Washington’s policy shops ran hot in the first full week of July, shipping fresh research on tariffs, state sales taxes, zoning, school finance, artificial intelligence, and the cost of groceries. The Investigative Journal’s weekly roundup surveys notable output from across the ideological spectrum, summarizes the core findings, and links directly to each original paper so readers can judge the evidence for themselves. As always, we note each organization’s political orientation and, where public records allow, its major funders — because who pays for research is part of the story.
Cato Institute: Weighing who really pays for tariffs
The Cato Institute opened the month with a research brief, “The Incidence of Tariffs: Rates and Reality” (Research Briefs in Economic Policy No. 490, July 1), distilling work by economists Gita Gopinath and Brent Neiman. The brief documents that the average statutory U.S. tariff rate, weighted by trade volume, reached roughly 26 percent by the end of 2025 — a level the authors describe as unseen in more than a century. Records in the brief indicate that imports from 171 countries, accounting for more than 70 percent of all U.S. imports, faced higher tariffs at the end of 2025 than a year earlier.
The analysis also tracks the U.S.–China relationship, noting that bilateral tariffs briefly exceeded 100 percent before the two governments pared them back to still historically elevated levels. The authors emphasize the gap between statutory rates and the tariffs actually collected, a distinction relevant to any assessment of who ultimately bears the cost.
Cato is a libertarian think tank that champions free trade and free markets. It accepts no government funding and, per its disclosures, is supported by individual donors, foundations, and corporations; historically it has been associated with backing from Charles Koch and allied libertarian donors. Its free-trade priors are relevant context for a paper skeptical of tariffs, though the underlying trade data are drawn from federal statistics.
Tax Foundation: State sales taxes hold steady at midyear
The Tax Foundation published its “State and Local Sales Tax Rates, Midyear 2026” on July 6. The population-weighted national average combined state and local sales tax rate stands at 7.53 percent. The five highest combined rates are in Louisiana (10.13 percent), Tennessee (9.61 percent), Washington (9.57 percent), Arkansas (9.48 percent), and Alabama (9.46 percent). Data in the report show no statewide rate changes between January and July 2026, with only minor local adjustments shifting a handful of rankings — most notably North Carolina.
The report situates sales taxes within each state’s broader mix, observing that Tennessee pairs high sales taxes with no individual income tax, while Oregon levies no sales tax at all. Sales taxes, the Foundation notes, account for about 32 percent of state tax collections, making midyear rate data a useful barometer for state fiscal conditions.
Founded in 1937, the Tax Foundation describes itself as nonpartisan but is generally regarded as free-market leaning in its preference for broad bases and low rates. Public disclosures indicate it is funded by foundations, corporations, and individual donors. Its rate tables are compiled from state revenue departments and the Sales Tax Clearinghouse.
American Enterprise Institute: Voters warm to modest zoning reform
The American Enterprise Institute released the fourth installment (July 7) of findings from its Housing Center’s May 2026 Zoning and Land Use Flexibility Survey, which drew 5,245 completed interviews conducted May 8–14. The survey finds broad public support for three “light-touch” reforms: smaller lots in new neighborhoods (64 percent), small-scale infill in existing single-family neighborhoods (58 percent), and housing near jobs and amenities (74 percent).
The report finds that 52 percent of respondents with an opinion call more affordably priced starter homes extremely or very important to their community, and 81 percent say it is at least somewhat important. Support is broad but uneven: the clearest divides run along ideology and how severe respondents perceive local affordability to be, with the biggest swings on infill.
AEI is a center-right think tank. Public records indicate it is funded by corporate donors, conservative foundations, and individuals. Its Housing Center is associated with a market-oriented, supply-side reading of housing affordability, which frames the survey’s emphasis on incremental deregulation.
Brookings Institution: Five decades of school-spending equity
The Brookings Institution published “School spending equity since 1976” on July 7, a descriptive analysis by Sarah Reber, Beyond Deng, and Gabriela Goodman of how per-pupil spending varies with district child poverty and racial composition. The paper’s central finding is that spending patterns by poverty and race looked surprisingly similar at the beginning and end of the nearly five-decade window, even though the intervening years saw meaningful movement.
Spending trended less equitable in the 1980s and early 1990s, the authors report, then trended more equitable thereafter. The study decomposes differences into between-state and within-state components and underscores that average spending varies enormously across states — some spend nearly three times what others do — a gap that shapes any national conversation about educational equity.
Brookings is a centrist to center-left institution. Its own disclosures show funding from major foundations, corporations, and governments, and it has previously accepted support from foreign governments, including Qatar. The school-finance work is empirical and data-forward, drawing on decades of federal district-level records.
Center for American Progress: A plan to cool grocery prices
The Center for American Progress continues to press its 2026 proposal, “Stopping Sticker Shock at the Grocery Store: A Plan To Make Food More Affordable,” a three-part agenda that remains a touchstone in the cost-of-living debate. The plan pairs a negotiated, temporary price cap on a defined basket of staples — CAP’s “Go-To Grocery List” of items such as eggs, milk, bread, and produce — with tougher enforcement against price discrimination, surveillance pricing, and alleged price-fixing in concentrated food sectors, plus a modernization of farm and food policy to harden supply chains.
CAP estimates the package would save a typical family of four an average of about $134 a year. The temporary price-cap component is the most contested element; free-market analysts warn that caps can distort supply, and the proposal has drawn pointed criticism from right-of-center scholars — a debate we present here without endorsement.
CAP is a progressive think tank founded in 2003 by John Podesta. Public records indicate it is funded by foundations, labor unions, and corporate and individual donors. Its interventionist framing on prices contrasts sharply with the free-market posture of Cato and the Tax Foundation elsewhere in this roundup.
RAND Corporation: A framework for transatlantic AI cooperation
The RAND Corporation published “The Transatlantic Artificial Intelligence Calculus” on July 7, by Marzia Giambertoni. The report offers a scenario-based framework for structuring U.S.–European Union AI cooperation amid intensifying U.S.–China competition, organizing the future around four archetypal scenarios defined by two variables: where AI value is ultimately created, and how open advanced models become.
Its most actionable conclusion is that two cooperation tracks — interoperable evaluation, testing, and standards, and resilience in lithography (the chipmaking supply chain) — are likely to pay off across all four futures and should be pursued now rather than hedged. The analysis is pitched explicitly at advancing U.S. strategic interests, a framing that distinguishes it from purely multilateralist treatments of AI governance.
RAND is a nonpartisan research organization that traces its origins to a 1948 U.S. Air Force project. The majority of its funding comes from U.S. government agencies, particularly the Defense Department, alongside foundations and private donors — a funding base worth noting given the report’s national-security lens.
Council on Foreign Relations: Mapping 2026’s conflict risks
The Council on Foreign Relations continues to circulate its 2026 Conflict Risk Assessment, drawn from the Center for Preventive Action’s annual Preventive Priorities Survey. The assessment argues that traditional norms against interstate aggression are degrading, citing a resurgence of state-on-state conflict. It flags three scenarios that surveyed experts judged to carry a 50 percent or greater likelihood in 2026 with high impact on U.S. interests: an intensification of the Russia–Ukraine war, U.S. strikes inside Venezuela, and a cross-strait crisis between China and Taiwan.
The survey is a ranking of contingencies by likelihood and impact rather than a forecast, and CFR presents it as a planning tool for policymakers weighing where to concentrate preventive attention.
CFR is a nonpartisan membership organization. Public disclosures indicate it is funded by membership dues, corporate members, foundations, and individual donors. Its risk assessments reflect the aggregated judgments of foreign-policy specialists rather than an institutional position.
Heritage Foundation: A family-policy blueprint still driving debate
The Heritage Foundation’s “Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years” remains one of 2026’s most-discussed reports, drawing fresh commentary this week from across the political press. The report marshals demographic data — the median age of first marriage has risen roughly eight years for women (to 28.6) and about seven for men (to 30.5) over a generation, and roughly a third of young Americans are projected never to marry — to argue that family formation should return to the center of policy.
The blueprint proposes reforms to welfare, tax policy, and family law intended to remove obstacles to marriage and child-rearing. Its cultural framing has generated sharp disagreement, and we note that the report is a policy-advocacy document rather than a neutral survey; readers should weigh its recommendations against its stated premises.
Heritage is a conservative think tank founded in 1973. Public records indicate it is funded largely by individual donors and conservative foundations, historically including the Bradley and Scaife families. Its orientation is openly movement-conservative, context that bears on both the report’s diagnosis and its prescriptions.
Why it matters for TIJ’s beats
Several threads in this week’s output land squarely on The Investigative Journal’s core coverage. The Cato tariff brief and the Tax Foundation’s sales-tax tables feed our economic-accountability reporting, offering hard numbers on the taxes and duties Americans actually pay. RAND’s AI framework and CFR’s conflict survey inform our national-security beat as Washington weighs technology competition and overseas contingencies. And the housing, education, and family papers from AEI, Brookings, CAP, and Heritage sharpen the domestic-policy debates — affordability, opportunity, and demographics — that shape elections and budgets alike.
We will keep tracking these institutions’ output week to week, holding each finding to the same standard: sourced claims, direct links, and a clear account of the orientation and funding behind the research. Readers are encouraged to follow the links above to the original papers and draw their own conclusions.