www.thecentersquare.com – By Morgan Sweeney | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-15 09:42:00
(The Center Square) – Utah ranked first for economic outlook for the 18th year in a row, according to the annual Rich States, Poor States report, but also noteworthy are the positive findings for Louisiana, Tennessee, West Virginia andArkansas.
The American Legislative Exchange Council’s yearly report has a backward- and forward-looking component. It ranks states for their economic performance from 2013-2023 based on three indicators, as well as ranking them for their economic outlook based on the status of 15 economic policies set mostly at the state level.
To assess states’ economic performance, thereport’sauthors look at the state’s cumulative gross domestic product, non-farm payroll employment and absolute domestic migration over a 10-year period. Absolute domestic migration measures the total number of people who have moved to a state against the total number who have left the state in a given period of time.
“When you look at broad economic performance indicators, they’re three of the most-cited,” ALEC President and Chief Economist Jonathan Williams told The Center Square. “Of the three of those factors, I think by far the most important one for policy makers to look at is the net domestic migration figure: Is the state growing or is it shedding people?”
Reagan economist Arthur Laffer is one of those authors, known for supply-side economics and the Laffer Curve. He also popularized the idea that people “vote with their feet,” implying that a state’s economic health, including its tax policies, often plays a big role in Americans’ decisions to leave a given state and move to another.
Utah ranked third for economic performance from 2013-2023 and first for economic outlook, according to the report. Over that same period of time, it ranked 13th for absolute domestic migration, with a net gain of over 126,400 people.
“Utah’s consistent top ranking is a testament to the principles that have guided our state for nearly two decades – low taxes, responsible spending and policies that foster innovation and opportunity,” Utah Senate President J. Stuart Adams said in a statement.
Of the15 indicatorsassessed for economic outlook in the report, Utah earned a No. 1 ranking for three – its estate tax and right-to-work policies and its minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The state does not levy an inheritance tax and it is a right-to-work state.
In addition, the report “[highlighted] impressive upward mobility” for Louisana, West Virginia and Arkansas. Louisiana jumped 13 spots in economic outlook, from 31st in 2024 to 18th in 2025 due to a “sweeping tax overhaul [that] boosted its competitiveness across major tax categories,” according to ALEC. Tennessee also earned its best ranking ever, placing second for economic outlook. West Virginia also finished 16th, seven spots above 2024, for “continued improvements in fiscal policy.”
Louisiana’s results marked “an incredible turnaround for what had been a laggard state in the Southeast, which is an incredibly competitive region,” Williams told The Center Square. The state’s recent passage of a flat tax was a big part of why it climbed so far in the rankings.
“Those were our three big winners in terms of states that improved,” Williams said, but he added that Arkansas was also worth mentioning.
Arkansas ranked higher than it ever has in the history of the report, landing in 10th place for economic outlook “due to recovering some of the most aggressive tax cuts of any state in the last several years,” Williams said.
The states with the worst economic outlook, according to ALEC, are New York, Vermont, New Jersey, California and Illinois.
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Biosecurity experts warn AI’s rapid advances increase risks of creating biological threats, from viruses to toxins, either deliberately or accidentally. AI now makes complex scientific information on pathogens more accessible, lowering barriers previously limited to experts. Experts like Lucas Hansen highlight AI’s potential to escalate bioweapon creation, as models can be “jailbroken” to bypass safety controls. Estimates suggest those capable of recreating viruses like polio could rise from 30,000 in 2022 to 1.5 million by 2028. Governments have introduced measures to regulate AI’s biosecurity risks, but concerns remain over accidents, malicious use, and inadequate international frameworks to prevent AI-enabled bioterrorism.
Artificial intelligence is helping accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, but the technology also makes it easier than ever to create biosecurity threats and weapons, cybersecurity experts say.
It’s an issue that currently flies under the radar for most Americans, said Lucas Hansen, cofounder of AI education nonprofit CivAI.
The COVID-19 pandemic increased awareness of biosecurity measures globally, and some instances of bioterrorism, like the 2001 anthrax attacks, are well known. But advancements in AI have made information about how to create biosecurity threats, like viruses, bacteria and toxins, so much more accessible in just the last year, Hansen said.
“Many people on the face of the planet already could create a bio weapon,” Hansen said. “But it’s just pretty technical and hard to find. Imagine AI being used to [multiply] the number of people that are capable of doing that.”
“We continue to like, flash the warning lights on this,” Altman said. “I think the world is not taking us seriously. I don’t know what else we can do there, but it’s like, this is a very big thing coming.”
AI increasing biosecurity threats
Hansen said there’s primarily two ways he believes AI could be used to create biosecurity threats. Much less common, he believes, would be using AI to make more dangerous bioweapons than have ever existed before using technologies that enable the engineering of biological systems, such as creating new viruses or toxic substances.
Second, and more commonly, Hansen said, AI is making information about existing harmful viruses or toxins much more readily accessible.
Consider the polio virus, Hansen said. There are plenty of scientific journals that share information on the origins and growth of polio and other viruses that have been mostly eradicated, but the average person would have to do much research and data collection to piece together how to recreate it.
A few years ago, AI models didn’t have great metacognition, or ability to give instructions, Hansen said. But in the last year, updates to models like Claude and ChatGPT have been able to interpret more information and fill in the gaps.
Paromita Pain, an associate professor of global media at the University of Nevada, Reno and an affiliated faculty member of the university’s cybersecurity center, said she believes there’s a third circumstance that could be contributing to biosecurity threats: accidents. The increased access to information by people not properly trained to have it could have unintended consequences.
“It’s essentially like letting loose teenagers in the lab,” Pain said. “It’s not as if people are out there to willingly do bad, like, ‘I want to create this pathogen that will wipe out mankind.’ Not necessarily. It’s just that they don’t know that if you are developing pathogens, you need to be careful.”
For those that are looking to do harm, though, it’s not hard, Hansen said. CivAI offers demos to show how AI can be used in various scenarios, with a goal of highlighting the potential harms the technology can cause if not used responsibly.
In a demo not available to the public, Hansen showed States Newsroom how someone may use a current AI model to assist them in creating a biothreat. CivAI keeps the example private, so as to not inspire any nefarious actions, Hansen said.
Though many AI models are trained to flag and not to respond to dangerous requests, like how to build a gun or how to recreate a virus, many can be “jailbroken” easily, with a few prompts or lines of code, essentially tricking the AI into answering questions it was instructed to ignore.
Hansen walked through the polio virus example, prompting a jailbroken version of Claude 4.0 Sonnet to give him instructions for recreating the virus. Within a few seconds, the model provided 13 detailed steps, including directions like “order the custom plasmid online,” with links to manufacturers.
The models are scraping information from a few public research papers about the polio virus, but without the step by step instructions, it would be very hard to find what you’re looking for, make a plan and find the materials you’d need. The models sometimes add information to supplement the scientific papers, helping non-expert users understand complex language, Hansen said.
It would still take many challenging steps, including accessing lab equipment and rare materials, to recreate the virus, Hansen said, but AI has made access to the core information behind these feats so much more available.
“AI has turned bioengineering from a Ph.D. level skill set to something that an ambitious high school student could do with some of the right tools,” said Neil Sahota, an AI advisor to the United Nations, and a cofounder of its AI for Good initiative.
CivAI estimates that since 2022, the number of people who would be capable of recreating a virus like polio with the tools and resources publicly available has gone from 30,000 globally to 200,000 today because of AI. They project 1.5 million people could be capable in 2028. An increase in the number of languages that AI models are fluent in also increases the chances of a global issue, Hansen said.
“I think the language thing is really, really important, because part of what we’re considering here is the number of people that are capable of doing these things and removing a language barrier is a pretty big deal,” he said.
How is the government addressing it?
The current Trump administration and the previous Biden administration introduced similar strategies to addressing the threats. In Biden’s October 2023 Executive Order “Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of AI,” Biden sought to create guidelines to evaluate and audit AI capabilities “through which AI could cause harm, such as in the areas of cybersecurity and biosecurity.”
Trump’s AI Action Plan, which rolled out in July, said AI could “unlock nearly limitless potential in biology,” but could also “create new pathways for malicious actors to synthesize harmful pathogens and other biomolecules.”
In his action plan, he said he wishes to require scientific institutions that receive federal funding to verify customers, and create enforcement guidelines. The plan also says the Office of Science and Technology Policy should develop a way for nucleic acid synthesis — the process of creating DNA and RNA — providers to share data and screen for malicious customers.
Sahota said the potential benefits of bioengineering AI make regulating it complicated. The models can help accelerate vaccine development and research into genetic disorders, but can also be used nefariously.
“AI in itself is not good or evil, it’s just a tool,” Sahota said. “And it really depends on how people use it. I don’t think like a bad actor, and many people don’t, so we’re not thinking about how they may weaponize these tools, but someone probably is.”
California aimed to address biosecurity in SB 1047 last year, the “Safe and Secure Innovation for Frontier Artificial Intelligence Models Act,” which sought to regulate foundational AI models and impose obligations on companies that develop them to ensure safety and security measures.
The act outlines many potential harms, but among them was AI’s potential to help “create novel threats to public safety and security, including by enabling the creation and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.”
After passing in both chambers, the Act was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, for potentially “curtailing the very innovation that fuels advancement in favor of the public good.”
Pain said few international frameworks exist for how to share biological data and train AI systems around biosecurity, and it’s unclear whether AI developers, biologists, publishers or governments could be held accountable for its misuse.
“Everything that we are talking about when it comes to biosecurity and AI has already happened without the existence of AI,” she said of previous biothreats.
Sahota said he worries we may need to see a real-life example of AI being weaponized for a biological threat, “where we feel the pain on a massive scale,” before governments get serious about regulating the technology.
Hansen agrees, and he predicts those moments may be coming. While some biological attacks could come from coordinated groups aiming to pull off a terroristic incident, Hansen said he worries about the “watch the world burn” types — nihilistic individuals that have historically turned to mass shootings.
“Right now, they look for historical precedent on how to cause collateral damage, and the historical precedent that they see is public shootings,” Hansen said. “I think very easily it could start to be the case that deploying bio weapons becomes pretty normal. I think after the first time that that happens in real life, we’ll start seeing a lot of copycats. And that makes me pretty, pretty nervous.”
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Centrist
The content presents a balanced view on the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence in relation to biosecurity, citing experts from various backgrounds and mentioning actions taken by both the Biden and Trump administrations. It focuses on factual information and concerns shared across the political spectrum without promoting a particular ideological stance, reflecting a centrist perspective.
Optum Rx, UnitedHealth Group’s pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), is suing five Kentucky counties to block them from joining national opioid litigation, alleging violations of Kentucky’s open meetings law. PBMs, accused of enabling the opioid crisis by failing to restrict prescriptions, face increasing legal scrutiny. Critics call Optum’s suits “frivolous” and a tactic to delay accountability and settlements. These counties, involved in early steps to add Optum as a defendant in opioid lawsuits, argue their actions were procedural and public. Advocates, including recovery advocate Tara Hyde, warn that Optum’s efforts could hinder efforts to hold PBMs responsible and reduce funding for addiction treatment.
UnitedHealth Group’s multibillion-dollar pharmacy benefit manager, Optum Rx, is suing five Kentucky counties in an attempt to force them out of national opioid litigation against the company.
Pharmacy benefit managers, often called PBMs, act as middlemen that negotiate prescription drug prices between drug companies, insurance plans, and pharmacies. Some lawyers and advocates say PBMs helped fuel the overdose crisis by failing to restrict the flow of opioid prescriptions.
As governments begin exploring potential lawsuits against PBMs — a step that could represent the next wave in opioid-related litigation — Optum Rx is attempting to shut down those efforts, in some cases before they even fully take shape.
In June, Optum Rx sued Anderson, Boyd, Christian, Nicholas, and Oldham counties in Kentucky for allegedly making decisions about participating in the new wave of national opioid lawsuits behind closed doors, violating Kentucky’s open meetings law. Optum Rx is asking courts to effectively force those counties to make their decisions again, this time in open meetings, potentially with the hope that some won’t bother because of the administrative burden. The result could be fewer claims against the company and possibly less money for it to pay in a future settlement.
But legal experts call Optum’s case “hypertechnical” and “frivolous,” and addiction recovery advocates say it could set a dangerous precedent for companies to evade accountability for their role in fueling the overdose crisis.
Christine Minhee, an attorney, a national expert on opioid litigation, and founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, said Optum’s suit reminded her of an adage among lawyers: “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table.”
“Right now, what we’re seeing is it pounding the table,” Minhee said of Optum Rx. The company is “desperately” trying “to find some kind of foothold” to get cases against it thrown out.
Minhee said these suits fit a pattern of Optum Rx using thin arguments to try to delay or evade opioid litigation nationwide.
Christine Minhee says Optum’s suit reminds her of an adage among lawyers: “If the facts are on your side, pound the facts. If the law is on your side, pound the law. If neither is on your side, pound the table.” (Christine Minhee courtesy photo)
Last year, Optum Rx, along with another PBM, asked a judge to throw out an opioid lawsuit filed by Los Angeles County, claiming during a December hearing that the county hadn’t shown harm. The judge appeared skeptical of the claims and ultimately rejected the companies’ request.
In April, the same companies tried to oust a federal judge overseeing national opioid litigation, claiming he was biased. Their argument was based partly on a Florida lawyer’s having said the judge was “plaintiff-oriented.” Their attempt failed.
Now, Optum Rx is working to keep five Kentucky counties out of that same sweeping opioid litigation.
That national legal undertaking began more than seven years ago, as jurisdictions saw overdose deaths climb. Many people who had become addicted to prescription painkillers were cut off by their doctors, and some transitioned to using deadlier heroin or fentanyl. Health care and public safety costs skyrocketed. Thousands of cities, counties, and states began suing health care companies for allegedly creating a public nuisance by aggressively marketing prescription painkillers and negligently distributing them.
Those cases were lassoed together into the giant multidistrict litigation, which has resulted in massive settlements. The first few waves of settlements involved opioid manufacturers, distributors, and retail pharmacies, with companies such as Johnson & Johnson, CVS, and Walgreens agreeing to pay state and local governments billions of dollars. The money is meant to be used for addiction treatment and prevention services — though its rollout has been controversial.
To add a new round of companies as defendants, jurisdictions must undertake a multistep process, said Peter Mougey, a Florida-based attorney who represents many local governments in the massive national litigation. The five Kentucky counties in question were in the early stages of that process, only having asked the judge to amend their complaint, he said. They hadn’t added Optum Rx yet.
If Optum Rx’s suits are successful, those counties would have the option of redoing the initial steps of the process in a public meeting, then continuing to add Optum Rx as a defendant, Mougey explained. The company may hope that some counties won’t undertake the extra administrative effort.
Optum Rx’s “goal is clearly just to wear down and tire out these small counties,” Mougey said. “They’re trying to have a chilling effect on the litigation.”
It’s not clear why Optum Rx targeted those five counties out of the many localities undertaking the process to add the company as a defendant. The Kentucky counties range from having fewer than 8,000 residents (Nicholas) to more than 70,000 (Christian). One is among the richest in Kentucky (Oldham), while others are poorer. Boyd County, in Appalachia, is one of the hardest hit, with a recent overdose rate twice the state average.
Optum Rx, in its filing against Boyd County, which was similar to claims against the other counties, said local authorities had taken official legal action by asking the judge to make a change in its case. The suit said such action must be done in a public meeting and that the county did not hold one.
Optum spokesperson Isaac Sorensen told KFF Health News that the company’s argument is not about “a technicality.”
It is “an important legal requirement designed to ensure accountability and transparency before a county takes legal action,” said the statement Sorensen provided. “We have found many counties ignored this requirement, alongside their duty to preserve relevant evidence, and Optum Rx will defend against these improper legal actions.”
The five Kentucky counties disagree with these assertions, according to court records. As of late July, all five had filed motions to dismiss Optum Rx’s claim.
Boyd County, like the others, argued in its motion to dismiss that asking a judge to amend its complaint was a routine, procedural step that did not require a public meeting. Optum Rx jumped the gun, the county argued, filing a case before any final action had been taken.
“No amended complaint has been filed. No new defendant, OptumRx included, has been added. No new lawsuit has been initiated,” Boyd County’s response said.
The county also pointed out that it held an open meeting in 2017 that kicked off its involvement in the national litigation and authorized future amendments to that litigation.
Hearings on the counties’ motions to dismiss Optum Rx’s suits are set for late August and early September, according to court records.
These cases are shaping up to be a Goliath-versus-David legal action. Although Oldham County is the wealthiest of the Kentucky counties that Optum Rx sued, its most recent budget is less than 0.1% of Optum Rx’s annual revenue, which the company reported as exceeding $133 billion in 2024.
Oldham County Attorney D. Berry Baxter told KFF Health News he’d seen the impact of the opioid epidemic as a prosecutor working on a growing number of drug-related cases over the years. Now, as settlement money is arriving from other companies, it has funded increased addiction treatment in local jails. More settlement money from additional companies could expand such services, Baxter said.
If Optum Rx succeeds in kicking Kentucky counties out of the national litigation, it would set “a really horrific precedent” for other PBMs and health care companies to do something similar, said Tara Hyde, CEO of the statewide nonprofit People Advocating Recovery.
Hyde said she’s been in recovery for more than a decade from an addiction that began with prescription painkillers for a broken leg. She wants to see PBMs and other companies held accountable and made to change their processes to prevent future crises.
“Recovery doesn’t just happen overnight,” she said. “Without these dollars that have been a direct result of people being misled, mistreated, and taken advantage of, we will still be detrimentally impacted.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
West Virginia Watch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. West Virginia Watch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Leann Ray for questions: info@westvirginiawatch.com.
Note: The following A.I. based commentary is not part of the original article, reproduced above, but is offered in the hopes that it will promote greater media literacy and critical thinking, by making any potential bias more visible to the reader –Staff Editor.
Political Bias Rating: Center-Left
This content leans center-left as it emphasizes corporate accountability, particularly targeting large healthcare companies and pharmacy benefit managers for their role in the opioid crisis. It highlights the struggles of affected communities and advocates for transparency and justice through legal action. The article supports regulatory and legal interventions to address public health issues, reflecting a perspective that favors government and community efforts to hold powerful entities responsible, which is characteristic of center-left viewpoints.
