Blame Regulators for America’s Manufacturing Decline

Over the past eight years, federal agencies have issued more than 500 new rules, each carrying an average annual cost of $100 million. The burden on businesses is immense. A recent report finds that complying with federal regulations costs large firms $29,100 per employee per year—and an even steeper $50,100 for small firms.

This expanding regulatory state is doing more to cripple American manufacturing than taxes or tariffs, writes Mark P. Mills. Since 2000, the U.S. has shed 3 million manufacturing jobs. Had the sector declined by only half as much, domestic manufacturing output would be $1 trillion higher—enough to erase the entire trade deficit.

Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber defended Columbia and other elite universities in The Atlantic and on a New York Times podcast. He acknowledged that the Trump administration had the authority to compel schools to address campus anti-Semitism but claimed that threatening to pull federal funds violated Columbia’s “due process” and “academic freedom.”

Manhattan Institute fellow Tal Fortgang argues that Eisgruber is missing the point. The problem isn’t procedure, he writes, but substance: “What Eisgruber and other university presidents know, but won’t admit, is that they don’t need more time or better procedures to prove they deserve federal funding—they need entirely different facts.”

Read the rest of Fortgang’s argument here.

After nearly four decades as a plastic surgeon, Richard T. Bosshardt has watched “gender-affirming” surgeries become more common—especially among adolescent girls. The most frequent procedure, known as “top surgery,” removes healthy breast tissue to give the appearance of a male chest. Some patients are as young as 13.

Bosshardt considers these procedures a medical and ethical disaster. He warns of serious risks, including infection, bleeding, and blood clots, and compares the current enthusiasm for such interventions with the now-discredited practice of frontal lobotomies. “We will one day view ‘gender-affirming care’ in minors with the same revulsion,” he writes.

On New Year’s Day, a terrorist attack on New Orleans’s Bourbon Street left 14 dead and dozens injured. The assailant used consumer technology—smart glasses, improvised explosives, and a rented pickup truck—to carry out the assault, highlighting a growing danger: the criminal repurposing of everyday tech in ways that outpace police response. Researchers Laura Huey, Lorna Ferguson, and Cole Heffren argue that law enforcement can no longer afford to remain reactive. Staying ahead will require agencies to reform their decision-making processes and work closely with technologists to anticipate emerging threats.

The new City Journal Podcast is live!

Charles Fain Lehman, Rafael Mangual, Tal Fortgang, and Jesse Arm discuss the attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home, the Trump administration’s crackdown on Harvard University, and the best crew members to bring on a trip to space.

“There seems to be a missing chip with you.”

That’s what Fox News’s Sean Hannity said to former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz on Wednesday during an interview. And we couldn’t agree more.

Hannity was referring to Lorenz’s apparent fawning over Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December. Lorenz has sparked widespread outrage over her comments about Mangione during what is truly a cringe-worthy interview with CNN on Sunday.

“It’s hilarious to see these millionaire media pundits on TV clutching their pearls about someone stanning a murderer when this is the United States of America, as if we don’t lionize criminals,” she said.

Hilarious to see a media pundit raise an eyebrow over someone stanning a murderer? Never mind that that alleged killer cold-bloodedly assassinated an innocent man who was only 50 years old and a father of two.

Right before erupting in laughter, Lorenz continued: “Here’s this man who’s a revolutionary, who’s famous, who’s handsome, who’s young, who’s smart, he’s a person that seems like this morally good man, which is hard to find.”

Hmmm. A “morally good man” isn’t exactly the first description we’d use in this scenario. Lorenz claimed to Hannity that she was simply explaining the mentality of the women who are fan-girling over Mangione outside of the courthouse. Got it.

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If you have Face Palm candidates—embarrassing journalism or media output; cringe-worthy conduct among leaders in government, business, and cultural institutions; stories that make you shake your head—send them our way at editors@city-journal.org. We’ll publish the most instructive with a hat tip to the source.

Photo credits: DOMINIC GWINN / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images