Alex Mechanick
@apmechan
Currently @NiskanenCenter. Previously OIRA front office in @OMBPress_46, Judiciary Committee for @SenBlumenthal, and Global Modeling Studies in @federalreserve.
“The ‘crisis’ doesn’t seem to be that boys are doing particularly poorly of late. It seems to be that girls are finally being rewarded in the form of college attainment and more equal pay for their efforts.” nytimes.com/2025/07/23/opi…
"A turnaround expert, having assessed these realities, would understand that they needed to reform the system, not the head count," the Editorial Board writes. wapo.st/3TE9guU
Amy Finkelstein is tired of people misinterpreting the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment to support Medicaid cuts, she writes in @statnews First Opinion: statnews.com/2025/07/03/ore…
A lot of people are blaming AI for grads’ poor outcomes, but I find the evidence for this claim is surprisingly thin. Excited to release a new analysis w/ @employamerica on the labor market performance of recent college grads. 🧵
It would be nice if people kept straight: - regardless of tariffs, inflation (the general price level) is a policy choice - tariffs, if they *work*, have to make the tariffed good more expensive (higher relative price) - tariffs reduce maximum output/income
re: tariff inflation discourse, it's worth mentioning again that if tariffs *don't* raise prices, then there's no way they "incentivize" domestic production The mechanism by which they're supposed to re-shore industry is by increasing prices for imported goods and reducing trade
Exactly. In the no tariff counterfactual inflation is still near the FOMC 2% target. But the economy is growing faster x.com/BrownianBrotio…
This is a very cool chart. I also think this has to mean that GDP growth has slowed.
Another violent week in the Middle East: in Gaza, this weekend brought the death of another 60 Palestinians who were simply seeking food and water for their families. Israel has the responsibility to allow humanitarian aid in — just as the US had the responsibility to allow aid…
The Trump administration will pay to incinerate enough food to feed 1.5 million children for a week. When the packets burn, their labels will read: THIS PRODUCT IS A GIFT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 500 tons, from us, to no one.
This Barack Obama fellow is on to something. I think we should listen to him.
Obama at Friday fundraiser, speaking about pushing back on Trump now: “it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.” cnn.com/2025/07/14/pol…
Fun fact, we used to have citizens commissions that looked at federal executive compensation and made recommendations about how to reset rates. Congress last authorized this in 1989 w/ a requirement for a quadrennial reexamination but it never met after funding got cut in 1994.
Will never happen, but members of Congress should make $500K/year with strict prohibitions on gifts, stocks, and post-tenure lobbying etc. The President should make $1M per year at minimum. (Current salaries are $174K/year for Congress and $400k/year for President.)
Consistency aside, the U.S. running a trade surplus (Trump's goal) *requires* that net foreign investment falls. But Trump wants more net foreign investment! With the money we earn from exports, we're either buying foreign stuff, or foreign assets. Learning economics is useful!
would help if the REINDUSTRIALIZE AMERICA ONE BILLION TARIFFS RESTORE THE HEARTLAND people could decide whether the tariffs are supposed to incentivize countries to invest in the US instead of exporting to the US, or if they hate when other countries invest in the US
Excellent — I hope this garners broad support in the Senate.
.@RubenGallego introduces a one-page bill to codify the Click to Cancel rule into law. The rule was thrown out by the 8th circuit earlier this week.
For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.
Americans have questions about geoengineering and contrails. They expect honesty and transparency from their government when seeking answers. For years, people who asked questions in good faith were dismissed, even vilified by the media and their own government. This ends today.
If there's a recession during Trump's term, someone in the cabinet is going to party like it's 1929 and go full Mellon.
Brooke Rollins on farm laborers: "There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly."
The cruelty of the cuts in OBBB is matched only by their stupidity. Medicaid beneficiaries will lose, but so will the rest of us. The cost of care that is no longer reimbursed by Medicaid will instead be borne by hospitals and passed onto paying patients, only at higher levels,…
In low-income Left Behind regions, rent burdens can be high even where rents are low. That's a poverty problem YIMBYism can't fix In expensive regions, by contrast, even a "modest" 15% drop in market rent has a big impact on poverty! YIMBY🤝Antipoverty x.com/NiskanenCenter…
The takeaway: Fighting poverty isn’t just about getting resources to families in need; it’s about lowering the cost of living. Housing supply is a core piece of our anti-poverty toolkit, just like tax credits and income support. niskanencenter.org/housing-policy…
When federal regulators fail to act in the interest of working Americans, states must step in to ensure competition in the labor market. The use of non-competes in low-wage service jobs is a way of preventing workers from seeking better conditions & pay. prospect.org/labor/2025-07-…