Economist Stephen Moore and President Donald Trump (Screenshots)

Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao did the right thing when she put the brakes on the Obama administration's regulatory mandate that would have forced an expensive technology called dedicated short-range communication (DSRC) in all new cars and trucks sold in America.  The Obama rule would have imposed total costs of $108 billion and raised the price of every new car about $300 – for a technology that is already obsolete.

President Trump recently tweeted that he wanted to end subsidies for General Motors "including for electric cars." In this case the president's personal pique aligns with an opportunity to advance good public policy.  One of most significant subsidies from which GM benefits – the $7,500 tax credit for electric car buyers – is already scheduled to phase out as GM passes the 200,000 vehicle cap on the full credit, entering a one-year phase-out before the subsidy ends completely.  It's a rare circumstance in which a government program could actually end just by Congress doing what it specializes in – doing nothing.

On his way out the door, former Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (then known as CFPB – Acting Director Mick Mulvaney changed it to BCFP this year to reflect its exact legal name) chief Richard Cordray signed off on a shockingly corrupt settlement agreement that could have widespread negative consequences for student loan borrowers and more broadly for consumer finance across the economy. 

Two House Republicans have chosen to capitulate on major agenda items on the liberal left – and are learning a familiar lesson the hard way.  One, Colorado's Mike Coffman has signed onto Democratic efforts to reimpose President Obama's FCC order to tax and regulate the Internet under the banner of net neutrality.  The other, Florida's Carlos Curbelo, broke with his party by leading a tiny group of Republicans who voted against a resolution rejecting a carbon tax, and then went further by actually introducing his own carbon tax legislation.  But rather than welcoming them as heroes, the left still wants to replace them with real Democrats.

Republicans are set to move landmark welfare reform in this year's farm bill, which includes language requiring able-bodied adults to work or participate in a job training program to be eligible for food stamps.  Democrats in Congress, however, have decided to litmus test opposition to work requirements and have therefore walked away en masse from supporting the usually bipartisan farm bill.  That gives conservatives leverage to push for free-market reforms to the other 20 percent of the bill – and they should.

Shortly after Scott Gottlieb took over as the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, he announced a paradigmatic shift in the agency's approach to regulating tobacco products centered on harm reduction – the idea that smokers who can't quit outright can get nicotine from products other than cigarettes and dramatically improve their health outcomes as a result.  The first test of the extent to which things have really changed at the FDA comes with the application of a product called IQOS from Philip Morris, an electronic device that heats tobacco enough to release nicotine – but without combustion and all of the health harms associated with the products of combustion.

The introduction of the new Senate health care bill – authored by senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Dean Heller of Nevada, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin with an assist from former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum – comes after so many failed Obamacare repeal efforts that you can forgive the public for greeting it with caution.  But the current law is a disaster – premiums and deductibles are spiraling upward while the latest official estimates show 1,478 counties, over 45 percent of the counties in America, will have just one insurance company in 2018.  The 2017 reconciliation process protecting a Republican health care bill from filibuster expires on September 30.  Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) is the last train leaving the station.  All aboard.

On Thursday, the FCC voted 2-1 on party lines to begin accepting public comment on a proposal to reverse the 2015 Obama administration order reducing the Internet to a regulated public utility and returning to the previous light-touch policy.