Microchips are an essential component of many electronics, from smartphones and computers to cars to home appliances. Following decades of moving production to foreign markets, most of these chips are produced outside the U.S. In the name of national security and domestic economic growth, recent policies have sought to “reshore” chip production back to America. In this brief, we:

A common complaint about America’s elected officials is that they fail to implement easy, practical solutions to public policy problems. These concerns are part of the explanation for the continued decline in trust in government. In this brief, we explore the logic behind these complaints using a perennial public policy problem: federal budget deficits. Are elected officials ignoring the obvious, or is the situation more complex than it appears?

Each year, thousands of Americans are diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses and run out of approved treatment options. Some of these patients turn to experimental drugs, treatments that have passed early safety testing but have not completed testing for effectiveness. A new federal law, the Right to Try, gives some of these patients access to unapproved treatments.