AI
Artificial Intelligence: Between Promise and Peril
AI is becoming infrastructure. Here’s what it can actually do today, the benefits worth pursuing, the risks we can’t ignore, and the rules that keep progress from turning into damage.
Archive
All analysis
44 results
Business
Is Universal Basic Income Inevitable?
UBI is moving from theory to live policy debate. Here is what drives the interest, what pilot evidence suggests, and why cost and design choices determine feasibility.
AI
The First Signs of AI-Driven Cyberattacks (and How Defense Changes)
AI is making phishing, voice scams, and recon cheaper and more convincing. The first wave is already here, and it favors attackers.
Economics
Corporate Conglomerates: When Scale Becomes Systemic Risk
Consolidation can look like efficiency, but it can create single points of failure. Here is how conglomerates become de facto infrastructure, why resilience matters, and what policy can do.
Governance
The Party Realignment: How Democrats and Republicans Changed Over Time
A stage-by-stage, evidence-based guide to how U.S. party coalitions and ideologies evolved from Reconstruction through the Southern realignment.
Governance
Why Local Journalism Is a National Security Issue
As local newsrooms collapse, corruption rises, disaster response weakens, disinformation spreads, and local elections lose scrutiny. Local journalism is democratic infrastructure.
AI
AI Regulation Turns Real: The First Wave of State Rules Takes Effect
Federal action is stalled, so states and cities are writing the first enforceable AI rules. Here is what the first wave actually requires, what is working, and what patchwork compliance breaks.
Economics
The State of the 2026 Economy: Why It Feels Worse Than the Data
GDP and unemployment can look fine while affordability collapses. Here is what is driving the squeeze, what tariffs change, and who is actually doing well.
AI
How AI Is Reshaping Small Businesses (Not Just Big Tech)
AI is lowering the cost of admin, marketing, and customer service for small firms. It also widens skill gaps and removes entry-level rungs. Here is what changes.
AI
What “Algorithmic Transparency” Really Means
“Algorithmic transparency” is not one demand. It can mean documentation, explanations for individual decisions, or independent audits. Publishing source code is rarely the point. Better standards make automated power legible, contestable, and accountable.
Economics
Should Religious Institutions Pay Taxes? A $100B Transparency and Opportunity Cost Case
Churches provide public value, but $100B in tax advantages should come with auditable benefit, tiered reporting, and clear rules on politics and commerce.
Governance
SAVE Act: Costs, Burdens, and Benefits Compared
The SAVE Act would require documentary proof of citizenship to register for federal elections. This explainer weighs claimed benefits against real-world costs, administrative burden, and lower-cost alternatives.
Governance Opinion
The Difference Between Oversight and Gridlock
When Congress blocks presidential initiatives, investigates administration actions, or refuses to confirm nominees, it gets framed as “necessary oversight” or “destructive gridlock” depending on partisan preference. But the distinction is real: oversight holds power accountable.
Business
Capitalism, Reintroduced: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and Why It’s Breaking Down
Capitalism is a tool, not a religion. Here’s a grounded definition, how the U.S. variant drifted toward corporatism, and what reforms restore competition and broad prosperity.
Federal Budget
Corrections Reform: What Works, What Fails, and What It Costs
The U.S. runs one of the world’s most expensive incarceration systems with weak outcomes. The evidence points to reforms that reduce recidivism and improve public safety.
Social Issues
Ranked-Choice Voting Explained: Why It Can Reduce Extremism
Ranked-choice voting changes incentives. Candidates need second-choice support, so scorched-earth tactics and fringe-only strategies become less effective.
Health Care
Why Prescription Drugs Cost More in the U.S. (and What Actually Lowers Prices)
Americans pay far more for the same medicines. The drivers are patents, opaque rebates, and fragmented purchasing power. Here are reforms that lower prices without killing innovation.
Social Issues
Independent Redistricting Commissions: What They Change (and What They Don’t)
Independent commissions can reduce partisan gerrymandering, increase competition, and keep communities intact. They do not erase geography or polarization.
Economics
Why Childcare Is Expensive for Parents and Still Pays Poverty Wages
Childcare is a classic market failure: families can’t afford it, providers can’t sustainably supply it, and workers are underpaid. Evidence, tradeoffs, and reforms.
Business
Jobs Added vs. Jobs People Want: Why the Numbers Don’t Match Reality
Headline job growth can look strong while job quality deteriorates. Here’s what the top-line jobs report misses, and what to watch instead.
Economics
Student Debt Explained: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
Student debt became a national balance-sheet problem. Here’s how we got here, who is hurting most, and what reforms actually fix the system.
Economics
Why Grocery Prices Still Feel High Even as Inflation Cools
Inflation falling does not mean prices fall. Here’s why groceries still feel expensive, how wages compare, and what real relief would look like.
Economics
Housing Crisis: Supply, Demand, and Zoning Reform
The housing crisis in the U.S. stems from persistent supply constraints rather than just demand issues. Zoning laws and lengthy approval processes restrict construction, driving prices beyond typical incomes. The result is affordability problems for both renters and buyers.
Economics
Impact of Tariffs on Supply Chains and Consumers
The 2018 tariffs imposed by the Trump administration aimed to protect American manufacturing but resulted in increased costs throughout supply chains, affecting many businesses and consumers. Protected firms benefit, while costs spread to consumers and downstream employers.
Resources
Research Resources
The Rational Moderate relies on transparent, verifiable data to ground every piece of analysis. This page brings together the government datasets, statistical portals, and long‑running research series we use most often in our work.
Business
Drug Use in the United States
Americans spend more per person on prescription drugs than other developed nations and consume most of the world's opioids. Over-prescription of opioid pain relievers drives addiction, the author argues, and more of the money spent on the war on drugs should go to treatment.
Alternative Energy
Automation Giveth and Taketh Away
A boon to industry is a potential burden to society. Here the gains in output, cost and safety that automation brings are weighed against job losses and wider income inequality for workers.
Business
Net Effects of Illegal Immigration
Immigration and the U.S. economy are delicately intertwined. After looking at unauthorized workers in the labor force, the taxes they pay and the benefits they use, the author concludes that immigration appears to be good for the economy.
Social Issues
Voting and the Democratic Process
Voting is a fundamental right of citizens of the United States and required to maintain a working democracy.
Business
Religious Institutions Should Pay Taxes
Argues that religious institutions should pay taxes, describing religion as a multi-billion dollar industry subsidized by American taxpayers and pointing to the wealth of some church leaders.
Economics
Affordable Education Requires Reform
Education is a pillar of modern society. Rather, it would be if it were not rife with inequality and greed.
Economics
Drug Testing Welfare Recipients Is Illogical
Drug testing welfare recipients isn’t worth the cost, the post argues. States that tested reported few positive results, and welfare recipients use drugs at a lower rate than the general population.
Economics
Legalization of Cannabis
Makes the case for legalizing cannabis nationwide, citing lower enforcement costs, fewer possession arrests, new tax revenue and jobs, and its medical use as a substitute for opiates.
Alternative Energy
Balancing the Federal Budget: Summary
Pulls the Balancing the Federal Budget series into a master plan and argues that balance can be achieved, but it won’t be easy. It pairs more spending on science, education and infrastructure with cuts to defense and a single-payer health care system meant to lower costs.
Economics
Balancing the Federal Budget: Taxes
The objective of a taxation system is to cover federal expenditures, but it’s falling short in the United States.
Federal Budget
Balancing the Federal Budget: Income Security
Function 600 aims to provide for those who are unable to provide for themselves.
Economics
Balancing the Federal Budget: Defense
Examines how $585 billion of defense spending is used, calls parts of it potentially wasteful, and proposes fewer overseas bases, a review of military contracts, and more support for United Nations efforts.
Alternative Energy
Balancing the Federal Budget: Non-Defense
Non-defense discretionary spending has stayed low and steady as a share of GDP, the post argues, and should grow rather than be cut. It walks through what this spending funds, from health research and transportation to education, science, law enforcement and diplomacy.
Economics
Balancing the Federal Budget: Health Care
Health care spending has increased rapidly since 1960, but why? This part of the budget series traces the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending and asks whether it is sustainable.
Economics
Balancing the Federal Budget: Social Security
The Social Security program is the largest spending category in the Federal Budget and it is running out of money.
Economics
Balancing the Federal Budget: Introduction
An in-depth look at the Federal Budget, beginning with a high-level summary of federal tax revenues, spending, the largest spending categories and the national debt.
Alternative Energy
Empowerment Through Alternative Energy
It’s time to transition the United States away from fossil fuels and create millions of new jobs in the process.
Economics
The Case for a Nationwide Indexed Minimum Wage
The federal minimum wage has barely moved in real terms while the cost of living and worker productivity have surged. Indexing the minimum wage to economic fundamentals offers a more stable, evidence‑based path forward
Uncategorized
Moderation for the Modern World
An opening letter to the world. “Hello!” The blog sets out to seek common ground on modern problems and to promote compassion, logic and meaningful discussion.