Original Reporting

Off the clock
Original Reporting | By Diana Jean Schemo | Unions
Republican Study Committee proposal to prohibit government employees from fulfilling union responsibilities while on government time would save a relative pittance in annual spending, but deal a body blow to the ability of federal unions to represent more than a million government workers in grievances, arbitration and collective bargaining. More
Could US-Korea trade agreement deter enhanced regulation of financial services?
Original Reporting | By Mike Alberti | Regulation, Trade
Would the agreement’s chapter on the financial services sector operate, both on a legal level and on a political level, to deter a host of potential market-regulating mechanisms (like limiting the size of financial institutions) in the U.S. and South Korea? Why was the FTA not affirmatively used to shape an operational framework within which the financial services sector would be obliged — at least in respect to Korean and U.S. companies — to operate in a manner to reduce systemic risk domestically, bilaterally, and internationally? More
Job-killing regulations? Opponents fail to support claims with evidence
Original Reporting | By James Lardner | Regulation
House Republicans and the President jockeyed last week to demonstrate their opposition to “bad” regulations. It turns out, however, that it is easier to generate provocative rhetoric on this topic than to provide historical evidence for the proposition that regulations do, in fact, kill jobs. More
GOP study group: slash catalyst research for industry innovation
Original Reporting | By Greg Marx | Markets, Politics
Last week’s proposal from a group of Republicans in the House of Representatives to slash federal spending by more than $2 trillion over 10 years includes a proposal to cut back funding for applied research at the Department of Energy by $1.27 billion annually — a move that could strip away federal funds for research on an array of energy-related projects, and potentially make it harder for new technologies to reach the marketplace. More
For those working: why so much?
Original Reporting | By Greg Marx | Economy
Over the last generation, American economic life has witnessed a pair of parallel transformations: on one hand, greater pressure on both parents to work full-time more in order to provide a “middle-class” life for their families; on the other, a reshaping of the rules governing the economy often justified by free market principles. So Remapping Debate recently spoke with a range of right-leaning policy thinkers to ask about the economic pressures facing families: Did they agree that the “two-income trap” was real? If so, what had caused it? And what, if anything, could be done about it? Here’s what they had to say. More
Digging a deep hole: rare earths debacle puts U.S. trade policy under scrutiny
Original Reporting | By Mike Alberti | Environment, Trade
While the recent controversy surrounding China’s almost complete control over rare earth elements may seem to some like an arcane debate over minerals with hard-to-pronounce names, for many experts and economists it represents a concrete example of a broader long-term failure of United States trade and industrial policy. More
Ball and chain: the human cost of raising the retirement age
Original Reporting | By Diana Jean Schemo | Social Security
Proposals for “reinventing” Social Security tend to be debated in terms of their impact on the financial health of the system itself, not in terms of their impact on the overall well-being of the people the system is supposed to serve. But if Social Security were to be "fixed" by raising the age at which full benefits could be collected to 69 or even 70, that fix would represent a lot more stress and unhappinesss for millions of Americans, and mean that a big chunk of their most golden of golden years would not be available for retirement. More
New effort to limit federal authority would make all federal laws and regulations subject to repeal by two-thirds of states
Original Reporting | By Remapping Debate | Federalism
States representing as little as 27 percent of U.S. population could trump Congress, President, and Supreme Court under proposed constitutional amendment. More

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