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Intellections

Activate Your Thinking.

The Intellections series brings you 60-90 second animations that engage your intellect and clarify public policy concepts.

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Teachers’ unions are powerful forces in American education that often influence school board elections and support candidates that prioritize union interests over student outcomes. Students deserve better.

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Incomplete and inconsistent state education policies hinder the potential of America's gifted students, leading to lost human capital and widening excellence gaps, but state leaders can rectify this by implementing a comprehensive policy roadmap that ensures equitable, high-quality education for all advanced learners.

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Replacing the antiquated way in which teachers are paid may hold the key to recovering from the devastating effects of school closures during COVID-related lockdowns.

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Excellence, not mediocrity, provides the key to achieving greater equity in education.

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Rather than imposing costly and ineffective regulations, the government should provide individuals the information to make their own choices, empowering people with personal knowledge to reach better outcomes than distant bureaucrats ever could.

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A uniform consumption tax would simplify the tax system, boost economic efficiency, and make tax revenue more transparent.

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The United States and its allies should work together to prevent China from using its commercial might and consumer markets to snare other countries into relationships of dependence and subservience.

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US states and districts are rethinking school accountability, recognizing the need to focus on schools' capacity to fix their shortcomings in addition to traditional measures like academic standards and student assessments.

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The Jones Act is a protectionist policy that raises energy costs for millions of Americans and contributes to higher inflation.

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Relying on the rich to pay the majority of state tax revenue causes them to move to lower-tax states, resulting in higher taxes for everyone.

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The gender pay gap can exist even among employees with the same role, seniority, and pay levels. Making schedules more predictable can help reduce the gap.

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Adopting ranked-choice voting allows voter preferences to be more accurately reflected in elections, especially when candidates drop out.

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Many people support “Medicare for All,” but creating government-provided coverage for all Americans while attempting to lower health care costs would come with steep trade-offs.

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Noneuse rights allow environmental groups to buy and then conserve land or resources that otherwise would have been sold to companies for development.

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Stephen Kotkin argues that the West is not a geographic term, it’s an institutional package.

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What makes housing expensive? The problem isn’t lack of space—it is that not enough homes are being built.

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Using price controls in response to inflation fails to solve the problem and leads to painful shortages.

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High school graduation rates have been on the rise, but they often don’t reflect better outcomes.

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Free trade is often maligned because some people are made worse off in the short run. But in the long run, almost everyone gains from removing restrictions on trade.

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The Chinese Communist Party pressures US businesses to sacrifice their American values while doing business in China.

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The global intelligence community is rapidly changing as new technology allows ordinary citizens to collect and analyze open-source intelligence.

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Monitoring China’s propaganda capabilities is critical to detecting and mitigating state-sponsored disinformation.

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The United States must foster free speech both within and about China in order to reveal the truth about its repressive government.

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Improving civic education will help students develop better judgment so that they can discern good ideas from bad ones.

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The checks and balances set up by the Constitution are essential for protecting our individual liberties and promoting responsible governance.

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Enacting government policies that reveal the true costs of climate change will encourage people to adapt and mitigate its negative consequences.

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A 2019 experiment by Hoover Institution senior fellow Larry Diamond shows that Americans have not given up on democracy, but restoring faith in our system will require an intentional effort to engage with people who hold opposing viewpoints.

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Rather than forgiving student loans across the board, targeted assistance is a better way to benefit the people who need the most help.

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Stimulus checks add billions to the federal debt that must be paid back eventually, often offsetting their effectiveness.

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Improvements to transparency and accountability can help schools recover from the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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In order to attract businesses and new residents, states must prioritize economic policies that make it cheaper and easier to work and live.

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There is a growing movement for companies to put social responsibility before profits—but the best defense for workers comes from a healthy and competitive market. 

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Overcoming divisions within our nation begins with embracing the principles that help us achieve common ground, improve our country, and pass along our freedoms to the next generation.

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Laws that stop prices from rising in emergencies lead to shortages that leave everyone worse off.

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The long-term effects of wage and price controls during World War II show us how policies that sound good in the short term can have bad long-term consequences.

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The federal government’s constitutional powers do not expand during national emergencies, with one notable exception.

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Achieving a nuclear-free world starts with a joint effort from nuclear-capable countries to mitigate the factors that drive nations to possess these weapons.

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The public option promises to lower health insurance premiums without increasing federal spending, but Congress has broken similar promises on many occasions.

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Medicare for All’s promised savings come with costly side effects.

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The Electoral College requires candidates to broaden their national appeal, which minimizes polarization and partisanship.

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One novel idea to help the homeless is to house them in group quarters run by licensed professionals.

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A modest, revenue-neutral carbon tax would provide the right incentives to reduce carbon emissions. 

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Increasing the production of renewable energy to reduce carbon emissions is an admirable goal, but it will require rapid technological advancements and an expansion of existing low-carbon options such as nuclear power.

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While occupational licensing is supposed to protect consumers, it ends up preventing new competition in the workforce.

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A Universal Basic Income would not only be prohibitively costly, but would produce massive redistributive effects that would hurt the elderly and poor.
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New research shows that the difference in educational attainment between students from higher and lower socioeconomic backgrounds has not changed over the past 50 years.

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The Advanced Placement program is a success story in K-12 education that improves the education of millions of students.

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Two of the most common objections to immigration in the United States are that more immigrants lead to more crime and more people on welfare, but a closer look reveals that these objections are misguided.

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The United States’ policy of the “War on Drugs” has not effectively discouraged drug consumption.

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Teaching is an underpaid profession, and higher salaries need to go to the most effective teachers.

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Democratic socialism diminishes economic prosperity and ultimately requires a return to market-based policy.

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Failing to move on from the Cold War mindset about nuclear weapons encourages their development and increases the risk that they will be used.

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America’s political instability is occurring because of deep, ongoing economic and demographic structural changes that are causing existing voting blocs to regroup and reconsider which issues motivate them and which party they support.
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As the world continues to shift toward low-carbon energy sources, a closer look makes it clear that nuclear power has to be included in order to reduce carbon emissions.

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State and local governments all around the country have failed to set aside enough money to pay for the pensions they’ve promised to workers in the public sector.

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Recently, Congress has been threatening the rule of law by shifting power to federal regulators through the use of waivers and licenses.

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The rule of law is another way of saying that laws, as they are written, are applied equally to everyone.

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The United States could boost its economy if it rebalanced its immigration system to allow entrepreneurial immigrants into the country.

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We should support free trade like we support new technology, because they have the same kind of impact on society, jobs, and the economy.

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Regulatory capture occurs when regulatory agencies become dominated by the industries they are charged with regulating, which harms consumers and stifles competition.

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A revenue neutral carbon tax would automatically encourage consumers and producers to shift toward energy sources that emit less carbon.

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The ability to switch internet service providers today offers consumers far greater protection than heavy handed regulation tomorrow.

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Marginal tax rates – how much someone is taxed on the next dollar they earn – affect how much people work, save, and invest.

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The administrative state is the collection of federal agencies, regulators, and rule makers that have become a powerful, unelected, and unaccountable part of the government.

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New infrastructure in America should be built to be resilient to the natural disasters we are likely to face this century.

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In place of regulating prices, targeted subsidies can make health insurance more affordable for high-cost individuals without driving healthy people from the market
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Payroll taxes pay for less of Social Security and Medicare than you might think.

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The conversation on climate change should shift to estimating the costs and benefits of proposed policies.

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What makes cyber threats different from traditional national security threats?

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Charter schools are leading the way in improving public education in America, especially for students who are traditionally underserved.

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There are five kinds of cyber threats that could have serious national consequences. 

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Charter schools are granted the flexibility to operate in exchange for accountability of their students’ achievement.

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NATO plays a vital role in maintaining liberal democracy in Europe.
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Deterrence is the ability to prevent an unwanted military action through the threat of consequences, and it is a crucial component of United States foreign policy.
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Long-run economic growth depends on the skills of workers, and math and reading proficiency are good predictors of those skills.

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When political leaders cannot get what they want through peaceful methods, they judge the cost of achieving their goals through military force.
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It is crucial to design social safety nets to encourage people to transition from government assistance back into the workforce.
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Removing rules and regulations that prevent new companies from offering health care services is the first step to lowering costs, improving care, and expanding coverage.
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Economic growth is the combination of how much more people are able to produce than they did before and the growth of hours worked in the economy.
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There are important benefits that properly structured market forces can bring to environmental policy.
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What are the trade offs to care, access, and wait times in a single-payer health care system?
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If we want to see better results in our schools, we need more flexibility on how we hire, reward, and retain great teachers.

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Find out why offensive speech is not a form of harm that is prohibited as a limit on free speech.

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The government is not allowed to restrict speech because it doesn’t have any competitors. Private groups, on the other hand, are allowed to do so because individuals have many other options available to them.
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The First Amendment guarantees your freedom of speech, as long as you don’t engage in force, fraud, or defamation.

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Increased energy efficiency has had a greater effect on America’s energy consumption than all the growth in solar, wind, geothermal, natural gas and nuclear energy combined.

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The critical feature of a monopoly is its ability to prevent others from offering competing products or services.

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Making empty threats in foreign affairs threatens national security and destroys credibility.

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Low Carbon Portfolio Standards are a more effective and affordable way to reduce carbon emissions because they expand the options utilities have to purchase low carbon electricity.
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Rent control increases demand for controlled-units, but discourages landlords from expanding or entering the rental market, which decreases the supply of rental housing.
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Policies governing the use of land within a community can make housing development costly and inconvenient, which can prevent new supply from matching an increase in demand.
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The supply and demand of housing in your community explains why housing prices are high or low.
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Economic growth has slowed way down. Here’s why that matters.

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Combing health savings accounts and high deductible insurance plans puts the patient in control of their healthcare choices, lowering costs and improving quality of care.
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A fundamental principle of foreign policy – have a clearly defined end goal before committing resources for a military conflict.
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Reforming health insurance in this country begins with redefining our understanding of what insurance is and what it supposed to cover.

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If you want to help people, is socialism the answer? The truth is that people do not prosper in socialist countries.
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Competition is the only force that reliably leads to lower prices and higher quality goods and services.