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Just the Facts: $100,000 Visa Executive Order

"Just the Facts" on the new $100,000 H-1B visa fee, its impact on tech firms, startups, and healthcare, plus legal challenges and alternatives for skilled workers.

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Just the Facts: $100,000 Visa Executive Order

The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, we remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.

What Is the $100,000 Visa Fee?

This is a new one-time $100,000 application fee for employers seeking to sponsor foreign workers under the H-1B visa program. The visa is designed for highly skilled professionals in fields like tech, medicine, and engineering.

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Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Why Both Disrupt Free Markets—and Neither Is Inherently Conservative or Progressive

Dave Anderson shares how the Fed’s rate cuts reveal misconceptions about fiscal vs. monetary policy and government intervention in U.S. free markets.

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Monetary vs. Fiscal Policy: Why Both Disrupt Free Markets—and Neither Is Inherently Conservative or Progressive

The Federal Reserve Board's move on Wednesday, Sept. 17, to lower the federal funds interest rate by one-quarter of a point signals that it is a good time to discuss a major misconception that most voters have about public policy.

It is typically assumed that Democrats stand for government intervention into free markets to counteract the inherent bias towards those who are more economically well off. It is also assumed that Republicans, in contrast, reject the idea of government intervention in free markets because it violates rights to property and the natural order of free markets, which promotes the greatest total welfare.

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A close up of a nurse's hand resting on the shoulder of an older man who's hand rests on top.

September is World Alzheimer’s Awareness Month. Dr. Dona Kim Murphey explains how systemic failures, Medicare privatization, and racial disparities are deepening the dementia care crisis.

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Profits Over Patients: Re-Examining Systems As Culprit in Dementia Care (or Lack Thereof)

September is World Alzheimer's Awareness Month. Alzheimer's is the most common kind of dementia, a disorder characterized by the progressive loss of brain cells and, in its final stages, complete dependence—the inability to remember, speak, move, or even eat or swallow unassisted. Many end up in nursing homes. Seven million people are impacted by dementia in the United States today, a number that will more than double in the next 25 years.

But awareness is not just about understanding the magnitude of the problem or content expertise on the choices we make as individuals to mitigate the enormous present and future challenges of this disease. It is about a consciousness of the role of systems, namely insurance and government, that are seriously undermining our ability to care.

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Government by Deadline: Why Shutdowns Are Killing Congressional Power

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) arrives for a news conference following a House GOP Conference Meeting at the U.S. Capitol on September 16, 2025 in Washington, DC. House Republican leadership faces a long week as they try to rally House Republicans behind a stopgap funding bill to avert a shutdown, while also navigating growing pressure to boost security for lawmakers in the wake of Charlie Kirk's killing.

Getty Images, Kent Nishimura

Government by Deadline: Why Shutdowns Are Killing Congressional Power

Every autumn brings its rituals: football, spectacular fall colors, and in Washington, the countdown to a government shutdown. Once a rare emergency, these funding standoffs have become as routine as pumpkin‑flavored beverages.

September 30 marks when federal funding will expire, a recurring cliff since the 1970s. Each year it looms larger, shaping the rhythm of Congress’s work. Lawmakers are again scrambling—not to solve problems, but merely to keep the lights on.

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