Good morning:
Many of us on the East Coast are still clearing sidewalks and roads, and digging our way out of the recent snowstorm. Dangerously low temperatures are lethal—already 10 people have been found dead in New York City this week. But it is possible that the frigid temperatures are keeping tensions from blazing out of control in other parts of the country.
In the wake of an increasingly volatile situation in Minneapolis, with two protestors killed and federal officers threatened by agitators, fellow Rafael A. Mangual warns in City Journal that all sides, especially state and federal leaders, need to ratchet back their rhetoric and actions to keep innocent people safe. The city is beginning to resemble the post-George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020. At the same time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are enforcing federal law. If Americans oppose the policy, they should pursue change the legitimate way—through the ballot box.
Also in City Journal, fellow Danyela Souza Egorov reflects on National School Choice Week and how school-choice advocates have diligently gained support and expanded educational opportunities for children across the country, state legislature by state legislature. She also highlights states where there is more work to be done.
At the collegiate level, director of Constitutional Studies Ilya Shapiro warns in Fox News that American colleges and universities are demonstrably falling behind Chinese universities, which are prioritizing research capacity and laboratories. Americans, meanwhile, are still distracted by implementing pernicious DEI bureaucracies and ignorant ideological litmus tests.
Ignorance may be a reoccurring problem as New York City and New York State consider the economic conditions necessary to pay for the $260 billion state budget and Mayor Mamdani’s NYC budget, coming in February. Mamdani is still committed to increasing taxes on the highest-earning New Yorkers. In a new column for the New York Post, adjunct fellow E.J. McMahon lays out how the new mayor’s tax agenda will undermine the city’s tax base, and do even more damage to the state’s.
In a new report, senior fellow Chris Pope analyzes the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies Congress is considering renewing. He finds that the expanded credits incentivize employers to stop offering health insurance and push workers to the exchange. Therefore, renewing the subsidy expansion would cost taxpayers an additional $250 billion annually.
Finally, this week, the City Journal Podcast released the latest episode in our “Who We Are” series. Rafael Mangual has a conversation with senior fellow Rob Henderson and senior fellow Theodore Dalrymple about psychology and the drivers of crime and antisocial behavior. Be sure to check out this fascinating episode. Continue reading for all these insights and more. Kelsey Bloom
Editorial Director |
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Will Employers Stop Offering Health Insurance? Expanded ACA Subsidies Leave Most Workers Better Off if They Do
By Chris Pope | Manhattan Institute
Congress is considering whether to renew the expanded Affordable Care Act subsidies, which expired at the end of 2025. In a new report, Chris Pope explains why doing so could undermine the employer-sponsored insurance system.
Under the original ACA, subsidies for individuals purchasing coverage on the exchanges were less valuable than the tax exemption employers receive for offering health insurance. This preserved incentives for employers to provide coverage and left most workers better off receiving insurance through their jobs.
That balance shifted with the expansion of the Advanced Premium Tax Credit. Expanded APTC subsidies exceeded the value of the tax exemption for roughly two-thirds of non-elderly, non-poor households. As a result, with expanded subsidies, most workers would financially benefit if their employers stopped offering health insurance and instead raised wages, allowing employees to purchase subsidized coverage on the exchanges. If the subsidy expansion becomes permanent, Pope argues, employers would face growing pressure to exit the health insurance market altogether. Such a shift could cost the federal government an additional $250 billion annually. |
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How Zohran Mamdani’s Ignorance Could Drive New York to Ruin
By E. J. McMahon | New York Post
“Mamdani and his tax-the-rich allies in the Legislature regularly ignore the wider economic and fiscal context for what they’re proposing. ... Thanks to the 2017 federal tax law eliminating state and local tax deductions, millionaire earners already are subject to the highest effective income tax rates ever imposed by New York state — which, given its high-tax history, is really saying something. “The combined top federal, state and local tax rate on salary and bonus income for New York City residents has risen above 50% for the first time since the early 1980s — to the highest level in the country. At the same time, the federal-state-city tax on long-term capital gains is nearly 39% — not just the highest in the United States, but one of the highest in the world. ... “Hochul needs to hold the line on more tax hikes because she knows that any further increase in city income taxes has implications for the state tax base as well. If Mamdani’s tax agenda undermines the city’s tax base, it will do even more damage to the state’s.” |
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Harvard Gets Schooled by China as America’s Universities Choose Activism over Excellence By Ilya Shapiro | FoxNews.com
“Harvard isn’t supposed to be chasing. It’s supposed to be leading. Yet a new global ranking put out by Holland’s Leiden University — a measure of the number and importance of research publications — has Harvard down to third place worldwide, and both institutions ahead of it are Chinese. It gets worse for America: in the top 20, Harvard and the University of Michigan are the only U.S. universities. China takes 16 of the top 20 slots. ...
“What, exactly, has gone wrong in American academia[?] The answer is not that Americans suddenly got dumber. It’s that our universities have become less serious. ... Meanwhile, China has been building research capacity like a state project — because it is one. It funds labs, scales programs, recruits talent and measures success in outputs that translate into technological and geopolitical power. ... “America’s universities are being outcompeted abroad while being hollowed out at home. If we want to reclaim research leadership, we need to reclaim the university’s purpose.” |
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Red States Have Many Wins to Celebrate for National School Choice Week
By Danyela Souza Egorov | City Journal
“This week marks the 16th year that families and educators across the country celebrate National School Choice Week, and it is an especially important one. After passage of the school choice program in Texas last year, a majority of American school children are eligible for school choice, by one count. Thirty states now run some form of school choice program, and 12 have passed universal school choice laws since 2024. ... Nevertheless, “the educational establishment is resisting these programs. School choice has faced lawsuits in Ohio, Tennessee, Wyoming, and Utah. ...
And “choice programs are decisively swinging voters toward Republicans on educational issues. Polling from Democratic groups ... shows that the public trusts Republicans more to handle education. Democrats’ historical advantage on this issue makes this shift even more significant.” |
Turn Down the Temperature in Minnesota
By Rafael A. Mangual | City Journal “The Minneapolis Police Department could ... help ease local tensions. It has been conspicuously absent from some of the most contentious confrontations. Minneapolis need not abandon its ‘sanctuary’ policies to allow police to assist with crowd control. ... “Governor Walz and local officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul must also discourage constituents from needlessly antagonizing federal agents. ... Federal officials also need to stop being provocative. They risk undermining their own credibility and the credibility of the agents on the ground and the institutions they represent. “Some encouraging steps are now underway. Perhaps surprisingly, one of the more responsible voices has been that of President Trump, who has taken a more measured tone than many would have expected. ...
“If this strikes you as too tall an order, consider the alternative, and its consequences: heated rhetoric and aggressive action have led only to tragedy.” |
The Manhattan Institute is proud to serve as the Principal Institutional Partner for the Sun Valley Policy Forum’s 2026 Winter Summit in the iconic resort town of Sun Valley, Idaho on February 11, 2026.
We are thrilled to join Joe Lonsdale and MI senior fellow Christopher F. Rufo for an evening on principled leadership and the future of American institutions in an AI-driven era.
Please click here to learn more about the Sun Valley Policy Forum and our partnership and to purchase tickets at a discounted rate for friends of the Manhattan Institute. |
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Who We Are: Psychology, Behavior, and Society
By Manhattan Institute
Rob Henderson, Theodore Dalrymple (Tony Daniels), and Rafael Mangual examine the real drivers of antisocial behavior and crime—and the growing disconnect between policymakers and the communities most affected by violence. They explore how elite “luxury beliefs” shape public narratives around criminality, often minimizing harm while insulating decision-makers from the consequences of their ideas. |
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For more information and media requests, please contact
communications@manhattan.institute.
Are you interested in supporting the Manhattan Institute’s public-interest research and journalism? As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, donations in support of MI and its scholars’ work are fully tax-deductible as provided by law. |
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Photo Credits: adamkaz/E+/Getty Images; Noah Berger/AP Photo; Anadolu/Getty Images; Wong Yu Liang/Getty Images; Catherine McQueen/Getty Images; Probal Rashid/LightRocket/Getty Images |
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