If we want better outcomes, we need to be willing to rethink the systems producing them. This month’s newsletter brings together four perspectives on where reform is overdue, and what it would take to deliver real results in health care, education, fiscal policy, and recovery.

Congress should move legislation on Most Favored Nation drug pricing

A closer look at how tying U.S. drug prices to those abroad could lower costs if done without undermining the innovation pipeline.

Why it matters: Americans pay significantly more for prescription drugs than patients in other developed countries. Policymakers face a real tradeoff: lowering prices today without undermining the innovation that produces tomorrow’s cures.

What we found: A Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) approach—tying U.S. drug prices to those paid abroad—can reduce costs, but poorly designed policies risk importing foreign price controls and dampening pharmaceutical innovation.

The policy points:

• The U.S. subsidizes a disproportionate share of global drug innovation.

• Foreign governments often set prices administratively, not through markets.

• MFN policies can reduce revenues needed for research and development.

• Smarter design can capture savings while limiting long-term harm.

What policymakers should do: Any approach to lowering drug prices must be paired with policies that preserve incentives for innovation, including encouraging competition and accelerating the entry of generics and biosimilars. The goal should be to strike a sustainable balance, delivering meaningful cost relief to patients today without undermining future development.

Full-spectrum Education Choice

School choice is moving from selecting schools to designing an education.

Why it matters: Traditional school choice debates focus on where students go to school, but families increasingly need flexibility in how education is delivered, especially as learning models evolve.

What we found: The next phase of education reform isn’t just school choice, it’s “full-spectrum” choice: allowing families to customize education through a mix of providers, services, and learning environments.

The policy points:

• Education is becoming “unbundled” (courses, tutoring, virtual, hybrid, etc.).

• Funding systems remain tied to rigid, institution-based models.

• Parents lack the flexibility to direct resources across multiple options.

• Innovation is outpacing policy frameworks.

What policymakers should do: Policymakers should modernize education funding to reflect how families actually use education today. That means expanding flexible models like Education Savings Accounts and allowing public funds to follow students across multiple providers, not just a single school. At the same time, accountability systems should shift away from rigid inputs like seat time and toward real student outcomes, while reducing regulatory barriers that prevent new and innovative education models from emerging.

“Total Boomer Luxury Communism”

Federal policy is increasingly protecting affluent retirees while shifting the costs onto younger generations.

Why it matters: Federal spending is increasingly skewed toward older, wealthier Americans, raising serious questions about intergenerational fairness and long-term fiscal sustainability.

What we found: Current policy effectively protects and expands benefits for retirees, many of whom are relatively affluent, while shifting the financial burden onto younger generations through debt and limited opportunity.

The policy points:

• Entitlement spending is the primary driver of long-term debt.

• Benefits are often not well-targeted by need.

• Younger Americans face higher costs (housing, education) with fewer offsets.

• The system redistributes upward across generations.

What policymakers should do: Policymakers should confront the structural imbalance in federal spending by reforming entitlement programs to better target those most in need, while gradually adjusting benefits and eligibility to reflect longer life expectancies and fiscal realities. At the same time, they should take steps to slow the growth of long-term debt and rebalance national priorities toward policies that expand opportunity for younger generations, rather than continuing to concentrate resources among those already well-positioned.

Katherine’s path out of addiction

A powerful reminder that recovery is possible, but only when systems support the complex, long-term reality of overcoming addiction.

Why it matters: The addiction crisis continues to devastate individuals, families, and communities. Effective policy must be grounded in what actually helps people recover, not just what sounds good on paper.

What we found: Recovery is possible, but it is often nonlinear and deeply personal. Systems that emphasize flexibility, accountability, and long-term support are more effective than one-size-fits-all approaches.

The policy points:

• Recovery paths vary: No single model works for everyone.

• Stable housing, employment, and community support are crucial.

• Policy often prioritizes short-term intervention over long-term recovery.

• Lived experience highlights gaps in current systems.

What policymakers should do: A more effective approach to addiction and recovery starts with recognizing that there is no single path to success. Expanding access to a wide range of treatment and recovery options is essential, alongside sustained investment in the supports that make recovery durable: stable housing, meaningful employment, and strong community networks. Just as important, systems should be shaped by the lived experiences of those who have navigated recovery themselves, ensuring that policy reflects what works in practice, not just in theory.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great week!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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Last month, I wrote about how the American Dream is more than a paycheck, and ostensibly non-economic factors like loneliness and civil society breakdown are making it feel out of reach for too many Americans, especially young people. But there’s another force pulling the rug out from under young Americans, and it has everything to do with economics: the federal government and its reckless overspending. Specifically, federal spending on programs for older – and generally wealthier – Americans.

There’s a name for this phenomenon: “Total Boomer Luxury Communism.”

My friend Russell Greene recently coined the term and then helped popularize it in an essay in American Mind, and he’s right to make us uncomfortable: it names a reality too many of our leaders pretend they don’t see: federal spending is heavily skewed toward retirees, who tend to be much wealthier than younger generations.

The mechanics are straightforward and stark. Two programs — Social Security and Medicare — now account for a huge and rising share of the federal ledger. Social Security alone is the single-largest federal program (roughly one-fifth of federal spending), and major health programs including Medicare make up close to one-third of outlays. And they are far from static: the Congressional Budget Office forecasts that rising spending on Social Security, Medicare, and net interest will push federal outlays sharply higher over the coming decade.

Greene writes:

“This generational injustice is compounded at least four times over:

1. Government taxes the young and transfers their wealth to seniors.

2. Government borrows even more to transfer more wealth to seniors.

3. Government debt causes inflation and slows economic growth, eating away at young people’s incomes their entire lives.

4. Government taxes young people again to pay for the debt incurred to pay for senior entitlements.”

To make matters worse, the American people hardly even get a say. So-called “mandatory” spending programs like Social Security and Medicare - and interest payments - which together make up more than three-quarters of all federal spending, are on autopilot, which means they are not voted on annually by Congress.

What does that fiscal trajectory mean in human terms? It means a structural tilt of government policy toward preserving and enhancing current retirement benefits — regardless of cost — while younger Americans shoulder the burden. Greene adds:

“An individual can take in over $60,000 a year from Social Security alone. Meanwhile, Medicare programs are paying for golf balls, greens fees, social club memberships, horseback riding lessons, and pet food.”

This status quo has cascading consequences. Young Americans are struggling to build a life and attain near-universal markers of adulthood. Homeownership rates for younger cohorts remain well below where comparable-age cohorts stood for previous generations — and even when there are small upticks, millions still report housing affordability as the main reason to delay marriage and children. Delayed homeownership becomes delayed marriage and delayed childbearing; that, in turn, depresses family formation, community stability, and long-term economic dynamism. The net effect: policy choices that privilege today’s retirees help explain why fewer young adults can afford the basic financial building blocks of family and community life. Greene includes the following chart, from Chris Pope at the Manhattan Institute:

Worse, this isn’t just the product of compassion for seniors nor inevitable demographics. Lawmakers reach for politically attractive short-term giveaways that disproportionately benefit older and wealthier voters in other ways, too. Michigan’s Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer recently proposed refunding roughly 10 percent of property taxes for seniors. Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace recently introduced a bill to eliminate taxes on boat loan interest. These are policy choices designed to benefit a specific group of people. They reflect political incentives that prize near-term voter popularity over long-term public finance and intergenerational fairness.

Broad tax cuts can encourage economic growth and private investment; targeted tax breaks largely just shift the tax burden onto less privileged constituencies, in this case younger people.

If we care about the future — about making sure the next generation can buy a house, form a family, start a business, live free of crushing debt and uncertainty — then we need leaders willing to choose long-term strength over short-term applause. That means confronting entitlements honestly: making the fiscally responsible, politically difficult reforms that preserve the social compact while ensuring it’s affordable and targeted.

The clock is already ticking; failure to act on Social Security will mean automatic benefit cuts of roughly 25 percent within the next decade. A debt spiral will raise interest costs and choke off growth — outcomes that would hurt young families the most. It is possible to protect benefits for seniors who need them, keeping seniors out of poverty, without asking younger generations to finance luxury-plated retirements for the well-off.

FREOPP has been clear about solutions. We’ve been on the front lines pushing common-sense entitlement reforms and market-aligned health care fixes — including our work on the Fair Care Act — that bend the cost curve without gutting protections for those in need. But policy leadership in government requires lawmakers to make decisions for the long-term common good. We need courage in Congress to redesign incentives, adjust formulas, and restore balance between generations.

This is not a plea to take something from the older generation for the sake of wealth redistribution. It is a demand for stewardship: respect the promises of the past, but don’t mortgage the future to keep them untouched in perpetuity. If policymakers continue to defer, they will force the most painful and arbitrary consequences onto individuals and families — not political leaders. That’s morally bankrupt and economically reckless.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

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Too often, we treat the American Dream as something that can be measured in economic data: GDP, income, home sales, and so on. Those things matter. But if that’s all we measure, we’re missing the full picture of what it actually means to live a flourishing life in America — and that’s a disconnect I believe average Americans recognize they have with economists and policymakers in Washington.

A new poll from Gallup this week should be a wake-up call for many of us in public policy. They report that American optimism has fallen to a record low.

Fewer Americans today expect to have a high-quality life five years from now than at any point Gallup has measured — and the share of people who report they’re “thriving” has slid sharply.

• 59.2% of Americans expect a high-quality life in five years, down from 68.3% prior to the COVID-19 pandemic

• 62.1% believe they live a high-quality life now, down from 67.4% in 2017

• All three major political identity groups saw declines of roughly five percentage points in future life optimism between 2021 and 2024

Those numbers aren’t just abstract metrics; they capture a mood that many of us already sense in our bones: something about life in America has felt off for years, and the average person can’t quite put their finger on what it is. We see it nostalgic yearnings constantly, whether it is the depictions of childhood in the 1990s or family life in the 1950s.

At FREOPP, we know that freedom and opportunity, and the hope and optimism that accompany them, include not just material prosperity, but stable relationships, meaningful social ties, and a civic life that invites participation and strengthens our communities and our country. We are farther from that fuller dream than many realize — or care to admit — and those shortfalls fall especially hard on poorer Americans.

FREOPP scholar Michael Tanner sheds light on this problem in a new paper, “Vicious Cycles: Social Isolation and Poverty.” Tanner lays out why social isolation and loneliness deserve to be front-and-center in any serious agenda for opportunity, especially in light of aforementioned Gallup data. His white paper documents rising isolation, shows how it disproportionately affects the poor and the young (especially young men), and traces how isolation produces economic, health, cultural, and civic harms.

Put simply: the country’s falling optimism and growing loneliness are two sides of the same problem. When people feel disconnected — when they lack close friends, stable family ties, or civic anchors — they are more likely to struggle economically, to suffer worse health, and to withdraw from institutions that sustain community life and add happiness. Conversely, neighborhoods and families that are tightly knit generate social capital that supports work, childcare, mentoring, and healthy civic participation. The stakes are high because the harms compound: poverty makes isolation more likely, and isolation makes escaping poverty harder. Tanner reports:

• The number of Americans who say they have no close friends has quadrupled since 1990

• Lower-income Americans are far more likely to express feelings of loneliness or social isolation

• 31 percent of those age 18-29 report feeling lonely all or most of the time, and time online is increasingly replacing social interaction.

Young people in particular show alarming signs of strain. Time-use data and multiple surveys show that younger cohorts spend less time in companionship and report higher rates of loneliness than prior generations; the consequences for marriage, family formation, and workforce attachment are profound. If a large share of the next generation grows up atomized and pessimistic about their prospects, the institutions that sustain upward mobility — stable families, civic groups, workplaces that mentor, and local religious and community organizations — will weaken alongside them.

So what should we do about it? The answer is not a single program or slogan; it’s a two-track approach that respects human freedom while recognizing a legitimate role for public policy.

1. Redesign the safety net so its stop existing as a series of sterile transactions and becomes an entry point into social networks that support stable work and family life. States and service providers should adopt “one-door” approaches that bundle benefits with pathways to job coaches, mentoring programs, faith-based and civic organizations, and local community groups. That makes social connection an explicit goal of anti-poverty strategy rather than an afterthought.

2. Be honest about how government can inadvertently crowd out civil society. Large, top-down programs can displace the local institutions that cultivate relationships and reciprocity. Where possible, policy should devolve power to families, neighborhoods, and civil-society actors and prioritize local over distant administration — not out of hostility to government, but out of realism about which institutions are best at knitting people together.

At the heart of this argument is a simple, sometimes politically unfashionable point: young people do best when they grow up with stable relationships at the center of their lives. Two-parent families, more stable marriages, and vibrant civic institutions are not mere moral posturing; they are engines of prosperity and fulfillment. They provide supervision, social capital, and networks that connect young people to mentors, employers, and civic life. Strengthening these institutions — culturally and through policies that remove barriers to family stability and encourage local community engagement — should be central to any serious agenda for opportunity.

The decline in national optimism underscores how urgent this agenda is. Economic indicators alone won’t restore a sense of hope if Americans continue to feel disconnected and unsupported.

If those of us in public policy and economics seek to change more hearts and minds, we must meet the American people where they are, and understand the American Dream to mean more than a bigger paycheck. We must treat social connection as essential infrastructure: the relationships, institutions, and local networks that enable people to flourish.

Policy can — and should — help. This space can be discomforting for those who have traditionally kept to tight lanes of economics and the law. But at FREOPP, we’ll continue to lean into addressing this challenge, and hopefully pave the way for more leaders to do the same.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

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In January, FREOPP scholars tackled some of the most pressing policy debates in economic opportunity, safety-net reform, and education innovation. From affordability proposals that sound good but fail in practice, to a promising bipartisan effort to fix welfare cliffs, to the right way to approach AI in education, our work focused on separating good intentions from good policy.

Bad Economic Ideas Make Affordability Worse

Why simplistic fixes often deepen the very problems they aim to solve

Why it matters: Affordability is top of mind for families, but some of the most popular proposals being floated today risk backfiring especially for low-income Americans.

What we found: Policies like government-mandated caps on credit card interest rates or banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes ignore basic economic realities. Interest rate caps would likely reduce access to credit for higher-risk borrowers, pushing them toward worse alternatives. Housing purchase bans would do little to lower prices while reducing rental supply and market liquidity.

The policy points:

• Price controls on credit (like interest-rate caps) historically reduce access to legal credit for higher-risk borrowers, disproportionately harming low-income households.

• Credit contraction doesn’t eliminate demand- it shifts borrowers toward less transparent, higher-risk alternatives.

• Institutional investors represent a small share of single-family home purchases nationally; banning them would have a negligible impact on home prices.

• Reducing investor participation can decrease rental supply, pushing rents higher in already-tight markets.

• Affordability challenges are primarily driven by supply constraints, regulatory barriers, and inflation - not investor activity or credit pricing alone.

• Policymakers often confuse symptoms (high prices) with causes (restricted supply and distorted incentives).

What policymakers should do: Focus on reforms that expand supply, competition, and access rather than blunt restrictions that distort incentives and reduce options for consumers.

Senator Husted’s Bill to Tackle Welfare Cliffs

A smart federal pilot to unlock state-driven innovation

Why it matters: Millions of working families face “welfare cliffs,” where earning a little more leads to losing far more in benefits discouraging advancement and trapping households in place.

What we found: The bipartisan Upward Mobility Act would allow selected states to consolidate funding from multiple federal safety-net programs and redesign benefits so they phase out more smoothly as income rises. States would compete for pilot funding and commit to rigorous evaluation.

The policy points:

• Welfare cliffs function as implicit marginal tax rates that can exceed 100%, penalizing work and advancement.

• Federal programs are siloed, with overlapping eligibility rules that compound benefit losses as income rises.

• The Upward Mobility Act preserves the safety net while allowing states to redesign benefit phase-outs more rationally.

• Competitive pilot selection encourages innovation while limiting federal risk.

• Independent evaluation requirements help separate what sounds compassionate from what actually improves outcomes.

• State flexibility paired with federal accountability offers a scalable model for broader safety-net reform.

What policymakers should do: Advance pilot programs that allow states to test and evaluate benefit-cliff solutions, building evidence for broader reform that supports families without discouraging progress.

AI in Education: Fix the Flaws Without Nixing the Model

Why banning innovation would be the wrong response

Why it matters: As AI tools enter classrooms, policymakers are under pressure to act, but overreaction could worsen educational inequities and stall progress.

What we found: The biggest problems associated with AI in education stem not from the technology itself, but from poor implementation, weak accountability, and lack of educator support. Broad bans would eliminate promising tools instead of addressing these root causes.

The policy points:

• AI tools amplify existing instructional strengths and weaknesses, they are not neutral, but neither are they inherently harmful.

• Blanket bans tend to entrench inequities by limiting access to tools that could benefit under-resourced schools.

• Poor outcomes are often tied to lack of teacher training, unclear implementation goals, and weak performance measurement.

• Innovation without guardrails is risky, but prohibition eliminates learning, iteration, and improvement.

• Policymakers should distinguish between tool misuse and tool design when regulating educational technology.

• Transparent data on student outcomes is essential to responsible AI adoption in classrooms.

What policymakers should do: Set clear guardrails, invest in teacher training, and require transparency on outcomes so AI is used to enhance learning rather than undermine it.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great week!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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President Trump’s recent burst of “affordability” announcements — from proposals to curb institutional investors buying single-family homes to talk of a 10% cap on credit card interest rates — appears to demonstrate commitment to lowering the cost of living for average Americans. But policy theater is not the same thing as lowering costs. These “fixes” won’t attack the root drivers of high prices; in many cases they’ll make life harder for the people they’re meant to help.

Take the investor ban. It’s politically intoxicating to tell the country that “big investors” are to blame for housing pain. The data tell a different story: institutional owners account for only a tiny share of single-family homes, and in some cases professional landlords expand access to quality, managed rentals. Removing one buyer from the market won’t magically build new housing; it’ll simply shrink a source of rental supply and—crucially—fail to address the real bottleneck: supply.

What actually drives housing costs is what economists have been saying for decades: restrictive land-use and zoning rules that choke supply where demand is highest. Minimum lot sizes, single-family mandates, and density limits make it expensive or impossible to add housing in job-rich, amenity-rich places. If your goal is cheaper housing, the obvious answer is to let more homes be built—by reforming local zoning, streamlining approvals, and encouraging denser, diverse housing types—not by targeting who buys the houses that already exist.

The proposed 10% interest rate cap on credit cards is another example of optics-driven politics with harmful results. Interest rate ceilings constrict credit access for higher-risk borrowers, shrink loan volumes, and push lending into more expensive, less reliable corners of the market. These price controls leave the people with thin credit histories and emergency cash needs worse off — exactly the households a cap purports to protect. Better reforms would expand low-cost credit alternatives, improve transparency, and boost competition in consumer finance.

Another area in which the President is inflicting economic pain on the American people (and political pain on himself) is trade policy. Tariffs are essentially taxes on consumers and businesses; they raise the prices of imported goods and often push up costs across domestic supply chains. Even the administration’s own actions acknowledge this tension: in November the White House rolled back tariffs on more than 200 food products amid growing cost pressures. Empirical work tracking retail prices shows tariffs pass through to consumers over time. If the aim is lower prices for American families, freer trade — not protection via tariffs — is an obvious lever.

Finally, there’s a bigger, fiscal dimension: chronic government overspending and rising entitlement commitments crowd out growth and add to long-run inflationary and interest rate pressures. The Congressional Budget Office projects substantial deficits and rising debt over coming decades, a drag on growth and a latent tax on living standards. Affordability requires fiscal sanity: reforms that slow the growth of entitlements, preserve benefits for those who need them, and stabilize the balance sheet.

If Republicans want credibility on affordability, they should avoid imitating the class-war theatrics of the left. Progressive “price control” populism has a long record of promising relief but producing shortages, lower quality, and untenable fiscal strain instead. The Trump administration should heed the lesson: steer away from anti-market reflexes and focus on real supply and competition reforms that lower prices sustainably.

That’s precisely the agenda FREOPP has been urging: unleash housing supply by reforming land-use rules; restore competition in health care through the Fair Care Act’s market-focused reforms that also rein in entitlement spending; modernize energy policy around abundance, affordability, and reliability; and embrace free trade to lower costs for consumers and open new markets for American producers. Those are the policies that bend cost curves down and create upward mobility for ordinary families, rather than just reshuffling burdens.

Political theater can win headlines; evidence-based free-market policy wins pocketbooks. If the goal is to make life more affordable for struggling Americans, Washington needs to swap the optics for supply, competition, and fiscal responsibility. Build more homes. Make hospitals compete. Reform entitlements. Keep markets open to trade. Do those things, and we’ll actually lower costs — not just score a 15-second sound bite that won’t even last until the midterm elections, anyway.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

Overcoming polarization to make progress: As we look ahead to 2026, FREOPP is optimistic. It’s undeniable that polarization has widened the gap between policy analysis and real-world impact, leaving too many systems large, slow, and disconnected from the people they are meant to serve. But we have the talent, the tools, and the policies to make a difference on issues that matter most to Americans in need of opportunity. As FREOPP Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer Aly Rau Brodsky wrote recently at FREOPP.org, policy only succeeds when it translates into measurable improvements in people’s lives. In the new year, FREOPP is renewing our focus on implementation: partnering with states, prioritizing feasible reforms, and developing practical tools that move ideas from paper to practice. We hope you will join us in shaping debates around shared values and delivering solutions that advance upward mobility, human dignity, and opportunity.

New Yorkers cannot afford the All Electric Buildings Act: New York’s affordability crisis—marked by rents rising faster than wages, soaring utility bills, and nearly one million residents leaving since 2020—is being worsened by counterproductive regulations. FREOPP Visiting Fellow Grant Dever argues in The Hill that the All Electric Buildings Act, which bans natural gas hookups in new construction starting in 2026, would raise building costs, strain an already overburdened electric grid, and further slow housing development without meaningfully reducing emissions. With housing supply barely growing over the past decade, these mandates risk deepening scarcity that disproportionately harms lower-income renters and young residents. Lawmakers should delay or repeal the policy and prioritize cost-of-living relief and housing supply growth, pursuing climate goals in ways that support affordability, economic growth, and long-term fiscal sustainability.

Fifty years later, it’s time to fulfill the original promise of IDEA: Since it was enacted in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has dramatically expanded access to education for students with disabilities but has failed to deliver on its original promise, largely because Congress never fully funded it. As a result, families—especially low- and middle-income ones—often face limited or mismatched options, while wealthier parents can privately supplement or exit the system. FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips contends that the current debate wrongly frames school choice and disability protections as opposing goals. Instead, Congress should fully fund IDEA while pairing it with portable, student-centered funding mechanisms—such as education savings accounts (ESAs)—to give families real choices without sacrificing rights or accountability.

What Sweden can teach the United States about low-cost, high-quality health care: FREOPP Co-founder and Chairman Avik Roy recently published a new paper making the case that America’s uniquely high health care costs stem not from overuse, malpractice, or insufficient government involvement, but from a single structural flaw: the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored insurance, which suppresses wages, blunts consumer price sensitivity, and entrenches employers as inefficient middlemen. Drawing on international evidence—especially Switzerland’s system of universal, individually purchased insurance—he shows that competitive private markets can deliver lower costs, better prevention, and stronger fiscal sustainability than the U.S. status quo. Avik’s key recommendations for how to get there? Fix Affordable Care Act design flaws, reduce Medicaid churn, adopt Swiss-style tools like reinsurance and longer-term contracts, and modernize Medicare payment rules to unlock innovation, rather than simply spending more within a broken system.

→ Avik’s paper is adapted from his testimony delivered to the U.S. Congress’s Joint Economic Committee on December 17, 2025. Check it out on YouTube.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP—have a great weekend and a Happy New Year!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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Last month, FREOPP hosted our annual “Freedom & Progress” Conference in Washington, D.C., where we were joined by nearly 200 policymakers, thought leaders, philanthropists, and others to discuss solutions and strategies to tackle the issues that matter most to uplift Americans below the median income.

You can watch the event’s opening, including comments from our co-chairman of the Board, Jonathan Bush, and from me, as well as our main stage plenary panel on winning back young Americans, here as they were covered on C-SPAN.

TheHill.com, a popular mainstream political news website, described the event as follows:

FREE-MARKET OPTIMISM

The mood was hopeful at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREEOPP) Freedom & Progress conference last week, where a cadre of small-government types gathered to discuss everything from free trade to how to “win back” the youth in favor of free market policies.

It came, of course, in the shadow of the turbulence at the Heritage Foundation, with some hoping that the backlash to the major think tank that’s become more Trumpy in recent years could be a sign of a vibe shift back to traditionally conservative positions on markets and more.

FREOPP President Akash Chougule referenced those dynamics in the movement in his opening remarks.

“Americans who are being drawn to bad ideas because they are struggling, like discarding free markets and pluralism for socialism or racism or antisemitism do not need to be coddled,” Chougule said. “And the charlatans who push those bad ideas onto them do not need to be embraced as part of our movement. For those of us here in Washington, that includes lawmakers, media personalities, heads of esteemed think tanks, and anyone else who contributes to public policy and our public discourse.”

Speakers at the conference included Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R), FREOPP Co-Founder & Chairman Avik Roy, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Judge Glock, Brad Wilcox of the University of Virginia’s National Marriage Project, Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Rachel Greszler, Advancing American Freedom President Tim Chapman, and Reason Senior Editor Stephanie Slade.

We were also thrilled to honor two recipients with our Frederick Douglass Award, FREOPP’s highest honor, for their achievements to advance the reforms that FREOPP cares about:

Rep. Virginia Foxx - North Carolina

Rep. Foxx currently serves as Chairwoman of the powerful House Rules Committee, and previously served as Chairwoman of the Education and Workforce Committee. In both positions, she has been FREOPP’s greatest champion in Congress pushing for higher education reforms stemming from our first-of-its-kind “ROI in Higher Education” work, much of which was signed into federal law this summer. Rep. Foxx has supported countless other FREOPP causes, such as the importance of non-college career pathways and workforce development, education choice, worker freedom, and more.

She shared the poignant story of her own upbringing - growing up in desolate poverty western North Carolina without running water - and her rise to Congress, which to this day inspires her work every single day to help spread the American Dream to as many of her fellow Americans as she can.

Governor Tate Reeves - Mississippi

Governor Tate Reeves has been involved in what has now become known as the “Mississippi Miracle” since long before becoming his state’s chief executive. He championed unique, bold education reforms from the powerful Lieutenant Governor’s chair as well, and Mississippi families are now reaping the rewards. Despite being the nation’s poorest state by a wide margin for many decades, thanks to legislation such as the bipartisan Literacy-Based Promotion Act, Mississippi’s education scores and rankings have skyrocketed in several categories.

After adjusting for demographics, Mississippi was number one in the nation in both reading and math in 2024. The state saw the greatest improvement in students achievement of any state from 2013 to 2022. African-American Mississippi students rank third in the nation in reading, and Hispanic Mississippi students rank first for reading and second for math. Mississippi was also #2 in the country for closing the fourth-grade reading achievement gap for lower-income students compared to students from wealthier families.

The results speak for themselves, and Mississippi provides a model for other states. Governor Reeves has also championed many other pro-growth reforms, such as eliminating the individual income tax, reducing regulations, and expanding workforce development initiatives. You can watch my conversation with him here as it was covered on C-SPAN.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The end of December will mark nine months since I took over from Avik Roy as President of FREOPP. Much of this first year has been focused on learning the ropes, developing relationships and strategy, and activating FREOPP on the most pressing issues of the day such as the summer’s federal tax reform legislation and the ongoing health care policy debate.

Next year, we will hit the ground running with some exciting announcements, including a brand new, first-of-its-kind initiative as the nation’s leading policy hub on an issue critical to protecting and improving outcomes for one of the most vulnerable populations in the country, and more in-depth coalition and advocacy strategies on a range of state and federal issues.

We will have more to share in January, but until then, I’d like to wish all of you a peaceful and joyous holiday season, and thank you for being on this journey with us. If you wish to support our work and help us expand our reach and impact, we would be grateful for your tax-deductible gift, which you can make here.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

The challenge of rural poverty: Rural poverty in America is deeper and more persistent than most Americans realize. Despite billions in federal spending, rural communities face higher poverty rates, weaker labor markets, lower educational attainment, and worsening family stability. FREOPP Senior Fellow Michael Tanner argues that rural America’s long-running economic upheaval—compounded by population decline, poor health outcomes, and dependence on vulnerable commodity industries—requires a comprehensive strategy that strengthens work, education, family formation, and community vitality. He calls for reforms across agriculture and farm policy, education, energy policy, health care, immigration, job creation and economic growth, and trade policy, emphasizing competition, innovation, and local agency. The key takeaway? Washington must shift from managing rural decline to enabling rural renewal—empowering families to build stable lives, resilient communities, and pathways out of poverty.

Curious what rural poverty means when it comes to the much-discussed federal SNAP program? Michael digs into the distribution of SNAP benefits—and the overlooked beneficiaries of the program—on FREOPP’s OppBlog.

Now is the moment to deregulate Obamacare: In the wake of the shutdown and renewed fights over Obamacare’s future, FREOPP Co-founder and Chairman Avik Roy has argued across multiple outlets—The Washington Post, Forbes, and National Review, to name a few—that Washington is missing the real problem: the law’s core regulations are driving costs so high that subsidies can no longer mask the damage. Premiums have nearly tripled and deductibles have more than doubled since 2014, leaving Americans with some of the least affordable coverage in the developed world. As subsidies balloon to keep up, Avik warns they are fueling inflation and creating an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. Instead of extending temporary patches, he calls for a bipartisan deal to deregulate Obamacare’s cost-driving rules and open the door to lower-cost insurance options. Without structural reform, Congress will keep spending more to deliver less, while working- and middle-class Americans pay the price.

Will Mamdani really help poor New Yorkers? Zohran Mamdani’s election as mayor of New York reflects genuine frustration among young and low-income residents. But FREOPP Senior Fellow Michael Tanner argues that many of Mamdani’s flagship proposals, from rent control to a $30 minimum wage, would backfire on the very New Yorkers he says he champions by worsening housing shortages, slowing transit improvements, driving up child-care costs, and eliminating low-wage jobs. He contends that a more effective path lies in free-market reforms that tackle high living costs, expand opportunity, and promote upward mobility. Unless leaders address these challenges with compassion and credible policy, Mamdani won’t be the last to ride the wave of voter discontent.

The “Mississippi Miracle” shows a path to expanding education opportunity: Mississippi’s remarkable rise from one of the nation’s lowest-performing states to a national leader in childhood literacy shows what’s possible when policymakers commit to evidence-based reading instruction and sustained, statewide leadership. FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips explains how the “Mississippi Miracle” was built on a decade of disciplined reforms including phonics-based teaching, intensive teacher retraining, early childhood alignment, data-driven interventions, and an end to social promotion without support. The result: Mississippi’s economically disadvantaged fourth graders now post the highest reading scores in the nation. Dan urges any state that is serious about expanding education opportunity to view Mississippi as a model.

→ FREOPP celebrated Mississippi’s revival in childhood literacy by awarding Governor Tate Reeves the Frederick Douglass Award earlier this month at Freedom and Progress 2025.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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FREOPP will host our marquee event of the year, the “Freedom & Progress” Conference, this coming Friday, November 21, in Washington, DC. View the agenda and register to join us here. Last month, I wrote here about what I hope will make the event a unique experience and unique benefit to our movement.

FREOPP also recently welcomed our new Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, Alyssa Brodksy, to the team. You can read more about her background and the value she will create for our efforts here.

As readers of this Substack know well, FREOPP’s mission is to expand economic opportunity to those who least have it using the tools of individual liberty, free enterprise, technological innovation, and pluralism. Of those four tools, it is the last one - pluralism - that sometimes raises questions about its relevance to economic growth and upward mobility.

But make no mistake: pluralism is included in FREOPP’s mission statement because it is a central feature of the happy, healthy, and prosperous society that struggling Americans need to thrive.

Earlier this month, I was invited to speak at the Symposium on Young American Men in Washington, DC, discussing solutions to the many problems that currently plague young males in the United States. These problems range from drug addiction and loneliness that lead to deaths of despair, to simply feeling excluded from mainstream institutions like college campuses and spending too much time on Youtube.

There is no singular policy solution to any of these problems, though policy can make a difference. (For example, as FREOPP Senior Fellow Michael Tanner wrote this summer, certain policy reforms could increase marriage rates. Tanner also has a forthcoming paper diving into the issue of social isolation, and how government has worsened the problem by crowding out civil society).

That is the challenge of pluralism. Government cannot mandate pluralism; to do so would quite obviously undermine Americans’ First Amendment rights. Still, pluralism is important not only because tolerance and peaceful coexistence are themselves worthy ends.

Pluralism is particularly important for struggling Americans because it limits concentrated power, facilitates competitive markets with diversified choices, and undergirds the wide array of civil society institutions that bring connection and meaning to people’s lives. Put simply, pluralism helps foster and strengthen everything that makes a society, and the individuals and families that make it up, happy, healthy, and prosperous.

Unfortunately, in recent years, we’ve seen two extremes ascendant:

• The first, one that attempts to force not just acceptance, but outright embrace and support for certain lifestyles, behavior choices, or beliefs, and attempts to ‘cancel’ anyone who objects. Needless to say, forced embrace under the threat of losing your job is not pluralism.

• The second, one that openly rejects pluralism entirely with an insistence that America would be better off as a more homogenous society with less diversity, particularly diversity of ethnicity or religious belief.

This latter extreme is not new, but seems to have worsened in response to the first - in particular, within the broad coalition of the American center-right.

There is nothing conservative about rejecting pluralism in favor of homogeneity. The kind of homogeneity these extremists seek is a blatant rejection of our founding principles and would grind our country to a halt economically, socially, and culturally, making all of us worse off. That is why I was so disappointed to see Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, an esteemed conservative think-tank, defend Tucker Carlson for conducting a playful conversation with an avowed racist and antisemite.

The only plausible explanation for Roberts’ decision was that he felt it necessary to do so because Carlson and his guest appeal to a segment of the American public - in particular, disaffected young men - that Roberts views as important to the conservative coalition.

This could not be further from the truth. Accepting these noxious ideas not only undercuts the cornerstones of wellbeing and prosperity, it is an unquestionable political loser because it (rightfully) turns off many times more people than it gains.

We must reaffirm our commitment to pluralism, and to advancing both policy change and cultural change that ensure it remains part of the American fabric. We simply will not live up to the Founders’ vision nor uplift struggling Americans without it.

FREOPP will continue to stand firmly in support of pluralism because we understand how important it is to a thriving country. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you next week at Freedom & Progress 2025.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

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Ensuring that foster children and their caregivers access federal benefits: Too many foster youth enter adulthood without the resources they need to succeed—and federal and state systems often make their difficult situations worse. States have returned tens of millions of dollars in unused federal funds designed to help these children. Worse, many states seize foster children’s own Social Security benefits. At the same time, foster parents across the country miss out on tax credits and support because of red tape and data gaps. With too few foster homes and high rates of homelessness among youth aging out of care, FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips and Research Assistant Sarah Krause call for action to ensure benefits actually reach foster families. In a new white paper, they urge the Trump administration to streamline access, ban states from seizing children’s benefits, improve data collection, and create a new Foster Care Tax Credit to help recruit and retain foster parents—steps that could help vulnerable children build stable, independent futures.

This bipartisan compromise could end the government shutdown: As Congress debates whether to extend billions in Obamacare subsidies set to expire this year, FREOPP Co-founder and Chairman Avik Roy took to The Washington Post to argue that Republicans have a rare chance to pair short-term subsidy relief with long-overdue bipartisan reforms to make insurance genuinely affordable. He proposes two key changes: allowing insurers to offer greater discounts to younger enrollees to rebalance risk pools, and creating a $10 billion annual reinsurance fund to directly support coverage for people with preexisting conditions. Together, these reforms would lower premiums for both the young and the sick while reducing subsidy costs to taxpayers. Avik contends that Democrats would still preserve protections for preexisting conditions, while Republicans would finally achieve real regulatory reform—making health insurance more affordable for everyone without expanding federal spending indefinitely.

→ Want another case for health care reform? Kimberley Strassel picked up Avik’s arguments in The Wall Street Journal. She writes that, without bipartisan reform, Republicans will remain hostage to a health-care system they once opposed. By acting now, they can steer it toward affordability and freedom.

A record 79 percent of Americans believe immigration is good for the country: A June 2025 Gallup poll shows a dramatic rebound in support for immigration, with 79 percent of Americans saying it is a “good thing” for the country—a record high—and only 30 percent favoring reduced immigration, down sharply from 55 percent last year. The biggest shift came from Republicans, whose opposition to immigration has nearly halved since 2024. FREOPP Visiting Fellow Natalia Dashan notes that this marks a return to the long-term trend of broad public confidence that immigrants strengthen the nation. Economic data reinforce that view: studies from the Federal Reserve and the Cato Institute find that immigrants raise wages, expand job creation, and improve fiscal outcomes. With public sentiment at historic highs, Natalia urges policymakers to focus on reforms that harness immigration’s economic and cultural benefits.

We hope to see you in D.C. later this month! Want to talk about these ideas and more with others who believe in the American Dream and want to ensure that it endures? Join us at our annual Freedom & Progress Conference on November 21, 2025, at the Conrad Hotel in Washington, D.C., to tackle the hard questions: where critics are right about what’s broken—and how freedom-based solutions can fix it. It’s not too late to register—simply visit the conference page at FREOPP.org to view the latest agenda and to sign up.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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FREOPP will hold our marquee event of the year, our “Freedom & Progress” Conference, on November 21 at the beautiful Conrad Hotel in Washington, DC. You can see more details about the event and register to join us here.

This year’s conference takes place amidst great uncertainty for those of us who believe in the nation’s founding principles and their ability to uplift every American. America is not just facing social and economic challenges; those challenges are driving anger, division, distrust, and even violence.

As I wrote when I first became President of FREOPP six months ago, many (though not all) of the problems that proponents of ideas like “democratic socialism” or “national conservative” economic populism lament have been properly identified. But often, their proponents blame the wrong culprits and propose solutions that would make things worse rather than better.

One of the primary goals of “Freedom & Progress” 2025 will be to answer this challenge for our movement: acknowledging where problems have been rightly identified (economic, social, or cultural), and advance the conversation toward solutions based in free enterprise and individual freedom.

The conference will open with a main-stage plenary conversation with three thought leaders uniquely positioned to address this question as it pertains to young Americans and their skepticism of free-market capitalism:

• Patrick Ruffini, Founding Partner at Echelon Insights, has researched, polled, and written extensively about the forces and frustrations driving the rise of populism on the right and the resulting political realignment, including in his 2023 book, “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.”

• Daniel DiMartino, a Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, has written and spoken to countless young people about the horrors of socialism - knowledge based both on his personal experience fleeing Venezuela, as well as researching the topic as a PhD candidate in Economics at Columbia University.

• And Stephen Hawkins, Global Research Director for More in Common, is conducting one-of-a-kind voter segmentation analysis to identify areas of misperception and common ground between seemingly disparate groups.

All three will have unique insights about what’s driving sentiments among young Americans, and how defenders of the free market should address them.

You can see the entire “Freedom & Progress” agenda here (note that some speakers and topics are still being added). In addition to the main-stage plenary above, you’ll see breakout panel sessions and working groups on a litany of subjects for which defenders of free enterprise must have answers, but too often go undiscussed in our circles. These include:

• Strengthening Families, Communities, and the Culture through the Free Market

• Restoring Equal Opportunity in a Post-DEI America

• Making the Moral and Strategic Case for Free Trade

We’ll also dive deep into specific policies that significantly impact upward mobility for Americans below the median wealth or income - and which, in many cases, are major drivers of frustration with capitalism. Issues like:

• A Free-Market Path to Low-Cost, High-Quality Health Care for All

• Breaking Barriers to Housing Supply and Mobility

• Welfare Reform and the Success Sequence: Helping Achieve the Path to Prosperity

Finally, we’ll highlight more than just policy thought leaders. We are also bringing real-world practitioners who are actually advancing private sector innovations, so policymakers can hear lessons from on the ground, outside the Beltway. These topics include:

• What Lawmakers Can Learn from Civil Society’s Child Welfare Successes

• Non-college Pathways to Prosperity in a Free Economy

• After ESAs: The Next Wave of Education Innovation

The conversations at “Freedom & Progress” promise to be different than any that have taken place at like-minded events before. This is not only because many of the issues are different, but also because the landscape on these issues is shifting every single day, in many instances, right up until the point at which we will convene on November 21st at the Conrad Hotel.

You can register for the event here. I hope you’ll be there to join in the discussion.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

A legislative blueprint for prescription drug reform: Eighty-two percent of Americans say prescription drugs cost too much—and without reform, patients will keep paying the world’s highest prices while struggling to afford the medicines they need. In a new paper, FREOPP Resident Fellow Gregg Girvan lays out a comprehensive blueprint to fix America’s broken prescription drug market—one that preserves innovation while making medicines affordable. The plan builds on the Fair Care Act, tackling patent abuse, FDA inefficiencies, opaque pharmacy benefit manager practices, and weak payer leverage, while also proposing further reforms to Medicare’s price negotiation program and federal payment rules. The takeaway: America can remain the world leader in drug innovation while ensuring patients actually benefit from it—if Congress enacts reforms that curb exploitation, expand competition, and put patients before entrenched interests.

→ Want more from FREOPP scholars on health care? Check out Visiting Fellow Grant Rigney’s argument for reconsidering the Affordable Care Act’s ban on physician-owned hospitals.

August jobs report confirms stagnation narrative: The August employment report confirmed that the U.S. labor market has stalled, adding only 22,000 positions and showing little net growth since April. FREOPP Visiting Fellow Aparna Mathur and Research Fellow Anmol Rathi describe the structural problems mounting beneath the 4.3 percent unemployment rate: long-term joblessness now makes up more than one-quarter of all unemployed, workforce participation remains depressed, and another 722,000 Americans have left the labor force compared to last year. Health care accounted for nearly all net job creation, masking steep losses in manufacturing, trade, energy, and the federal workforce. What’s more, persistent downward revisions to prior data raise additional concerns that real-time conditions are even weaker than reported. The report signals that policymakers face not just cyclical softening but entrenched challenges requiring urgent attention.

A tragedy in Charlotte can provide lessons about the homeless mentally ill: The murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska by a schizophrenic homeless man in Charlotte underscores a deeper policy failure: the inability to effectively treat and manage severe mental illness among the homeless. The suspect, long known to authorities for delusions and instability, cycled between prison, the streets, and ineffective encounters with police without ever receiving sustained treatment. At FREOPP’s OppBlog, Senior Fellow Michael Tanner argues that unless policymakers carefully expand legal mechanisms—like California’s conservatorship courts—that allow families and authorities to secure involuntary treatment while safeguarding civil liberties, tragedies like Zarutska’s will remain an all-too-predictable outcome of a systemic failure.

Zoning reform is necessary, but not sufficient to lower housing costs: Skyrocketing housing costs remain an urgent national problem but, as FREOPP Resident Fellow Roger Valdez describes in Forbes, the “YIMBY” or “Yes In My Back Yard” movement cannot fix the problem if it focuses narrowly on zoning reforms like reducing lot sizes or eliminating parking requirements. Case in point? The much-debated housing reforms in Austin, Texas. Regulatory tweaks made headlines but did little to spur construction because costs, fees, and market realities still block feasibility. While YIMBY policies are necessary, Roger argues that genuine affordability requires pairing regulatory relief with financial incentives, infrastructure investment, and market-aware solutions. Instead of vilifying single-family homes, policymakers should dismantle outdated zoning altogether and prioritize policies that empower builders, developers, and lenders to deliver housing at scale.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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It’s been said that we have experienced several generations’ worth of life-altering events in the span of less than 30 years — from the 9/11 attacks, to the 2008 financial crisis, to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interspersed within were the election of the first African-American President of the United States; multiple significant and impactful social movements; major wars; two assassination attempts on President Trump; and so, so much more.

Much ink has been spilled elsewhere on how these events have been a major driver of populist frustrations on both the left and the right.

Those frustrations have caused people to question — or worse, outright oppose — the very cornerstones of our founding, our country, and what it means to be an American. I see it, hear it, and read it all the time from other millennials, especially.

But this past week has provided multiple instances that should underscore to every American a critical truth: that our founding ideals actually matter. More than that, they are an indispensable part of why America is the strongest, most prosperous, and most benevolent society in the history of mankind.

Freedom of speech moves America forward

I’d be remiss if I didn’t start with the murder of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, this past Wednesday. Based on what we know as I write this, it certainly seems as though Charlie was murdered for his political beliefs. Worse, he was murdered while engaging in free and open debate about those beliefs — actively using the First Amendment and providing a platform for others on a college campus, including those who disagree with him, to do so as well.

The freedom of speech not only allows ordinary citizens to criticize their government and elected officials. It also allows us to challenge entrenched interests and assumptions—to move our communities and our country forward toward new frontiers. And throughout the course of American history, it has been the least among us who have benefited the most from that pioneering spirit.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Charlie’s family and friends, and the Turning Point USA community.

The following day, Thursday, America commemorated 24 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As the years pass, I hope that this day never fades into a passing memory for those who remember it, and that for younger people, they are taught not just what happened, but why: it is precisely those fundamental, founding freedoms that make America who we are that our enemies despise. There are countries and societies still today where you can be silenced, punished, or worse for your faith or your voice. America was founded to be different, and I hope we never lose sight of that, because it is precisely our differences from the rest of the world that have made us the greatest country on earth.

Our rights do not come from government

That’s why the comments made by Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) last week were so disappointing, and even more so in light of what transpired in the days since. In a Senate confirmation hearing on September 4th, Senator Kaine had this to say about Americans’ rights:

“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes. It’s a theocratic regime that bases its rule on Sharia law...And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their Creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.”

It was incredibly disheartening to hear this from a sitting US Senator, let alone a senator from the same Commonwealth of Virginia as Thomas Jefferson, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence (“…We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…”).

The idea that we are endowed with inalienable rights, meaning that they do not come from the government, was not only the defining concept at the heart of our founding. It is also the basic idea that has made possible everything else that has come after it in America: the disruptive ideas and innovations that have improved the lives not just of every single American, but of billions of people across the world who have benefited from them.

That we believe in freedom — the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — is the reason that America, not some place else, is the “shining city upon a hill.” It is the reason we are the world’s beacon of hope, opportunity, and prosperity, and particularly in our most trying moments, I hope every American remembers that about our founding principles, and recommits to upholding them however we can in our own lives.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

Bitcoin, stablecoins, and America’s debt endgame: FREOPP Co-founder and Chairman Avik Roy joined Bitcoin Magazine for the debut episode of “Bitcoin Politics” to examine how America’s mounting debt and monetary instability create both risks and opportunities for Bitcoin and stablecoins. Avik argues that the U.S. debt crisis is worse than any official government estimates capture and that the problem is only getting worse. The consequences, from ballooning inflation to the adoption of alternative monetary systems, will fall especially hard on lower-income Americans. That’s why it is so important to protect their ability to place their savings in inflation-protected assets like bitcoin and to embrace policies that preserve financial freedom while preparing for a world in which digital assets play a central role.

The quiet revolution in education policy: Congress’s expansion of 529 accounts in the recent “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) paves the way for student empowerment and parental choice by extending tax-free savings beyond college to K-12 expenses, job training, workforce development, and even disability and retirement needs. In The Wall Street Journal this week, FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips and FREOPP Resident Fellow Michael Toth highlight how this shift, coupled with Education Savings Accounts and a new school choice tax credit, gives families unprecedented flexibility to pursue alternatives to costly degrees with questionable returns and failing standardized systems. Unfortunately, state-level barriers remain: In places like California, Colorado, and Illinois, outdated laws still tax 529 withdrawals for K-12 uses, penalizing parents seeking tutors or vocational training. States should conform to the new federal rules, removing these barriers and enabling their residents to take full advantage of the new benefits.

The most pro-growth component of tax reform: As scholars continue to assess the consequences of the OBBBA, FREOPP Visiting Fellow Jon Hartley adds new research to the mix, showing that permanent full business expensing is one of the most powerful pro-growth tax policies available. His study with Kevin Hassett and Joshua Rauh finds that a 1% reduction in the cost of capital spurs a 3% increase in investment—far greater than previously estimated. These findings underscore why permanence matters for business confidence and long-term productivity. Although critics raise concerns about deficit implications, Jon’s findings suggest that much of the revenue loss will be offset by stronger growth. With that in mind, making full expensing permanent for all types of investment should remain a top priority for future tax reform.

The paradox of legal immigration in the workplace: Despite their outsized contributions—from Nobel Prizes to filling critical workforce gaps—many legal immigrants to the United States face limited mobility, can’t easily change jobs, and are barred from entrepreneurship. FREOPP Visiting Fellow Natalia Dashan argues on OppBlog that America is undercutting its own economic dynamism by shackling high-skilled immigrants with restrictive visa rules, duplicative credentialing barriers, and arbitrary Green Card quotas. Simple reforms, including providing avenues for entrepreneurship, easing job-switching, streamlining medical credentialing, and creating long-term pathways for STEM graduates to stay in the U.S. would have an outsized impact in addressing labor shortages in crucial industries, strengthening America’s competitiveness, and honoring its promise as a land of opportunity.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

Donate Now

As you are undoubtedly already aware, a few weeks ago, a little-known state representative named Zohran Mamdani shocked the political world by winning the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City.

The reaction since then from people who consider themselves supporters of America’s free-market system has been a combination of disgust, confusion, anger, or simply hand-waving away another progressive victory in a deep-blue jurisdiction.

As we head into the slow days of the “August recess” in the policy and political arena, I think it’s a good time for introspection, and to ask ourselves, “what are we missing?”

Zohran Mamdani is no ordinary Democrat—or even New York progressive. He has expressed countless views far to the left of even the most extreme mainstream national Democratic figures. He is on record supporting everything from government-owned grocery stores to abolishing private property to—in his own words—“seizing the means of production.”

It is worth noting that, despite Mamdani’s constant class warfare rhetoric, he performed better among wealthier, college-educated voters than among lower-income, non-college voters. That suggests that many elite progressives liked the sound of his ideas, while many of those who have the most at stake in them saw through them.

But even if we caveat that he only won a Democratic primary in a very Democratic city with low voter turnout, we must grant that he clearly has a level of appeal that should be shocking given the abhorrent historical record of the policies he supports. Mamdani ran a sophisticated and effective campaign, but he also ran on issues that a significant portion of the electorate sees as critical to the ability of poor and working-class people to get ahead.

And clearly, good ideas on these issues are failing to penetrate in areas where they are needed most: major urban centers that have been roundly failed for decades by progressive, bureaucratic, special interest-driven policies—hurting those who need help the most.

The free-market movement has simply done an inadequate job of working on these issues and advancing solutions for key audiences.

This is where FREOPP comes in. On issue after issue that Mamdani ran on, our scholars have developed market-oriented solutions that would specifically improve the lives of the bottom half of Americans, whereas Mamdani’s ideas would make them worse.

• On housing, in our “Affordable Housing in the 21^st Century” paper, FREOPP scholars spelled out in detail how to expand supply and lower costs, with ideas such as tying federal aid to local supply-side reforms; moving away from government-funded housing projects toward more flexible vouchers; and several ways to improve housing finance to allow the market to lower costs.

• On homelessness, in “Reimagining the Policy Approach to Homelessness,” Michael Tanner offers several solutions to clean up America’s streets while providing the homeless with the care they need – whether that means voluntary or involuntary institutionalization, mental health care, or substance abuse treatment. Tanner notes that these proposals should be coupled with state and local experimentation and housing reforms, as well.

• On health care, FREOPP has previously helped write the only free-market health care reform legislation in Congress that would result in universal coverage, the Fair Care Act – providing every American with coverage and access to care that works for them at a price point that works for patients and taxpayers alike.

• On education, FREOPP has tirelessly advocated for greater choice and parental control in K-12 education as a critical vehicle to improve outcomes for students from low-income families, and led the way on higher education reform, proposing alternatives to “free community college,” reforms to reduce the cost of college and allow more low-income Americans to attend, and critically – an innovative workforce development agenda to equip those who choose not to attend college.

• Finally, on poverty and upward mobility, our scholars have produced unique research and analysis on everything from innovating the social safety net to help more people at lower cost, to fixing broken incentives in the welfare system to reward rather than punish work, to the link between marriage and poverty and the reforms that can help facilitate it.

FREOPP is not in the business of influencing elections. But as our presence and our influence on the policy landscape grows, our work can help provide alternatives to ineffective and downright destructive policies like the ones supported by Zohran Mamdani.

How we can do this more effectively alongside our allies will be a major topic of conversation at our annual Freedom & Progress Conference, which we just announced will be held at the beautiful Conrad Hotel in Washington, DC, on November 21. We’ll have much more to come on that in the coming weeks.

FREOPP is an engine of unique market-based proposals to uplift the bottom half of Americans, and with the help of those who support our work and share it with others, we can play an even greater role in shaping the landscape in the years ahead.

I hope you’ll join us at the Freedom & Progress Conference this fall to be part of that conversation.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

Rethinking the 30-year mortgage: Homeownership is widely seen as the gateway to the American Dream, but buying or building a home outright is out of reach for all but the wealthiest Americans. The federally backed 30-year mortgage was supposed to be a solution. Unfortunately, in practice, the system ties people to decades of debt and depends on perpetual housing inflation to build wealth. The result? A distorted housing market, sky-high prices, inefficient sprawl, and deepening wealth and racial disparities. In a new paper for FREOPP, Research Fellow Roger Valdez argues for a shift toward cooperative, fractional, and locally financed models that reduce risk, build equity faster, and return control to communities. Policymakers should redirect federal resources like the Housing Trust Fund to pilot these alternatives, creating a more accessible and sustainable path to homeownership.

New York corrects its mistakes on nuclear energy: New York’s decision to shut down the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant in April 2021 profoundly reshaped the state’s energy landscape—with costly consequences. As Visiting Fellow Grant Dever wrote in a paper for FREOPP last year, data from 2017 to 2023 reveal that closing Indian Point led to an 84% spike in median electricity prices, a $500 increase in average household energy bills, and a sharp rise in carbon emissions and reliance on natural gas. Grid reliability also suffered, leaving the state more vulnerable to extreme weather. This summer, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said that the state’s Power Authority will oversee development of a new nuclear plant. As The Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial citing Grant’s work, the episode serves as a cautionary tale about letting ideology trump evidence—and a potential turning point if New York follows through by preserving existing plants, fast-tracking approvals, and removing infrastructure barriers.

Improving the Medicare drug price negotiation program: The Inflation Reduction Act’s Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program is projected to deliver billions in savings, but a new analysis from FREOPP Resident Fellow Gregg Girvan identifies design flaws that limit opportunities to do even more for poor Americans. Changes like prioritizing drugs with longer exclusivity, increasing the number of drugs negotiated, and raising minimum discounts could boost savings by $90.4 billion through 2037 without significantly harming innovation. Gregg urges Congress to strengthen the program by aligning drug selection with net savings potential, incorporating international price benchmarks, and removing requirements that reduce insurer leverage. With Medicare drug spending still rising, now is the time to refine the program to better serve beneficiaries and ensure long-term fiscal sustainability.

→ Gregg also took to National Review this month to make the case that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act puts the interests of patients ahead of the power of health care special interests for the first time in decades. He cites FREOPP’s World Index of Healthcare Innovation and notes that the bill creates an opportunity for ambitious reforms like the Fair Care Act.

The White House needs to propose a vision for federal K-12 reform: The White House’s decision to withhold nearly $7 billion in congressionally authorized K-12 education funding—including for teacher training, English learners, and after-school programs—has sparked controversy just weeks before the school year begins. While there’s legitimate debate about the effectiveness of these federal programs, the move risks disrupting school budgets and services for disadvantaged students without advancing meaningful reform. FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips argues that the administration should instead work with Congress to transform federal education funding into direct student benefits, such as expanding education savings accounts and converting Title I into portable aid. A clear legislative vision, not unilateral funding freezes, is the better path to sustainable, parent-centered reform.

ICYMI: FREOPP scholars on the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act: Earlier this month, FREOPP President Akash Chougule highlighted the work of FREOPP scholars related to the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act on issues from education to health care to tax policy to energy—and what they mean for Americans at or below the median of wealth and income. Akash also notes that while the Act delivers a sweeping set of reforms, including extending tax cuts, reforming Medicaid, scaling back energy subsidies, and expanding school choice, its mixed economic impacts underscore the need for continued policy engagement.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

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Last week, Congressional Republicans passed and President Trump signed into law the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act (OBBBA), a sweeping budget reconciliation bill that enacted changes to tax law, Medicaid, energy policy, and more.

I was proud that FREOPP scholars engaged in a timely and thoughtful manner throughout the debate - leading original research, dispelling misconceptions, offering innovative solutions, and more.

Linked here and listed, in part, below are some of our team’s work on this topic throughout the past several weeks:

• Michael Tanner, FREOPP.org, TCJA: A boost for poorer Americans, May 5, 2025

• Avik Roy, FREOPP.org, New ways to reduce Medicaid spending while protecting the vulnerable, May 8, 2025

• Dan Lips & Michael Toth, The Hill, The one-two punch working parents need for educational choice, May 22, 2025

• John Hartley (with White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett and Stanford University’s Josh Rauh), National Bureau of Economic Research, Firm Investment and the User Cost of Capital: New U.S. Corporate Tax Reform Evidence, June 16, 2025

• Michael Toth, RealClearPolitics, GOP Tax Bill Will Uplift the Poor–Again, June 25, 2025 (Picked up by Yahoo! News)

• Michael Toth & Grant Dever, RealClearEnergy, The Tax Bill Powers Up Affordable, Reliable Energy for Working Families, July 3, 2025

FREOPP also hosted a timely briefing on Capitol Hill earlier this spring. The morning before the House Energy and Committee marked up the legislation’s Medicaid reforms, Avik Roy - joined by panelists from the Cato Institute and the Economic Policy Innovation Center - briefed nearly 20 key staff on the same topic, discussing the proposed changes, their impact on different populations, and Medicaid’s overall fiscal situation.

As I moderated that panel, it was eye-opening the extent to which these bright and intellectually curious staff were hearing for the first time the truly dire state of Medicaid’s finances and health outcomes for the poor and some of the myths vs. facts of the proposed reforms.

It’s clear there is significant need - and demand for - more of this type of engagement from FREOPP on Capitol Hill.

Overall, the legislation is a decidedly mixed bag of pros and cons, and reasonable people can disagree on which bucket matters more. Absent action, the individual tax cuts and other reforms from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would have expired, resulting in a massive tax increase on a significant majority of American households of all income levels. Critically, that tax hike was prevented. And contrary to some claims, as Michael Tanner and Mike Toth have written, the 2017 rate cuts and other changes did in fact benefit Americans of all income levels.

Moreover, the OBBBA contained a policy known as 100% bonus appreciation - the subject of John Hartley’s NBER paper - a tremendously pro-growth provision made permanent that will result in more domestic business investment, leading to more jobs and higher wages for American workers.

Outside of taxes, most notably, OBBBA contains work requirements and other safeguards intended to ensure that Medicaid is reserved for truly vulnerable American citizens. Opponents have raised reasonable questions about these provisions, but as a matter of principle, our safety net should be preserved for the truly vulnerable, and public policy should reflect that able-bodied, working-age adults should be afforded the dignity of earned success. More generally, entitlement programs (like Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security) are the primary drivers of the national debt, but have long been an untouchable third rail. It is noteworthy that this legislation opened the door for further entitlement reform, which is critical not just to address the debt but ultimately to ensure that our safety net is sustainable in the long run.

Moreover, as Grant Dever and Mike Toth wrote, the energy policy reforms will improve grid reliability by scaling down wind and solar subsidies, while reducing barriers for energy exploration. Low-income Americans spend a greater share of their income on energy costs, and affordable, abundant, reliable energy is critical to economic prosperity and wellbeing - so these changes help to advance FREOPP’s mission.

Finally, the legislation enacted important education reforms such as a school choice expansion and improved higher education tuition accountability.

However, the bill’s negatives should not be ignored. It contains several gimmicks and distortions of the tax code that choose winners and losers and do nothing to generate economic growth that will uplift the poor. The enormous deficit impact is also cause for concern - debt and deficits are a drag on growth, will lead to future tax increases, and ultimately put programs at risk that needy Americans rely on - making additional entitlement reforms even more important.

Ultimately, given the makeup of Congress, it stands to reason that this exact bill was the only one that could have passed, and we should not lose sight of that. But we must also not lose sight of the fact that this legislation creates greater need and opportunity for precisely the work that FREOPP exists to do - such as state and federal welfare reforms, health care and entitlement reform, and education innovation.

We’ll continue to rise to that challenge with timely and original research and analysis and direct engagement with policymakers - as always, with a commitment to advancing free-market-oriented public policy that uplifts the poor.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

Marriage and poverty: The “success sequence”—finish high school, get a job, and get married before having kids—is connected to dramatically improved outcomes when it comes to avoiding or escaping poverty. But marriage rates are falling, especially among low-income Americans. In a new paper for FREOPP, Senior Fellow Michael Tanner examines the decline, considering the ways that economic instability, cultural shifts, and poorly designed welfare programs are to blame. Although the role of marriage in reducing poverty can be overstated, well-designed tools to encourage it are an important way to improve social mobility. Michael argues that, while government campaigns to promote marriage have largely failed, smarter policy could help. His recommendations? Removing marriage penalties, expanding vocational and sector-specific training, and improving education and employment prospects for working-class men.

Big changes are needed before empty rooms solve housing challenges: When The New York Times asked whether Boomers renting out their empty rooms could ease the housing crisis, FREOPP Research Fellow Roger Valdez took to Forbes to answer: No. Turning empty bedrooms into rentals may sound like a fix for housing scarcity, but Roger argues that the idea is unlikely to work in practice. Case studies like those in the Times article reveal steep costs, red tape, and zoning barriers that make replicating these projects nearly impossible: Financing is scarce, neighbors resist, and tenant laws complicate scaling. Real solutions to housing challenges will require bold reforms—eliminating exclusionary zoning, rethinking mortgage incentives, and streamlining permitting. Until then, spare rooms remain an under-powered fix to a systemic problem.

Generative AI is expanding rapidly in 2025: How fast is AI use at work growing, and how is it affecting the way people do their jobs? FREOPP Visiting Fellow Jon Hartley and his coauthors investigated those questions, finding that workplace use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini has surged from 30 percent to 40 percent, with most workers using them to speed up—not replace—job tasks. So far, these tools are boosting productivity, especially in sectors like tech, education, and management, but adoption is skewed toward higher-income, more educated workers. Jon notes that without targeted, sector-based training programs, lower-income Americans risk being left behind. The solution? Strategic investment in workforce development—not heavy-handed regulation—to ensure AI’s benefits are widely shared.

The 340B drug program is failing patients: Established in 1992 to help low-income patients access affordable medications, the 340B drug pricing program has evolved into a profit engine for hospitals—with little transparency or accountability. Covered entities buy drugs at steep discounts but bill insurers at full price, pocketing the difference. FREOPP Visiting Fellow Grant Rigney examines the evidence and makes the case that hospitals use these profits to expand into wealthier neighborhoods rather than passing savings to patients or offering charity care. This is a glaringly wasteful use of federal subsidies. As Congress debates the future of 340B, it should focus on reform: requiring hospitals to report how 340B savings are used, strengthening oversight, and tightening eligibility criteria to target true safety-net providers.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

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As I recalled last month, the last decade in America has seen a notable shift in public policy conversations becoming more focused on the well-being of the poor and working-class than they were previously. There are many reasons for this, but a key factor has been the recognition that tens of millions of Americans feel ignored—or worse—by the country’s mainstream institutions.

The country is realigning

The policy community’s response and resulting work has been varied, but in my opinion, a more significant transformation is unfolding in the political arena among elected officials—in particular, those who aspire to higher office.

Political observers have referred to a phenomenon known as “realignment,” wherein the Republican Party has become more working-class, while the Democratic Party has become increasingly made up of the country’s elite—largely the opposite of what many assumed about the two parties for decades previously. I’ll leave it to others to determine whether this realignment is a positive or a negative for either party or for the country as a whole.

Rather, what’s relevant for FREOPP is the changing dynamic of the kinds of policies that lawmakers and candidates prioritize.

A new unity on key issues

As a positive, there is a renewed bipartisan focus on certain issues critical to upward mobility, such as housing, workforce development, and energy abundance. That’s not to say there is universal agreement on the problems in these areas, let alone the policy solutions. But policymakers and thought leaders on both sides of the aisle have recognized the need to advance pro-growth solutions in these areas specifically because they are vital to the well being of struggling Americans.

That itself represents important progress, and for FREOPP, creates opportunities we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on to enact change. We will do just that, true to our founding vision of advancing free-market solutions on a bipartisan basis that help uplift the poor.

• On housing, our priorities include improving transparency, accountability, and outcomes for housing finance assistance programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit, as well as reforming zoning and land use to increase housing supply.

• On energy, we advocate for regulatory reforms that facilitate the expansion of affordable, abundant, and reliable sources - including nuclear energy, which can both increase energy abundance and reduce emissions output.

• On workforce development, we will work to ensure access to non-college postsecondary education options that facilitate upward mobility by equipping workers with the skills they need to meet the demands of an evolving 21st century economy.

These are just a few examples, but we see considerable opportunity for bipartisan policy change that can uplift the poor and working class.

The pitfalls we must avoid

However, one unfortunate aspect of this “populist” moment, as some have referred to it, is the desire from some lawmakers on both sides to engage in class warfare and push policies of wealth redistribution rather than policies of growth and upward mobility. Whether they do so because they genuinely believe in the policies, or whether they merely see an opportunity for political gain, FREOPP will set the record straight.

We will not allow lawmakers to prey on the struggles and frustrations of the American people unanswered. Policies of wealth redistribution and dependence that hold back one group do not uplift another. The same goes for policies of protectionism and favoritism; there is no widespread prosperity to be had from the government picking winners and losers.

The way forward

Uplifting people to broad-based prosperity and stability—strengthening families, communities, and our country—requires economic growth, and economic growth requires free markets and the policies that facilitate them. After all, free markets, free trade, property rights, and the rule of law are the greatest antipoverty tools ever known to mankind. FREOPP will answer false and misleading demagoguery in the name of the poor with facts, data, and, above all, pro-growth policy solutions on issues like trade, taxes, healthcare, and more.

Along with producing industry-leading original research, truth-telling will be a critical component of FREOPP’s thought leadership, because the political discourse needs it and it’s what the American people deserve. I look forward to sharing more details about our strategies on specific issues in the months ahead.

In freedom,

Akash Chougule, President

Why Most Favored Nation drug pricing will slash drug spending in America: Prescription drug costs in the U.S. average four times higher than those in comparably developed nations. Aiming to lower those costs, President Trump signed an executive order earlier this month reviving the “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) drug pricing policy, which would align prices in the U.S. with those in peer countries. Although critics argue that MFN amounts to price controls that risk innovation, in a new article for FREOPP, Resident Fellow Gregg Girvan and Visiting Fellow Grant Rigney explain that U.S. drug markets already lack free-market dynamics due to monopolies, regulatory barriers, and opaque middlemen. Plus, previous FREOPP research demonstrates that most innovation comes from small biotech firms, not profits from high prices at big companies. MFN has the potential to help fix a broken system, increasing access to essential treatments without sacrificing innovation—something both parties should be able to support. Trump should assemble a bipartisan coalition and pass MFN into law.

→ In other health care news, check out FREOPP Co-Founder and Chairman Avik Roy’s simple idea to provide better health care coverage at a lower price by replacing Medicaid expansion with exchange-based coverage. Meanwhile, scholars debate how the “big beautiful bill” will affect the Affordable Care Act. Read more—including Gregg’s take on what the changes mean for Americans in the gig economy—at Yahoo! Finance.

Did the TCJA increase wages? It’s complicated: As Congress works toward renewing 2017’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), FREOPP Visiting Fellow Jackson Mejia dug into the data to assess its impact on wages. He notes that the bill’s corporate tax cuts clearly spurred investment. However, after reviewing the most recent evidence on the wage effects of TCJA, Jackson argues that wage gains have been modest and skewed toward higher earners so far. As it may take decades for the long-term wage effects to materialize for low-income workers, Jackson urges policymakers to pair tax cuts with reforms—like deregulation, labor market competition, and employee ownership incentives—to accelerate and broaden wage growth. An extended TCJA could still deliver meaningful gains, but proactive policy is needed to ensure those gains benefit all Americans, not just those at the top.

TCJA: A boost for poorer Americans: Meanwhile, FREOPP Senior Fellow Michael Tanner examined the broader effect of the TCJA on low-income Americans and found that they were among its biggest beneficiaries. While high earners received larger cuts in absolute terms, low-income workers saw the greatest reductions as a percentage of taxes paid, thanks to lower rates, a doubling of the standard deduction, an increase in the Child Tax Credit, expanded 529 savings accounts, and more. In fact, workers in the bottom half of incomes saw a 9.3 percent reduction in their tax burden, compared to 3 percent for the top 10 percent of earners. With the caveats that today is a different economic context than 2017 and that ballooning federal spending overall could undercut the TCJA’s benefits, Michael contends that letting the Act expire would risk undermining economic progress, particularly for low-wage workers.

As school choice bills pass, Congress and states can help create more options: This legislative session, Texas enacted a new $1 billion education savings account (ESA) program. In RealClearEducation, FREOPP Senior Fellow Dan Lips explains that, as these programs expand parent demand, policymakers should support the private and alternative education options that will help meet it. States like Tennessee are pioneering measures such as protecting learning pods from regulation, while the federal government could leverage existing programs like employer tax credits for child care to support microschools. Creative solutions like these would enable the private sector to meet rising demand and ensure families have meaningful educational choices.

Other education highlights from Congress? New legislation from House Republicans would establish a $5 billion tax credit to create education scholarships and expand allowable uses of funds in 529 accounts. Dan and FREOPP Resident Fellow Michael Toth make the case in The Hill that using Title I funds to seed those 529 accounts for low-income families would do even more to expand access to educational options.

Thanks for keeping up with FREOPP, and have a great weekend!

FREOPP’s work is made possible by people like you, who share our belief that equal opportunity is central to the American Dream. Please join them by making a donation today.

Donate Now