouraging individuals to retire sooner than they otherwise would, Social Security reduces labor force participation, which suppresses growth.

Congress should raise the early and full Social Security eligibility ages by 3 years each (to 65 and 70) and index both to increases in longevity. These are both small and common-sense reforms that preserve the original goals of the Social Security system and reduce its burden on current and future taxpayers.

Focus old-age income support on those with limited means

Social Security provides income support to older Americans, regardless of need. This makes Social Security an entitlement program, rather than an old-age poverty program. The median net worth of working Americans aged 35–44 was $91,300 in 2019, based on the Fed’s latest Survey of Consumer Finances. Meanwhile median net worth among those 65 and older was nearly three times that. To the extent that the government provides income subsidies to retirees, it should focus them on those retirees with limited means to support themselves.

Congress should means-test Social Security, returning to the program’s stated purpose of antipoverty protection in old age.

Reduce Social Security’s drag on the economy and budget

Contrary to wishful popular opinion, the Social Security trust fund is a liability, not an asset.

The $2.8 trillion in IOUs designated for the Social Security trust fund are part of the $30.7 trillion gross national debt (so-called intergovernmental debt). Congress immediately spent any surpluses the IRS collected (including from payroll taxes on workers’ wages) and deferred the cost of paying for Social Security to future taxpayers. Intergovernmental debt is quite the misnomer in this context. We’re really talking about intergenerational debt, since it is current and future taxpayers who are on the hook for present government spending, including any debts government agencies incurred between each other (such as spending the taxes intended for Social Security on other government programs).

The trust fund is a legal accounting entity that holds no real economic assets. It only matters because there is a statutory provision that Social Security can continue running cash-flow deficits for as long as the trust fund accounting mechanism tracks a positive value.

It makes sense then to disregard the so-called trust fund and any interest it accrues, and only consider Social Security’s current cash in- and outflows to understand the program’s drag on the economy and the federal budget. By that accounting, Social Security spent $1001.9 billion in 2021, while collecting $875.4 billion ($838.2 billion from payroll taxes and $37.2 billion from taxes on benefits), for a 2021 Social Security deficit of $126.5 billion. Covering this Social Security cash-flow deficit added to the U.S. publicly held debt.

Congress should reduce Social Security spending by making the programmatic reforms specified above as well as other immediate tweaks such as indexing the program’s cost-of-living benefit adjustments based on the chained CPI.

Social Security makes up the largest portion of current federal outlays and will continue to grow as more eligible individuals retire and live longer in retirement. Congress needs to grapple with how Social Security benefits are structured and reform the program if it is to meet its original intent without unduly undermining workers’ prosperity and growth in the economy. The longer Congress delays, the more costly the adjustments lawmakers will need to make, and the less time and resources American workers will have to prepare, by saving and investing to best meet their own needs, now and in their old age.

The results from Education Next’s annual poll are out, giving us a great opportunity to learn where people stand on a number of education-related issues. Many of the survey questions have been asked since the poll was started in 2007, so there are interesting trends to study. Others have been added in recent years to reflect concerns around COVID policies and cultural issues.

There are too many questions to cover them all here—you can click through their interactive charts to get the full picture. But I’ll delve into some highlights to help whet your appetite.

School Choice

I always look at the school choice responses first. On the generic “Do you support or oppose school choice?” question, 49 percent of the general public and 52 percent of parents expressed support. Just under 30 percent of each said they oppose school choice.

There was similar support for universal vouchers among the general public, but opposition was higher at 40 percent. Parental support was also higher, coming in at 57 percent with 34 percent opposed. Nearly every demographic preferred universal over targeted vouchers. Support for education savings accounts was similar or a bit lower among each group.

Tax credits for scholarship contributions drew the highest support numbers, at 61 percent for the general public and 66 percent for parents. I was surprised to see higher support among Democrats (64 percent) than Republicans (59 percent). Looking back at the trends shows fluctuations over the years in terms of which party shows higher support for tax credits.

Masking in schools

One of the Covid-era questions in this year’s poll is “Do you support or oppose requiring students in your local schools to wear face masks while in school?” This is one of many questions pointing to the need for more school choice options. Parents, who are the key demographic for this question, are pretty evenly split on it: 39 percent support and 42 percent oppose. Equipping parents to choose different educational options would defuse masks as a flashpoint.

Evaluating schools

As is typically the case, respondents have a much lower opinion of “public schools in the nation as a whole” than of the public schools in their community. While 52 percent of the general public and 59 percent of parents give their local schools an “A” or “B” grade, the results fall to 22 and 25 percent, respectively, at the national level.

“Free” pre‑K and college

Some of the strongest support came under the questions about “free” pre‑K and college. But, of course, there’s no such thing as “free” pre‑K or college. Someone is paying. While the pre‑K questions include a mention of “government” paying for it, the college questions just ask about making it free to attend. Neither is really clear that it would be taxpayers—including those who didn’t attend college or who worked to pay their own way—footing the bill. It’s easy to support “free” when you don’t realize you may pay a hefty fee to achieve that.

Moreover, the support is tough to evaluate since it doesn’t include dollar amounts. It’s likely that support for spending $5,000 per child for pre‑K would be higher than for $15,000 per child. Similarly, people might be fine with spending $10,000 to send someone to college but balk at a $40,000 price tag.

The annual Education Next poll is an interesting read since they ask a wide variety of questions. You can see what people think about school spending, teacher salaries, unions, racial issues, and more. Results are reported by race and political party in addition to the general public and parents. This year, the accompanying write-up delves into the increasing partisanship around education issues with an in-depth analysis of the trends. Check out the full results—I’m sure something in it will surprise you.

Today the Food and Drug Administration issued a final rule which will give millions of Americans over-the-counter access to hearing aids that heretofore required a prescription. The new rule, scheduled to take effect in mid-October, will benefit as many as 30 million people who suffer from hearing loss.

In 2017 Congress passed, and President Trump signed, the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act as a rider on the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017. The Act created a new category of OTC hearing aids as devices using air conduction to improve hearing among adults with mild to moderate hearing impairment. It differentiates these devices from devices that amplify sound for people with normal hearing, such as noise-cancelling headphones. The latter are not considered to be hearing aids. Regulations for the new class of OTC hearing aids were originally supposed to be released in 2020 but were delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. President Biden issued an executive order on July 9, 2021 that, among other things, prodded the FDA to speed up the rule-making process for OTC hearing aids.

The new rule applies only to persons over age 18 with mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Hearing aids intended for children and for people with severe hearing loss will still require a prescription.

This is welcome news. But it doesn’t go far enough. As Michael Cannon and I explain in Drug Reformation, the FDA has, since at least the 1950s, blocked access to countless life-saving and life-improving medicines and devices by requiring autonomous adults to get permission slips (i.e., prescriptions) from state-licensed gatekeepers, in order to acquire them. This violates their fundamental right to self-medicate. It also tends to inflate the prices of drugs and devices.

As we explain in Drug Reformation:

Evidence suggests that, in addition to the other access barriers they create, prescription requirements correlate with higher drug prices and that removing them correlates with reductions in drug prices…Numerous examples and studies show a correlation between removing prescription requirements and reductions in the price of a drug.

Consequently, the FDA estimates the new rule will save consumers roughly $2,800 for a pair of hearing aids.

Look for competition and consumer choice to further drive down the prices of OTC hearing aids, boosting access to these devices for millions who now go without them. The FDA should next liberate the children, as well as the adults with severe hearing loss.

Alaskans will go to the polls today to cast votes using an innovative electoral format that deserves notice and perhaps emulation in other states. It employs a two-stage process in which the first stage — an all-party combined primary to winnow the field down to four candidates — is followed up by a general election employing ranked-choice voting (RCV).

The second stage in the process, RCV, is already at least somewhat familiar to many readers given earlier discussions here and elsewhere. (Here’s a FAQ from the Alaska Elections Division on how it will work in the Last Frontier state.)

What’s more novel about today’s launch is the preliminary phase, the all-party combined primary sometimes called Final Four voting (or Final Five if that cutoff is used). To quote a guide put out by the Alaska Elections Division,

* All voters will get the same ballot, regardless of their political affiliation.

* Voters will vote for one candidate in each race and the top four candidates from each race will go on to the general election.

To spell out the implications: Alaska primaries will no longer generate a single designated Republican or Democratic nominee. The number of, say, Republicans making it into the final four might be 2, 1, or some other number. All candidates must proceed through the all-voter primary; there is no separate nominating petition process to bypass the qualifying primary and get onto the general election ballot.

Linking this kind of primary with the use of ranked-choice voting in the general makes sense given the distinct possibility that no candidate will command a majority once the four strongest candidates are left to make their appeal to voters. In particular, if (say) three Rs but only one D make it through the primary in a heavily R district, the three Rs might split the vote leaving the D to slip in with 35%, or of course vice versa in a heavily D district. RCV helps lessen that probability.

There’s a lot that could be said about this combined two-step design. (More from advocates here.) One is that it could bring independent voters into full participation in the electoral system on the same footing as voters who affiliate with a major party. Another is that it could help achieve the legitimate winnowing function of a preliminary qualifying round while sidestepping some of the manifest problems with today’s party primary system, in particular the dominant role of zealously motivated base voters.

Indeed, the design is seen as favorable toward the political survival of centrist Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only one of seven Senate Republicans up for election this year who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment last year. The New York Times notes: “Ms. Murkowski is still one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans in this year’s elections, but Alaska’s system gives her a chance to be judged by all the voters there, rather than registered Republicans alone.”

Two of the right-leaning candidates running in Alaska, former governor Sarah Palin and Murkowski opponent Kelly Tshibaka, have rather curiously advised followers not to exercise their ranking option beyond the first pick. That’s poor advice for followers seeking conservative election outcomes, since it puts their ballots at more risk of getting “exhausted” and set aside during RCV elimination rounds even though an alternative conservative candidate remains in the race.

Even odder is a July 29 opinion piece by Sarah Montalbano in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the new Alaskan methods. Seemingly taken by surprise at phenomena found in many races at various times and places, Montalbano complains about how “name recognition, not issues” sways many Alaskan voters, at how silly fringe candidates like to make a try before getting inevitably eliminated, and at how candidates who foresee not winning sometimes drop out at late stages. Her own father, she says in a triumph of data anecdotalism, “threw away his primary ballot” rather than sort out his choices. Shouldn’t she have advised him that he was free to just pick his first choice and let it go at that, just as he’d done before?

Incidentally, don’t blame the new methods for delays in vote reporting. As an opinion piece in The Hill by former Alaska Attorney General Bruce Botelho explains:

the Alaska Division of Elections — in line with state law — allows up to 15 days for absentee ballots to be received after Election Day. That’s to account for Alaska’s many military ballots, as well as rural voters — not because of RCV. But as part of that rule, only first-choice results will be reported for the first 15 days following the election, while absentee ballots are still coming in. So — unless one of the candidates receives 50 percent of first choices, don’t expect to know the final outcome during those 15 days.

Some cities and states with RCV elections produce results on election night, while others take a longer time to report, like Alaska. For Alaskans, we know our extended vote-counting period is not new or unique to RCV; Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s win in 2010 was called after 15 days, and Rep. Young and Sen. Dan Sullivan’s wins in 2020 were called after eight days. Our new voting system is no different.

For more on the universal primary/​Final Four idea, watch our Cato book forum from last year with Katherine Gehl, pioneering advocate of the proposal, and comments from Elaine Kamarck of Brookings and Cato colleague Andy Craig.

Last year Rep. Rob Wittman (R‑Virginia) introduced an amendment to address, of all things, the military’s procurement of anchors and mooring chains. Currently, these items can only be purchased from member countries of the National Technology and Industrial Base comprising the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada. Rep. Wittman’s amendment would have allowed them to also be purchased from major non-NATO allies, including shipbuilding powerhouse South Korea.

Today there is just one U.S. manufacturer, Lister Chain and Forge, that produces anchors and mooring chains for the military. As Rep. Wittman pointed out, however, the anchor swivels used by Lister are produced in South Korea. So why not allow the military to purchase anchors and mooring chains from South Korea (or other countries) if key parts of the item are produced overseas anyway? Limiting their purchase to a single U.S. firm virtually guarantees the military is not getting the best price and frittering away defense dollars.

Indeed, this hamstringing of the military’s ability to efficiently procure what it needs, Rep. Wittman added, sets the precedent for the United States “being in a noncompetitive mode to look at where we can be able to gain resources to do the things we need to do to rebuild our fleet.” Every dollar unnecessarily spent is a dollar no longer available for modernizing the U.S. Navy or meeting other military needs.

And that’s true of much more than just anchors and mooring chains. As I discuss in a policy analysis released today, the Department of Defense and related national security entities are subject to a raft of laws requiring the use of products that are domestically sourced.

The Berry Amendment, for example, means limited choice and higher prices for items such as flatware and running shoes used by U.S. servicemembers. The Military Cargo Preference Act and Jones Act raise the cost of shipping to domestic and overseas military bases. The Byrnes-Tollefson Amendment prohibits the construction of military vessels in foreign shipyards. That, by the way, helps explain why a Coast Guard icebreaker is currently being built in a Mississippi shipyard that has never before constructed such a vessel instead of one in Finland, a vastly experienced builder of icebreakers—and future NATO member—that could almost certainly deliver such a vessel in less time and considerably lower cost.

The paper, however, is not a call to award defense contracts on cost considerations alone. Even at a significant discount, it’s probably not a good idea to obtain aircraft carriers from state-owned firms in countries regarded as potential adversaries. But neither should the United States view foreign sourcing per se as inherently risky or undesirable. More nuanced thinking is needed, and the trade-offs between the advantages of domestic sourcing and obtaining the greater bang for the defense buck carefully weighed.

Expanding the military’s ability to obtain foreign goods and services, however, is about more than saving money. Having access to suppliers from across the globe brings provides numerous national security benefits. As former Rep. Mac Thornberry, a former chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, wrote shortly before departing office in 2020:

When crises emerge, whether they be pandemics or conflicts, the United States cannot continue to rely on a limited number of companies concentrated in one geographic region. We need geographic diversity. A broader network of trusted suppliers would also provide more competition for defense purchases, benefiting the taxpayers. It would bring in additional sources of innovation, accelerating our development of new technologies and applications to compete with China and other peer competitors.

Foreign countries—and U.S. allies in particular—are a resource to be harnessed. Laws that restrict access to their products and services should be greeted with default skepticism and, as applied to defense purchases, scrutinized to determine whether they serve more to bolster the country’s security or the profit margins of well-connected domestic firms. In numerous instances, the evidence suggests the latter.

In evaluating the slate of protectionist laws imposed on the U.S. military and broader defense apparatus it’s worth bearing in mind Henry George’s observation that “What protection teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.” The United States, including in the defense realm, is too often doing exactly this. In its zeal to guard against foreign overreliance, the United States frequently deprives itself of access to goods and services that could stretch its defense dollars and strengthen the country’s national security. Greater balance must be brought to such considerations. It’s long past time to re-examine, reform, and—at least in some cases—repeal these laws that collectively amount to a self-imposed blockade.