Special Edition: Spring Break Links!

• John Arnold, Arnold Ventures’ co-founder and co-chair, writes in Vital City on how the government can use high-quality data and research to guide policymaking and avoid harmful outcomes in critical, complex systems like health care and criminal justice. 

• Caroline Osborn and Andrew Lautz of AV grantee the Bipartisan Policy Center discuss why ending the Employee Retention Credit program early is a legitimate offset for the House-passed tax package. 
   
• Will Raderman of the Niskanen Center released “Establishing Unemployment Insurance as a True Worker Benefit,” a report that outlines how our unemployment insurance is falling short of its mandate and ways to fix these shortfalls. 
   
• Kyle Pomerleau and Donald Schnieder outline two potential paths for revenue-neutral, pro-growth tax reform in 2025 for the American Enterprise Institute. Their plan will be discussed alongside three others at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget’s March 28 summit, “When the TCJA Expires,” where AV Executive Vice President of Public Finance George Callas will be featured as a panelist. 

Criminal Justice

• KOB4 in New Mexico reports on how the Albuquerque police department has a 126% homicide clearance rate for the first three months of 2024, meaning they have solved most of this year’s murders and many from last year. The city has accomplished this by doubling the number of investigators in the homicide unit, implementing an array of new technologies, and launching alternative responder approaches that free up police to focus on crime solving.   
   
• Louisiana legislators should reinstate an independent board to establish and enforce indigent-defense policies after a takeover by the governor, writes Malcom Jenkins, a former NFL player and cofounder of the Players Coalition, in an op-ed for The Lens. 
   
• In the latest issue of Vital City, AV Executive Vice President of Criminal Justice Jennifer Doleac discusses ways researchers can improve the quality of evidence and research in order to find policies that are not only effective, but scalable. 

• Families USA released a new report “Understanding the Biggest Threats to the No Surprises Act Achieving its Full Potential” that analyzes how the No Surprises Act is being undermined.  
   
• The Washington Post’s Health 202 reports on how states like Colorado are using Prescription Drug Affordability Boards to protect patients from the high price of lifesaving pharmaceuticals.  
   
• The Wall Street Journal looks at how hospitals add billions in “facility fees” to bills for routine medical care. 
   
• A new report from PharmedOut calls on the FDA to focus less on the speedy approval of drugs and devices and more on careful and ongoing assessments of effectiveness. 

• The Century Foundation published a new blog highlighting how the Office of Federal Student Aid promotes student borrower success, underscoring that its programs and services require significant federal resources. 

• Binyamin Appelbaum, a New York Times editorial board member, wrote an op-ed about how a small New Jersey town has tackled the housing crisis simply by being one of the few places in the New York metro area where it is legal to replace a single-family home with a duplex. 
   
• Housing bills are moving through the Arizona Legislature, such as one requiring that cities allow accessory dwelling units, even after Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a sweeping bipartisan housing measure, the Arizona Capitol Times reports.  
   
• Investor-owned utilities are blocking a high-voltage transmission lines necessary to introduce lower-cost renewable energy to the grid, writes the Energy and Policy Institute.