Policy Corner

On January 28, a federal district court struck down Mississippi’s long-standing moratorium on the establishment of certain new health care facilities, calling the forty-year application of the moratorium “irrational.”

The regulatory developments of 2025 underscore how overregulation and unchecked agency authority tend to raise costs, slow growth, and limit opportunity, while strong procedural guardrails and regulatory reforms can deliver better outcomes. As regulatory debates continue through 2026, policymakers and advocates should focus on reforms that promote accountability, streamline permitting, expand competition, lower costs, and enable innovation.

Members of Congress need an annual schedule with a regular cadence. Shared expectations support policy development, coalition building, and healthy competition on a wide range of priorities.

This series aims to illustrate how Congress can become the empowered, yet bounded, legislature that America needs.

On December 4, 2025, the Trump administration released its much-anticipated National Security Strategy. This Congressionally-mandated document is the authoritative statement of how an administration wants the policy community and foreign governments to understand its intentions. This most recent edition, however, represented a stark departure from previous strategies, drawing a polarized reception across media outlets, think tanks, and the foreign policy community. It is not difficult to see why.

This week is national school choice week, a yearly tradition that educates parents on the principles of school choice and educational freedom.

Americans for Prosperity believes all students deserve the opportunity to discover, develop and deploy their unique passions and talents. Instead of limiting families to a one-size fits all approach when it comes to education, we should expand their available choices so they can customize their students’ educational options in ways that best suit their unique needs.

With data now available showing the value of independent agencies following the processes set forth in E.O. 12866, there is no doubt that consistency across the government in regulatory procedures and analysis only improves certainty and transparency of the process. It is now time for Congress to codify E.O. 12866 and require independent regulatory agencies to conduct robust cost-benefit analyses of their significant rules and subject their analysis to third-party review through OIRA, just as Executive agencies have for decades.

What share of federal health subsidies are “discretionary” spending and therefore part of the annual appropriations bills? 10.8 percent.

The House Judiciary Committee had planned – now delayed – to mark up a balanced budget amendment (BBA) following a hearing last month. Most BBAs would require spending and revenue to balance. Ideally, that would happen over the medium term, not each year.