The Investigative Journal’s weekly survey of policy papers, working papers and data releases from think tanks across the political spectrum. This week’s lead: a Brookings Institution analysis arguing the federal debt trajectory is materially worse than the Congressional Budget Office reports, alongside fresh work on the District of Columbia National Guard deployment, the U.S. education-technology market, the GOP’s expanding coalition, and the 2026 conflict outlook.
1. Brookings: Federal debt path is worse than CBO projects
The Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy published a chartbook entry this week arguing the federal debt path is materially worse than the Congressional Budget Office’s headline projection. Authored as part of Brookings’ 2026 federal budget chart series, the piece notes that debt held by the public, which averaged roughly 40 percent of GDP between the end of World War II and 2008, has since climbed to nearly 100 percent. The CBO’s baseline projects debt rising to 175 percent of GDP over the next thirty years; Brookings argues realistic policy assumptions push that figure substantially higher.
Under a scenario in which the temporary individual tax provisions extended in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act remain permanent and the current administration’s tariff revenues do not persist into the next administration, Brookings projects debt at 201 percent of GDP by 2056. If Congress also holds discretionary spending at 6 percent of GDP and prevents smaller mandatory programs from shrinking as a share of the economy, the projection climbs to 243 percent of GDP. The authors estimate that each one percentage point increase in the rate paid on federal debt would add roughly $57 trillion in interest costs over thirty years — a figure they liken to “an entire additional Defense Department.”
Brookings is generally classified as center-left and is funded by a mix of corporate sponsors, foundations and individual donors, with major support disclosed from the Hutchins, Bass, Hewlett and MacArthur families and corporate underwriters including JPMorgan Chase and Microsoft. The full piece is available at brookings.edu.
2. Niskanen Center: National Guard surge in D.C. produced “no measurable effect” on violent crime
The Niskanen Center, a center-right reformist policy shop, released a study this week assessing the nearly ten-month deployment of more than 2,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., that began in August 2025. The analysis found the deployment had no measurable effect on violent crime, though it coincided with a 24 percent decline in “opportunistic” property crime — a category the authors say is more responsive to visible patrols than felony assaults or homicides.
The report flags a sharp cost gap: Niskanen estimates a National Guard member’s daily cost at roughly $607, compared with $384 for a Metropolitan Police Department officer. By the authors’ arithmetic, the $185 million spent on the Guard over five months could instead have funded more than 1,300 additional officer-years, or about 3,100 officers for five months. The authors note that violent crime in the District was already trending downward before the deployment and conclude that the Guard “is not the correct tool” for violent offenses.
Niskanen was founded in 2014 and is funded by the William A. Niskanen estate, the Hewlett Foundation, Open Philanthropy and a range of individual donors, and identifies itself as a center for “moderate” governance. Coverage and excerpts of the report are available via Military Times and WTOP; the Niskanen Center’s analysis archive is at niskanencenter.org.
3. American Enterprise Institute: $30 billion in ed tech, little evidence of impact
AEI’s education program published “The $30 Billion Question: Why Doesn’t the Education Market Reward What Works?” on June 1. The report estimates that U.S. K–12 spending on education technology reached $30 billion in 2024, with some industry projections doubling that figure by 2033. AEI’s central claim is that American education “lacks a reliable bridge between research and scale” — a structural failure that allows unproven products to capture procurement budgets while validated tools struggle to reach classrooms.
The authors draw on case studies from private philanthropies and federal programs that have funded effective tools — including evidence-clearinghouse models and competitive prize structures — to propose four design principles: aligning incentives between developers and districts, protecting intellectual property to encourage investment, building post-launch evidence requirements, and packaging research findings so school administrators can act on them. The paper does not endorse a specific federal program but argues the next reauthorization of major K–12 statutes should include a research-to-practice infrastructure.
AEI is a center-right policy institute funded by a mix of conservative-aligned foundations (Lynde and Harry Bradley, Searle Freedom Trust), corporate donors and individual gifts, with portions of its donor base disclosed in annual reports. The report is available at aei.org.
4. Heritage Foundation: “Higher Education in America: It’s Worse Than You Think”
The Heritage Foundation released a 19-chapter report this spring presenting what it describes as a systemic critique of the American higher-education sector. The volume is structured around four parts — the economic model, the bureaucracy, what Heritage characterizes as “leftist dominance” of faculty and administration, and a reform agenda — and is positioned for policymakers, congressional staff, donors and trustees. It builds on Heritage’s recent push to reshape federal accreditation rules, the gainful-employment framework and Title VI civil-rights enforcement.
The economic-model chapters argue federal lending has decoupled tuition from labor-market returns, generating administrative bloat without commensurate increases in instructional quality. The bureaucracy chapters document growth in non-instructional staffing and compliance costs since 1990. The “where do we go from here” section proposes a mix of accreditation reform, restrictions on federal lending for low-return programs, and state-level governance changes. Critics on the left have argued the report’s policy prescriptions would reduce access; Heritage responds that current subsidies primarily underwrite institutional growth rather than student outcomes.
Heritage is a flagship conservative think tank, funded by individual donors, the Bradley, DeVos and Mercer family foundations and conservative-aligned donor-advised funds. Discussion of the report is available via Minding the Campus, and Heritage’s publications hub is at heritage.org.
5. Council on Foreign Relations: 2026 Preventive Priorities Survey
The Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Preventive Action published the eighteenth edition of its annual Preventive Priorities Survey, polling foreign-policy specialists on the likelihood and U.S. impact of thirty potential conflicts in the coming year. For the first time, the survey also asks respondents to identify opportunities for preventive U.S. action. CFR’s top-line finding is that traditional norms against interstate aggression “are rapidly degrading,” with 2025 having featured what it calls a “precedent-breaking” direct exchange between the United States, Iran and Israel.
Three scenarios are assessed at a 50 percent or higher probability of occurring 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 also flags a separate finding from a Freedom House report released June 1 documenting 126 new physical transnational repression incidents in 2025, bringing the database to 1,375 cases since 2014 — a data point CFR ties to the broader degradation of cross-border norms.
CFR is a nonpartisan membership organization funded by corporate sponsorship, foundation grants and individual member dues, with major institutional support disclosed from the Hewlett, MacArthur and Rockefeller foundations. The report and accompanying analysis are available at cfr.org.
6. Cato Institute: New policy analysis from Burkhauser and Corinth
The Cato Institute released a new policy analysis on June 3 by economists Richard V. Burkhauser (Cornell) and Kevin Corinth (American Enterprise Institute), continuing the libertarian institute’s ongoing work on measurement of household well-being and the construction of poverty statistics. Cato also flagged its earlier January 2026 Policy Analysis No. 1009 on “debanking” — the closure of customer accounts on governmental, operational, political or religious grounds — as a continuing point of advocacy as the Senate Banking Committee weighs new disclosure requirements for financial institutions.
The debanking paper argues that closures driven by regulator “reputational risk” guidance distort the credit-allocation function of the banking system and proposes a statutory definition of “lawful customer” status. Cato has consistently argued against expanded supervisory tools that, in its view, push compliance officers toward over-exclusion. The piece is part of a broader libertarian critique of post-2008 supervisory expansion that has gained traction with both right-of-center and progressive lawmakers concerned about debanking of religious organizations and lawful-but-disfavored industries.
Cato is a libertarian think tank historically associated with Charles Koch and funded today by a broad base of individual donors, foundation support and corporate sponsorship. Its publications are at cato.org/publications, including the debanking analysis at cato.org.
7. Manhattan Institute: Deep divides inside the GOP’s expanded coalition
The Manhattan Institute released polling and analysis this spring on the post-2016 Republican coalition, based on a national survey of nearly 3,000 voters fielded between October 15 and 26, 2025, with oversamples of Black and Hispanic Republicans and 2024 Trump voters. The Institute divides the GOP electorate into two analytically distinct blocs: “Core Republicans” — roughly 65 percent of the coalition, who have voted for the GOP presidential nominee since 2016 or earlier — and “New Entrant Republicans,” about 30 percent of the coalition, who joined during the Trump era and are younger, more racially diverse and more likely to have recently voted Democratic.
The headline data point: only 56 percent of New Entrant Republicans say they would “definitely” vote Republican in the 2026 midterm congressional elections, compared with 70 percent of Core Republicans. The Institute argues that figure reveals a coalition that is broader but more internally fragile, with the newer outer ring less securely attached to party institutions, candidates and platform commitments. Companion polling on Democratic voters published earlier this year reached the parallel finding that Democratic primary electorates want a more moderate party.
The Manhattan Institute is a center-right think tank funded by the Bradley Foundation, Searle Freedom Trust, conservative donor-advised funds and individual gifts, with historical ties to the financial-industry donor base. The GOP coalition piece is available at manhattan.institute; the underlying survey report is at manhattan.institute.
8. Tax Foundation: 2026 brackets, OBBBA, and what’s actually permanent
The Tax Foundation’s federal team published updated 2026 inflation-adjusted tax brackets and a companion explainer on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was enacted in July 2025 and made permanent most individual tax provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that had been scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. According to the Foundation’s tabulation, the 2026 standard deduction rises by $350 for single filers and $700 for joint filers relative to 2025, with most inflation-indexed parameters rising about 2.7 percent.
The seven statutory rates remain 10, 12, 22, 24, 32, 35 and 37 percent. The top 37 percent bracket will apply to taxable income above $640,600 for single filers and $768,600 for joint filers in 2026. The Foundation’s separate analysis of a recent White House Council of Economic Advisers paper on replacing state income taxes with federal-aid offsets argues the CEA model understates the revenue cost; the Foundation projects significantly larger federal revenue losses if states pursue the strategy at scale.
The Tax Foundation is a center-right tax policy organization funded by corporate donors, foundation grants and individual gifts; portions of its donor base flow through Donors Trust and Koch-aligned vehicles. The 2026 bracket data is available at taxfoundation.org and the CEA critique at taxfoundation.org.
Why this week matters for TIJ beats
Four of the eight pieces above connect directly to TIJ’s ongoing accountability beats. The Brookings debt analysis sharpens the fiscal context for any spending or tax debate over the remainder of this Congress, and is unusually precise about the assumptions that move the projection. The Niskanen study supplies the first sustained quantitative assessment of the District of Columbia Guard deployment, with a cost-per-officer comparison that will be cited in coming oversight hearings. The CFR conflict assessment frames near-term foreign-policy risk for any reporting on Venezuela, the Russia–Ukraine theater, and Taiwan Strait posture. The Manhattan Institute coalition data has direct application to 2026 midterm reporting, particularly on competitive Senate seats with significant Hispanic and Black Republican electorates.
As always, TIJ readers are encouraged to read the underlying papers and data releases directly via the links above. Findings, hedges and methodological notes from think-tank publications are summarized here as released; they do not reflect TIJ editorial positions, and where authors disclose policy preferences, those preferences are noted alongside the organizational orientation.
— Eduardo Bacci, The Investigative Journal