Bipartisan Support for Cost-Saving Policies

By Evan Mintz, executive communications director
 

What’s Happening: The Postsecondary Data Collaborative (of which Arnold Ventures is a member) sent a letter calling on the U.S. Department of Education to implement its Financial Value Transparency framework by the deadline of Oct. 1, 2024.
 

Why It Matters: The Financial Value Transparency framework will provide students and families with the information they need to make informed decisions about higher education, and the information that policymakers need to make data-driven decisions. This information includes metrics such as a program’s total cost, typical student loan debt, and typical earnings for graduates.
 

What’s Next: If everything goes according to the timeline, these higher education metrics will be made public in January 2025.

Read the letter>

$233 billion to $521 billion
 

The estimated amount the U.S. government loses to fraud each year, based on data from 2018-22

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report this week outlining significant widespread fraud across sectors of the government. These taxpayer dollars lost to fraud are greater than the annual spending of several federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation ($203 billion), Veterans Affairs ($390 billion), the Education Department ($83 billion) and the Environmental Protection Agency ($78 billion).

Read the report, the highlights, the GAO’s top three recommendations to address fraud, or listen to a 10-minute podcast, “Our First-of-a-Kind Estimate of Fraud in the Federal Government.”

Related: Five Ways to Prevent Fraud in the Next Emergency>

Criminal Justice

• After an Associated Press (AP) investigation, several attempts at reform, and a civil lawsuit, the Bureau of Prisons announced it will close the FCI Dublin prison in California. The women-only prison has been beset for years by damaging and illegal conditions including crumbling infrastructure, inadequate health care, and sexual abuse of prisoners by corrections officers, AP reports.
   
• Investigative journalist Radley Balko released part two of his series on the state of public defense systems across the country. This new installment focuses on Colorado, Connecticut, and Delaware.
   
• Unsolved homicides and other violent crimes cause immense pain and suffering for victims and their families, Mattie Scott writes in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times. Scott, whose son's murder remains unsolved, urges policymakers to prioritize solving homicides and provide more transparency for victim’s families.

• Maryland’s prescription drug affordability board (PDAB) identified eight medications to go to the stakeholder council for possible upper payment limit. WYPR reports the drugs were selected based on the board’s criteria of being cost prohibitive to state residents.
   
• Matt Fiedler and Loren Adler at the Brookings Institute released an analysis on the No Surprises Act’s independent dispute resolution (IDR) data, finding that for three services (emergency, imaging, and neonatal/ pediatric critical care) the prices resulting from arbitration are 3.7 times greater than Medicare's prices, far above mean-in-network rates (median decision is 50% higher), and more like historical mean out-of-network rates.
   
• More than 100 health care professionals in Minnesota signed a letter supporting a strong MinnesotaCare Public Option in the Grand Rapids Herald Review, urging the governor to implement the program; an expanded public option allows more residents access to high quality, affordable health coverage.
   
• The Lown Institute’s Fair Share Spending report, covered in STAT News and Fierce Health Care, found that of the 2,425 nonprofit hospitals evaluated, 80% spent less on financial assistance and community investment than the estimated value of their tax breaks. 

• Wall Street Journal tax reporter Richard Rubin describes the status of the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act, a tax package that strengthens the Child Tax Credit for low-income families and restores tax breaks for businesses investing in research and development – paid for by ending the fraud-ridden, costly pandemic-era Employee Retention Credit program. (free link)
   
• In The Hill, Aris Folley lays out why conservative head of Americans for Tax Reform Grover Norquist continues to advocate for the tax package in the face of Senate Republican opposition. 
   
• For the newsletter Slow Boring, former Undersecretary for Economic Affairs at the Commerce Department Jed Kolko describes the types of economic research that are most useful to policymakers.

• New America examined how a college accreditor faced no consequences after it failed to spot repeated fraud and abuse at Florida Career College, calling on the U.S. Department of Education to hold accrediting agencies to higher standards.
   
• Master of Arts degrees are on the rise, according to a new brief by the Postsecondary Equity & Economics Research (PEER) Project that highlights the need for more research on the factors driving this growth.

• What does the future of power look like? Solar, storage, and wind make up 95% of active capacity in queue to connect to the grid, according to a new report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

• In celebration of Community College Month, Kelly McManus, vice president of higher education and Clare McCann, director of higher education, will be taking part in a funder forum webinar on the CUNY ASAP|ACE college completion program on Monday, April 22, hosted by the SHEEO|ASAP College Completion Coalition Learning Community. Register here.
   
• On Monday, April 29, Arnold Ventures and Stono Public Affairs will be hosting a panel conversation on criminal justice reform with the New Jersey Legislative Black Caucus in Union, New Jersey. Register here.
   
• The documentary "For the Record" will air on PBS's Reel South series on Monday, May 6, across the country. This episode, supported by Arnold Ventures, explores the collapse of the newspaper industry and its ramifications. The Texas Standard profiled Laurie Brown, publisher of the Canadian Record, which is featured in the documentary. PBS’s News Hour also produced a story about the decline of local papers. 

• In 2004, 19-year-old Benard McKinley was sentenced to 100 years in prison. This fall, he will join the Northwestern Law School class of 2027. Here's his story.