What Violent Crime Investigators Need

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(Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), one of the bill's cosponsors, speaking about the Postsecondary Student Success Grants Program at the National College Completion Conference in December)

By Evan Mintz, director of executive communications

What Happened: This week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers released a new bill in support of the Postsecondary Student Success Grants Program.

Why It Matters: Millions of college students fail to reap the full benefits of higher education because they end up leaving their institutions before completing their degrees. The Postsecondary Student Success Grants Program helps support evidence-based and promising practices aimed at bolstering student retention and completion.

What’s Next: While Congress works on passing the bill, Arnold Ventures has Requests for Proposals open to support the rigorous evaluation of higher education interventions aimed at improving student outcomes.

• In The New York Times, Catie Edmondson unpacks the contents of the $1.2 trillion spending deal Congress reached this week. (free link)
   
• AV grantee the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released analysis of the Congressional Budget Office’s latest long-term budget projections, which find that under current law debt-to-GDP will rise from 97 percent today to 166 percent by 2054.
   
• IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel sat down with the Associated Press to discuss the agency’s modernization efforts and its focus areas in the 2024 tax filing season.
   
• Bill Gale of AV grantee the Tax Policy Center explores options for radical simplification of the income tax system, while Laura Saunders explains in The Wall Street Journal why simplification efforts are so difficult. (free link)

Criminal Justice

• A new analysis from The Sycamore Institute discusses incarceration trends in Tennessee, including how the state’s jails and prisons are experiencing a combination of over-crowding and understaffing due, in part, to rising incarceration rates and longer sentences.  
   
• USA Today reports on how some law enforcement groups are opposing state efforts to ban the use of “excited delirium,” a discredited diagnosis that has been disavowed by most medical groups, in police reports and training material.
   
• According to FBI data, crime dropped significantly in 2023. While undoubtedly encouraging, experts caution that the data is incomplete due to reporting inconsistencies, in the Guardian.

• The Washington Post Editorial Board published an opinion piece on how site neutral payments for chemotherapy could save Medicare billions of dollars. (free link)
   
• A new article from The Hill looks at the surprising response from drugmakers to the Medicare drug price offers.

• In a new study of 5.8 million Americans published by American Educational Research Journal, researchers break down student return-on-investment, finding that a college degree is still a sound investment even with a substantial gap in returns across different majors.

• After a boost in housing development, home prices in the boomtown of Austin are actually falling, The Wall Street Journal reports. (free link)
   
• The Arizona Daily Star covers how, in a blow to housing affordability efforts, a bipartisan bill to override local zoning rules was vetoed by Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs.

• Republican women are striking out a middle ground on pro-family measures, writes Cindy Allen in the Enid News & Eagle.

• Following an investigation by the Senate Finance Committee, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce has launched a bipartisan investigation into the U.S. organ transplant system, in ABC News.

• On Thursday, March 28, at 10 a.m. ET, AV grantee Third Way will host a breakfast and panel in Washington, D.C., entitled, "How to Modernize Your Favorite Government Program," from Social Security to the Paycheck Protection Program. AV's Program Integrity Fellow Doug Criscitello will be on the panel. Register here.
   
• Also on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. ET, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) will hold a half-day event entitled, "When the TCJA Expires: A Tax Policy Summit" at the Royal Sonesta Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. To see the agenda, which includes Arnold Ventures Executive Vice President of Public Finance George Callas, and to RSVP, click here.

• Naturally occurring, raucous color is spreading across southern California thanks to this year's "superbloom." To find out where, call this wildflower hotline (so retro!).
   
• Also in season: promposals. A whole high school, Payson in Utah, which was also the film set for the movie "Footloose," campaigned for Kevin Bacon to come to its prom by doing flash mobs, scene recreations, and more. Here's the story on what they did and how it went. #BacontoPayson
   
• In case there are not enough baby Holland Lop bunnies in your feed, we've got you covered.