Next wave

FreeCons apply timeless principles to emerging policy challenges

Freedom Conservatives embrace innovative solutions to the problems of the 21st century. We also venerate the American Founding and its legacy of timeless principles and time-tested institutions.

There’s no contradiction here. Human nature is a fixed constraint, not a fixable construct. Our Founders cited fundamental truths when declaring American independence and devised state and federal constitutions to govern Americans as they were, and would always be.

But those same leaders argued incessantly about how to address the many challenges faced by the young republic of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Successive generations kept arguing and innovating as the country completed its first and second centuries — adopting reforms and amendments that modified American institutions and broadened their application to new groups of citizens and concerns.

As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Founding, Freedom Conservatives continue to view liberty and tradition as “both-and” propositions, not either-or.

We recognize that emerging issues such as artificial intelligence, fertility, and entitlement reform will require creative responses — and courageous, risk-taking leaders to enact them. We also believe that the only practical solutions will be those that respect and build on America’s founding principles.

On climate, for example, FreeCon signatories argue that only by respecting consumer choice and the rule of law can policymakers meet America’s energy needs while promoting human health and conservation.

“Natural gas will help usher in a new era of American energy dominance,” wrote Commonwealth Foundation analyst André Béliveau in The Daily Signal, “one that’s more reliable, secure, affordable, and — despite what the alarmists claim — cleaner.”

Today we feature other FreeCons working at the cutting edge of policy innovation.

Costly shell game

Michael Feuz is an economics consultant for ITR Economics, a research associate for Free the People, and a FreeCon signatory.

In a recent piece for the Association of Mature American Citizens, Feuz described the intergovernmental transfer (IGT) loophole that state governments exploit at the expense of American taxpayers and Medicaid enrollees.

First, a state compels government-owned healthcare providers such as county hospitals and ambulance services to temporarily transfer funds into the state’s Medicaid program.

The state then returns those funds to fulfill its reimbursement obligation to the provider while Washington pays its share — siphoning money from taxpayers all over the country.

“This shell game has become lucrative not only for the states, which effectively avoid having to actually pay their share,” he wrote, “but also for these public providers as the allowable reimbursement rates have risen to over three times the cost of providing the service.”

“The most expedient route to save money and improve care is to end the IGT loophole. ”

Help to parents

Robert VerBruggen is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a writer for City Journal, and a FreeCon signatory.

He was previously deputy managing editor of National Review, managing editor of The American Conservative, editor at RealClearPolicy, and assistant book editor at The Washington Times.

In a recent debate feature for The Dispatch, VerBruggen argued that the rise of remote work can be a boon to family formation, economic growth, and community health — as long as government stays out of the way.

“In a free market, employers can decide whether they need workers physically present — or whether those who work from the office should be paid more — while employees can decide what jobs they are willing to take and on what terms,” he wrote.

“Government policy should allow that process to play out, although some policy decisions are unavoidable, such as government agencies’ own work-from-home rules and the question of which state(s) get to tax remote workers.”

Pointing to emerging evidence that work-from-home arrangements may boost marriage and fertility, VerBruggen argued that “even if parents don’t have more kids, they will likely spend more time with the ones they have if they’re commuting less.”

He called remote work “a positive development” and “an enormous help to parents in particular.”

Reconnecting citizens

Ray Nothstine is the Future of Freedom Fellow at State Policy Network, where he edits the pro-federalism journal American Habits. He previously worked as opinion editor at Carolina Journal and managing editor of the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty.

In a recent essay for Law & Liberty, Nothstine argued that new artificial-intelligence tools can revitalize American self-government.

“AI is often associated with the loss of human control to machines, cue the plot of Terminator 2,” he wrote. “But what if, instead, it could reconnect citizens with their government, particularly the elected officials in their community?”

Pointing to online tools that use the technology to mass-produce accessible summaries of proposed legislation and real-time transcripts of government meetings, Nothstine also described ways state legislators can employ AI to push back against encroachments by Washington.

“AI has the potential to strengthen the foundations of our republic by helping to return more power to localities and people.”

In a companion piece for The Hill, Nothstine urged states to end their dependency on (borrowed) federal funds.

“Federalism is more than a dusty concept to admire from afar,” he wrote. “It’s a set of common-sense principles to restore trust in government and give people real power over their communities and destiny.”

“The alternative is for Americans to continue watching their states orbit as satellites of expanding federal power, letting Washington’s dysfunction pull us further away from self-government.”

In the mix

• Writing in National Review, FreeCon signatory Noah Rothman reacted to the assassinations of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky by proclaiming “the time for pleasantries is over.”

“Radicalization doesn’t happen in a vacuum,” argued Rothman, a senior writer for the magazine. It is a “compounding phenomenon that feeds on the perceived and real threat posed by the radicals on the other side.”

“Political violence begets more political violence, all the while the risk of a cascading spiral of vengeance and reprisals grows ever larger. We’re all obliged to be vigilant for and to police the passions that can manifest in bloodletting.

“That begins with rejecting the temptation to appropriate the zeal that animates those who could be stirred to violence, a test that both political coalitions are currently failing.”

• Writing in Fusion, FreeCon signatory Jeffrey Tyler Syck diagnosed many of today’s hot-button political fights as manifestations of a deeper tension between those who think America should be a “closed republic” built on a consolidated culture and those who champion an “open republic” that sets broad values — freedom, equality, self-government — but otherwise encourages diversity of thought and background.

An assistant professor of social science at the University of Pikeville, Syck counts himself among the latter.

“The problem of modern America is that we have become incapable of living with people who are different than us,” he wrote. “We have become blind to the simple reality that human diversity is natural. And the great irony is that many of those who are most opposed to pluralism are those who most often refer to their love of the American founding.”

“There could be nothing less American than to demand we all think, hope, and believe the same things.”