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Hoover Daily Report | March 5, 2026 · Hoover Daily Report

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  Welcome to the Hoover Daily Report, Ideas Advancing Freedom. It's Thursday,
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  March 5th, 2026.
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  Today,
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  Condoleesa Rice offers her view on what the immediate US priority should be in
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  its war with Iran.
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  A new study by Hoover Scholars finds the proposed California billionaire tax
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  will likely leave the state worse off financially in the long run.
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  And Mickey D.
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  Levy says concerns in the credit markets about a rising risk of major defaults
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  are not substantiated by fact.
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  Condeliza Rice calls on Trump administration to finish Iran's military.
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  Hoover Institution Director Condoleza Rice joins special report with Brett Bear
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  on Fox News on March 4th to discuss the aims of the US-Israeli war with Iran,
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  reminding viewers that Iran has threatened US troops and interests in the region
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  frequently since the 1979 revolution.
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  I think the goal of the administration is to render Iran incapable of using its
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  military forces outside of its borders or threatening its neighbors, our allies,
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  or threatening our bases abroad because we are seeing what they are capable of
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  doing, Rice said.
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  She added that it was a strategic blunder on Iran's part to fire missiles and
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  drones at the Gulf Cooperation Council states around the Persian Gulf.
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  Bear and Rice also discussed the possibility of helping armed Kurdish minority
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  groups fight Iranian security forces inside the country.
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  California's proposed billionaire tax will cost the state an estimated $25
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  billion Hoover study fines.
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  California's proposed one-time wealth tax on billionaires would leave the state
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  worse off by an estimated $25 billion once lost income tax revenue is
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  considered, according to new research by Hoover Institution scholars.
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  The study by senior fellow Joshua D. Rao, research fellow Benjamin Jaros,
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  research associate Gregory Kearney,
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  and research analyst John Doran and Matthews Caso finds that the one-time levy
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  would collect approximately $40 billion in wealth tax revenue,
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  less than half of the roughly $100 billion projected by proponents.
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  This is because many billionaires have already departed California even before
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  the initiative has qualified for the ballot. Furthermore,
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  because the departures by billionaires eliminate their future state income tax
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  contributions,
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  the researchers estimate that the measure would produce a negative net present
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  value under most scenarios.
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  Forecast for credit conditions mostly sunny.
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  At least one prominent executive has expressed concern that banks are doing some
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  dumb things that echo the fateful run up to the great financial crisis,
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  2008 to nine. In defining ideas, visiting fellow Mickey D.
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  Levy takes a close look at financial data and concludes to the contrary
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  that credit conditions are not worrisome.
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  Consumer and business debt are in fairly good shape.
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  Commercial banks well capitalized, he writes,
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  "And banking practices are far different from what they were 20 years ago.
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  In particular,
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  the mortgage debt bubble that began to pop in 2006 relied on a dysfunctional
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  degree of connectedness and contagion," he reminds readers.
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  "There are concerns about the vulnerability of today's private lending,
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  "he says," and these may call for caution.
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  But as for the debt being used to build AI infrastructure,
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  Levy does not think any failures among the innovators will be pervasive or
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  unhinged society and commercial banking.
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  "Capturing the administrative state word by word.
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  A new essay at Freedom Frequency argues that the vast amounts of regulation
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  produced in the United States make it extraordinarily difficult to know which
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  regulations work, which don't, and whom various rules affect. In this piece,
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  research fellow Patrick McLaughlin explains a high tech tool he has developed
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  that treats these oceans of regulation as data,
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  making the information searchable and measurable. Once regulation is analyzed,
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  he writes," Policy makers have the ability to see whether it's being
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  applied inefficiently or unfairly and to better understand its real world
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  impact.
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  " McLaughlin emphasizes that this data set goes beyond what any team could read,
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  summarize, or cross reference,
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  and this makes it a powerful new tool for reform. When regulation is measurable,
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  reforms can be audited, he writes. Targets can be set.
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  Trade-offs can be debated in the open.
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  Hoover acquires the papers of Shuja Nawaz,
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  distinguished journalist and advisor on South Asian and Middle Eastern affairs.
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  The Hoover Institution Library and Archives has acquired the papers of Shuja
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  Nawaz, an advisor to civil and military leaders and legislators in South Asia,
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  the United States and Europe,
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  who has held roles at the International Monetary Fund,
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  the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the World Health Organization.
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  The collection includes rare Pakistan army documents,
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  correspondence between Middle Eastern and Pakistani leaders during the Cold War,
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  original research on US Pakistan relations,
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  restricted materials on the Kashmir and 1971 Indo-Pakistani wars
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  and Nawaz's investigation into the suspicious death of Pakistan's army chief in
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  1993.
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  This week in Hoover history, Hoover releases a nation at risk plus 40.
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  Hoover education experts and affiliated scholars released a nation at risk plus
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  40 in March 2024 to follow up on the findings of the original landmark federal
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  report, a nation at risk on the state of K to 12 education.
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  The new reports chapters chronicle the last four decades of efforts to reform
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  schooling in America and what lessons education administrators and policymakers
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  should learn from those efforts.
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  That's your Hoover Daily Report for Thursday, March 5th, 2026. Each weekday,
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  we bring you research, analysis, and commentary focused on public policy,
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  national security, and the ideas shaping American society and government.
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  The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is grounded in constitutional
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  principles with a commitment to sustaining the safeguards of the American way of
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  life. Thank you for listening.
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  For links to all the articles and interviews mentioned today,
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  visit hoover.org/hdr.