Executive Summary U.S. M&A transaction value rose roughly 50 percent year over year in 2025, with four mega-mergers above $40 billion versus none in 2024. This happened despite total deal count falling 4 percent. The surge was driven almost entirely by the top of the market: deals over $10 billion grew 120 percent, while those … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Business
IRS Layoffs Stall Implementation of Republican-Backed Tax Simplification
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY• The Trump administration furloughed almost half of Internal Revenue Services (IRS) employees and issued 1,300 layoffs during the October 2025 shutdown.• The cuts have delayed implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), making Republicans’ tax-simplification effort appear inefficient and disorganized.• Businesses and individuals now face higher costs as they rely more on … Continue reading
Treasury Outlines OBBB Tax Implementation as Compliance Costs Remain Elevated
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY• Department of the Treasury briefed House of Representatives lawmakers on the schedule for rolling out tax provisions of the One, Big, Beautiful Bill (OBBB).• Internal Revenue Service (IRS) paperwork data show that core returns and schedules tied to these provisions require 3.5 billion hours and over $139 billion annually in compliance costs.• Compliance … Continue reading
Gridlock ahead? Driving innovation in the autonomous vehicle market
Executive Summary Driverless vehicles are at the cutting edge of automobile innovation, and their importance will only increase with time. While the United States is producing these vehicles competitively, an unclear regulatory environment threatens to stall technological progress. U.S. lawmakers and regulators should build certainty and spur innovation by establishing a national safety standard and … Continue reading
Impact of Retail Electricity Deregulation on Consumer Prices: A Difference-in-Difference Approach
Executive Summary Electricity is a necessary commodity for nearly every person in the United States, and while the delivery process has not changed, deregulation has altered who supplies it. Historically, electrical markets were vertically integrated and regarded as a natural monopoly, but recent market-oriented reforms have aimed to deregulate and introduce competition to lower both … Continue reading
Price Transparency: How the FTC is Tackling Bait-and-Switch Pricing
Executive Overview – There is a recurring practice of firms failing to disclose upfront mandatory charges in the advertised price of their goods or services, leading to an unexpected higher final cost for consumers (e.g. “resort fees” in hotel bookings and “processing fees” in ticket purchases). – Misleading pricing threatens competition in the market, as … Continue reading
Economy / Energy / Environment / Politics
Why Energy Efficiency is Key to Fulfilling the Paris Goals
Energy efficiency — the ugly ducking in an industry full of shiny solar panels and soaring wind turbines — may be the smart, business friendly path to mitigating climate shifts, regardless of political detours. The Paris Agreement, the most drastic global climate action plan, officially entered into force in early November, confirming 94 countries’ pledges to … Continue reading
Knock Knock. Who’s There? – Credit Unions.
Since the financial crisis on Wall Street, consumers have been finding their way to the local doorsteps of credit unions instead of corporate banks – and they are realizing that the doors are always open. While banks continue to feed from the pockets of their customers with mounting checking fees, debit fees, hidden fees, and … Continue reading
What’s up with all the Obamacare Delays?
At first glance, the delay of the employer mandate seems like a complicated but innocuous change to the implementation of Obamacare. Many Democrats and backers of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have been attempting to label it as a fairly minor provision since the mandate was put into place only for businesses with greater than … Continue reading
How Green is Our Gas?
The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions recently released a new report detailing how to incorporate natural gas into an emissions- and carbon-free future, with recommendations for use by sector. They launched their report with a meeting featuring a “CEO-level” discussion and a “sector-level” discussion. The two panels followed the format of the report. … Continue reading
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