Hoover Institution

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash Here are this week’s reading links and benefits breakdowns: Welfare Reform's Success Holds Up 30 Years Later. The positive effects of the 1996 welfare reforms on work and poverty still hold three decades later, argues AEI scholar Scott Winship.

Former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul has questioned the effectiveness of the “secret diplomacy” conducted by presidential special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The Operative Information Center-OMM reports that McFaul made the remarks in a post on the social media platform X. He welcomed Witkoff and Kushner’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

You are coordially invited to a fireside chat on Democracy Without Shelter: How Mongolia Holds the Line with Elbegdorj Tsakhia and H.R. McMaster on Friday, October 2, 2026 from 4:30 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. PT in Hauck Auditorium.

CAPTION 1850 NASSAU HALL University Core Curriculum Reform Offers Promise Peter Berkowitz discusses university core curriculum reform, pointing to a promising new proposal at the University of Texas at Austin. He argues that traditional core curricula fail because tenured faculty prioritize narrow research interests over student needs, leaving graduates without a foundational understanding of Western civilization, American political ideas, or global cultures.

Minimum-wage increases promise higher pay, but higher labor costs may also lead businesses to reduce hiring or working hours, favor more experienced workers, or automate more tasks. Because minimum-wage policies do not necessarily reach the families most in need, the Earned Income Tax Credit provides a more targeted way to support low-income working families without limiting employment opportunities.

In this week’s Grumpy Economist Weekly Rant, John Cochrane examines a proposed permanent 5% federal tax on billionaire wealth. While supporters argue that the tax would raise trillions of dollars in revenue, Cochrane points out that these projections treat investment and behavior as fixed, leaving unanswered how the tax would affect risk-taking, business formation, and future economic growth. Billionaire wealth is not held primarily as cash; much of it remains invested in companies.

The letters that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson exchanged in old age represent a trove so rich that I have found myself returning to it again and again since I picked up the collection in college. “You and I ought not to die,” Adams wrote to Jefferson in 1813, “until we have explained ourselves to each other.” Adams and Jefferson first exchanged letters in 1777, when Adams remained in the Continental Congress but Jefferson had returned to Virginia.

How China Is Stealing America’s AI “Beijing has run its playbook of brute-force economics over and over in recent decades,” write Matt Pottinger and Liza Tobin. (Illustration by The Free Press) China’s approach to AI is eerily familiar. Beijing steals IP, subsidizes domestic producers, blocks foreign competitors, and then floods global markets. The U.S. can’t let that happen with AI.

The rubber meets the road in California this fall when a proposed one-time 5% tax on the state’s billionaire class – wealth taxes being a longtime progressive hobby horse – faces a public vote in the form of Proposition 40. Joshua Rauh, the Hoover Institution’s George P.

MyHoover delivers a personalized experience at Hoover.org. In a few easy steps, create an account and receive the most recent analysis from Hoover fellows tailored to your specific policy interests. Watch this video for an overview of MyHoover. Create Account