Dear Capitolisters,

I was going to delight you this week with a deep dive into the moment’s most critical debate—who would win in a fight between Godzilla and King Kong—but so many other experts have already weighed in that my analysis seemed superfluous. Instead, today I’d like to celebrate the 30th edition of Capitolism by doing something that’s a little rare in the punditry game: revisiting past topics to see where things stand and how my initial assessments subsequently fared. So today we’ll look at three issues that I covered way back in the summer/fall of 2020—the CDC’s eviction moratorium, U.S. trade and tariff policy under a Biden administration, and the COVID-19 vaccines—to see how things have developed and where they might be headed. 

And maybe to pat myself on the back a little too. Okay, fine, a lot. Anyway, let’s get started.

The CDC Eviction Moratorium

When the CDC’s moratorium on evictions was first implemented in September, it had all of the hallmarks of bad government policy. Since then, the federal government has extended the moratorium twice—it is now scheduled to expire at the end of June—and passed more than $46 billion in rental assistance for struggling tenants and their landlords. Both actions have muted the eviction moratorium’s impact, but several problems remain (pretty much as predicted):