
Public Affairs, Funk & Bolton | Maryland Policy & Politics | Communications | Media Production | [email protected]
Baltimore, MD
Joined February 2009
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Ben Groff retweeted
Permitting reform makes it easier to build all kinds of stuff, including bad stuff. But do you stop the building of bad stuff by focusing on the “building” part or the “bad stuff” part?
For economists the answer is easy. Encourage building. Discourage bad stuff.
Ben Groff retweeted
🍎 We’ve brought the teacher vacancy rate DOWN by over 70% in under four years – and I got to share that news with one of our educators this morning! @pgcps
Ben Groff retweeted
Bingo. I’d only add that litigation against projects used to be “good guys against bad guys,” but now is often fossil fuel front groups litigating to delay low-cost clean energy competition. 90% of new power is clean; we know what the market wants.
vox.com/future-perfect/50506…
Ben Groff retweeted
This is the only theory that makes sense me why VCs whine about Anthropic non stop. Like they feel embarrassed by them somehow.
Ben Groff retweeted
Abundance usually gets explained as a list of problems: zoning, permits, licensing, slow approvals.
Here’s what we'd actually get if we fixed them:
Lunch costs $4, like it does in Japan and Singapore. Most US cities require three or four separate sinks, which makes a kitchen under 200 square feet nearly impossible.
Anyone can open an owl cafe or a vegan lesbian bookstore. Japan is full of tiny, oddly specific businesses run by one or two people. They survive because small spaces are cheap and enough people live close enough to walk in.
A room in a big city for $400 a month. These buildings housed millions of low-income and older Americans until cities banned most of them by the 1980s.
A three-bedroom apartment you can stay in after you have a kid. US codes require two staircases in buildings over three stories, so family-sized units only fit on the corners. Most of the world allows one staircase.
A new electric car for about $10,000. China sells these globally. Americans can't buy it.
A government so dependable it's boring. When a loved one dies, you report it once instead of to every agency.
We can decide to make it happen here.
The full list has 16 things, from taco trucks on every corner to no more pandemics. I wrote this to also announce that today is DC Abundance's official launch!
If you’re in DC, come celebrate and see the G.O.A.T. Derek Thompson speak!
Ben Groff retweeted
just 21% of DC's rental apartments are market rate!
I found this really surprising, I would have guessed it to be much higher...also now wondering how much lower it was prior to the NoMa/Navy Yard/Wharf developments of the past decade
Ben Groff retweeted
If Nithya wins too and we have three YIMBY mayors leading the pro-housing charge, so help me God I will get a shirt that says
Zohran &
Janeese &
Nithya
We can and we must build more homes for all of us.

ALT We will work to stabilize DC's housing market, preserve the affordable housing we already have, and address rent nonpayment while protecting tenants. We must because DC is facing real economic challenges. But we need to create the foundation for ambitious growth. Here’s how →

ALT Legalize high-density, mixed-use buildings near Metrorail and bus stops and on publicly-owned land. Legalize small apartment buildings citywide so Washingtonians have more choices and more opportunities in more neighborhoods. End parking requirements citywide, and encourage minimal parking be built in developments near Metro stations.
Ben Groff retweeted
$3.7 BILLION in investment.
14,000 jobs.
Welcome to Baltimore County, @anduriltech!
Baltimore booster and lore fan Palmer Luckey
Ben Groff retweeted
Want lower power bills? This bill makes data centers pay MORE than the costs they cause, and the surplus brings everyone else's rates down. It also lets states bring in FERC to oversee local spending and cut utility profits and levy fines when its' going wrong. It's good!
Ben Groff retweeted
And the bill text is out! Enjoy the light reading Energy Twitter (X) epw.senate.gov/public/_cache…
Ben Groff retweeted
NEWS: Senate permitting text is coming tomorrow, Sen. Alan Armstrong (R-Okla.) tells me.
There’ll be a press conference and a full bill release, he said. A senior aide involved in negotiations also confirmed to @NicoPortuondo.
Ben Groff retweeted
For the last few years, @TheBTI has been working to influence and build support for national permitting reform.
It appears we're close to a deal on major legislative progress.
We need to seal this deal, and then keep going.
🧵
Ben Groff retweeted
I work at a restaurant that does events and we received some challenging last-minute requests from a client. We scrambled to fill them. I realized later that these requests were likely made by an AI agent, and that the human client might not have personally cared. This felt bad!
Ben Groff retweeted
nyc's free-bus mayor put out a 51-page, $900 million bus plan this summer and it's entirely about speed. up to six minutes off 50 priority routes. the word free does not appear. welcome to the frequency-and-speed caucus, we've been here the whole time, there are snacks
Ben Groff retweeted
Just to update this chart:
1) AI salience has increased dramatically in the past week - increasing as much in the last week as the previous year combined
2) 80% of voters think it's either very or somewhat likely that AI will cause widespread job loss in the five to ten years
3) 64% of voters think it's either very or somewhat likely that AI could pose a threat to humanity's survival
4) Large bipartisan majorities back immediate government action on AI even when primed about risk from China
Ben Groff retweeted
1) AI will not eradicate humanity. Humans survived an ice age, the Black Death, two world wars, and (so far) the advent of nuclear weapons. Anyone who is loudly warning of AI-caused human extinction should not be taken seriously.
2) If you worked in a company where you anticipated a 10% chance that your product would kill ten people, let alone all people, the correct response would be horror, ceasing all operations, and likely contacting the police or other criminal authorities. I am obviously no Coxon booster but at least his behavior is in line with his stated beliefs. Any current AI company employees saying "yes, me too, the thing we are building and about to IPO may kill all humans" should, again, not be taken seriously. Their actions betray their actual beliefs.
3) Antitrust law does not prevent AI companies from coordinating to make sure AI does not hurt people. It does not prevent companies working together to make sure it doesn't hack people; the DOJ and FTC made this clear a decade ago when they issued a policy statement saying that the agencies "do not believe that antitrust is – or should be – a roadblock to legitimate cybersecurity information sharing." The same principles apply here. See: justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/…
4) Antitrust law does absolutely prevent AI companies from organizing to prevent the entry of cheaper, upstart rivals because the bigger companies are burning cash and failing to achieve sufficient profitability. The panic of individual employees may be sincere if misguided, but the moves by their CEOs to achieve some kind of broad "antitrust waiver" or "exemption" should be meet with deep skepticism in light of the economics of the industry and the threat they face from open models.
John D Rockefeller spinning in his grave with shame for not having thought of calling Teddy Roosevelt the antichrist.
PETER THIEL CALLED IT.
The Antichrist wouldn’t build the doomsday machine.
This clip aged terrifyingly well.
Peter Thiel predicted in June, 26, 2025 exactly what is happening right now with Anthropic, Coxon and the AI-safety landscape.
“The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon non-stop, you talk about existential risk non-stop.”
The 'Antichrist' wouldn’t seize power by creating an AI apocalypse, but by CONVINCING everyone that the apocalypse was coming and then offering safety in exchange for CONTROL.
A must watch.
Ben Groff retweeted
BREAKING NEWS: Amalgamated Transit Union And Locals 689, 1300, 1764, And 1777 Endorse Maryland Governor Wes Moore And Lieutenant Governor Aruna Miller For Reelection!































