The center-left is being squeezed by populist insurgents on the right and left. @Will_PPI argues Democrats need more than moderation. They must reclaim their legacy of bold, pragmatic reform rooted in America’s liberal tradition. thehill.com/opinion/campaign…

States are expanding workforce credentials faster than they can tell which ones pay off. In a new piece for @The74, PPI’s Bruno Manno draws lessons from Ohio’s reboot. the74million.org/article/so-…

U.S. steel now costs more than twice the world average, yet domestic output is flat and American steel use has fallen about 10%. In the latest edition of Trade Fact, PPI’s @EBGresser argues that expanding supply, as CHIPS did, beats raising prices and shrinking the market. progressivepolicy.org/americ…

As daily life continues to move online, reliable, high-speed internet has become a necessity. From work to healthcare to education, Americans depend on broadband to participate in the modern economy and remain connected. Rising consumer demand, combined with intense competition and government funding, has driven heavy investment across different technologies, with better coverage and quality of service than ever before. Still, achieving high-quality, universal connectivity is a challenging goal, and policy plays an instrumental role in making it happen. One branch of policy is national. For example, with the 2021 passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Congress created the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program, allotting more than $42 billion over the next several years to expand broadband to underserved communities across the country. These funds supplement the massive spending by broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, and Charter. According to estimates in PPI’s annual “Investment Heroes” report, these four companies alone have invested $325 billion in the United States over the past five years. The second branch of policy is at the state level, where regulatory choices can make it easier or more costly to expand high-speed broadband. Consider California, for example, where a regulatory framework designed for a different era is complicating the expansion. By designating certain service providers as “carriers of last resort,” California requires them to provide basic telephone service to all customers within a designated service area. These obligations, in turn, require the maintenance of copper networks, which represent a relic of the past that have not kept up with the standards of modern technology. In California, only 3% of the households served by AT&T still use traditional phone services. In 2024, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) dismissed AT&T’s application to be relieved of these obligations, making California the only one of 21 states where AT&T still operates copper networks not to grant relief. The decision has triggered a legal fight and federal action that could preempt the CPUC’s authority on the issue, both of which remain unresolved. progressivepolicy.org/what-c…

National security claims carry weight only when presidents use them responsibly. In a new op-ed for MS NOW, PPI’s Danielle Steitz argues that stretching the term to justify pet projects like the proposed arch erodes judicial deference and public trust needed for real emergencies. ms.now/opinion/trump-arch-na…

Creditworthiness is fundamental to consumers’ access to housing, automobile loans, credit cards, and other financial opportunities. Yet many Americans have only a hazy grasp of how consumer credit data is collected, how that data is used to generate credit reports, and how they are used to produce a consumer “credit score,” or measure of their creditworthiness. It is not lost on consumers, however, that more competition in the market for credit scoring is likely to give them a better shot at obtaining credit. Competition in the credit scoring market, and its role in fostering more choice and access to credit, should be a public policy imperative, especially during these troubled economic times. Until recently, the Fair Isaac Corporation (FICO) has dominated the credit scoring market in the U.S. In a commendable effort to inject competition, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) — which plays a key role in regulatory oversight of home mortgage lending — recently approved the entry of VantageScore, a competitor to FICO. Increased competition in credit scoring should benefit consumers. But the entry of VantageScore raises key questions about whether that competition will be fair. Namely, the three major credit reporting agencies (CRAs) — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — own VantageScore. This vertical integration means that the CRAs/VantageScore exclusively control the consumer credit data needed by its closest rival, FICO, and any future rivals, to generate credit scores. This positions the CRAs/VantageScore to potentially act on stronger incentives to steer business to VantageScore and away from competitors. FHFA recognizes the harmful consequences of this scenario in the market for credit scoring. If it comes to pass, lenders and consumers would suffer through higher prices, less choice and variety, and slower innovation in credit scoring. Given the economic importance of the market, regulators, antitrust enforcers, and lawmakers should ask if this risk is acceptable. Introducing competition to challenge the dominance of an incumbent is good public policy. But swapping out a credit scoring market previously controlled by a single firm for one with two major players — one of which controls a critical input needed by competitors — is not a recipe for improved competition. progressivepolicy.org/the-cr…

Rising energy costs are hitting families and small businesses hard. At last week’s @CBCFInc Annual Legislative Conference, PPI’s Neel Brown and former Congressman Kendrick Meek joined @Natural_Allies to talk about the future of affordable energy.

Nick Miller is a Democrat who knows how to reach working-class voters. In 2022, he became the youngest candidate elected to Pennsylvania’s Senate in over a century by winning an Allentown-based district where more than three-quarters of adults lack a bachelor’s degree. This was no easy feat: Just two years later, the same district backed Donald Trump for president. What was Miller’s secret? “I ran as a pragmatic, commonsense candidate focused on results rather than ideology,” he says. “Independent voters play a critical role in our elections. And they consistently respond to leaders who are willing to work with anyone to get things done.” If Democrats want to become competitive again outside the blue islands of major metro areas and college towns, their single most important task will be winning back the Americans without college degrees who have abandoned the party in droves during recent decades. This report brings together interviews with dozens of politicians who’ve already shown they can do just that: 28 state legislators from seven battleground states who, like Miller, have managed to prevail in competitive, heavily working-class districts. We asked them about the issues they focused on, how their voters view the national party, and what on-the-ground tactics they relied on to win. progressivepolicy.org/democr…

U.S. imports from China have fallen sharply on paper, but the underlying relationship has changed far less. In this week’s edition of Trade Fact, PPI’s @EBGresser shows how China rerouted supply chains, expanded investment abroad, and grew its share of world exports since 2018. progressivepolicy.org/chines…

Published annually since 2012, PPI’s Investment Heroes report spotlights the public companies making the largest capital investments in the U.S. economy. Previous reports have focused on topics such as the relationship between higher capital investment, on the one hand, and lower inflation and faster job creation, on the other. The main theme of this year’s report is simple: getting big things done. In recent years, Americans have become increasingly concerned that the United States has become a bumbling giant, unable to execute complex, forward-thinking projects. The result is stagnant living standards and a loss of the ability to defend ourselves. Yet this year’s Investment Heroes report shows that America can still rise to the occasion to address our biggest economic and military challenges. By analyzing corporate financial reports, we find that the country’s top 25 Investment Heroes collectively invested $520.4 billion in the U.S. in 2025. This marks a 29.2% increase from our 2024 estimates. The $520 billion in investment in equipment and structures spans much of the American economy, from factories and fiber networks to power grids and retailers. But the clear standout of this year’s investment is computing and the infrastructure needed to power AI. The four largest investors this year — tech firms Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft — collectively invested more than $269 billion in the U.S. in 2025, a 61.1% increase from their 2024 spending. This year’s sizable investments in compute capacity are building the foundation for the expansion of AI applications beyond software and back-office efficiency. The country faces major challenges, including high costs of food, healthcare, housing, and energy; archaic government systems; and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, among others. The buildout led by this year’s Investment Heroes is creating the capacity and knowledge needed to tackle these challenges head-on. progressivepolicy.org/invest…