Category: Uncategorized

Marshall for Medium: “Will Conservatives Protect our Children?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Watching the nation’s political leaders tie themselves in knots over minor changes in gun laws, I can’t help but wonder if America hasn’t become the “pitiful, helpless giant” Richard Nixon warned about decades ago.

Nixon conjured up this arresting image to rally public support for his unpopular plan to invade Cambodia. But it seems more apt today, as Washington fails to stem the growing scourge of mass shootings.

The blunt truth is, the Republican Party is chiefly responsible for this paralysis of national will. Even as our children are slaughtered in classrooms, Republicans shrug and offer nothing more than “thoughts and prayers.” Sorry, they tell us, the U.S. Constitution bars us from taking effective action to protect our children from killers wielding weapons of war.

Read PPI President Will Marshall’s full piece on Medium by clicking here.

PPI Blog: A Simple Way to Help Formerly Incarcerated Americans Reenter Society

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Roman Darker, PPI Summer 2019 Intern

We often take for granted the many essential tasks that require government-issued ID, such as a drivers’ license or a state-issued ID card. We need them to open a bank account, apply for a job, rent property, stay in hotels, get a P.O. box, and even for most interstate bus travel.  

People leaving prison often lack ID for various reasons: IDs expire, deteriorate, or are simply lost. Unfortunately for many people formerly incarcerated in the U.S., the need for new government ID is acute, while the process of obtaining it is commonly drawn out. Not having a government ID means not having the ability to get money necessary for food and shelter, nor the requisite documentation for the ladder. Even today, amid promising criminal justice reform, hurdles to getting a new state ID for formerly incarcerated people are extensive.

Most Americans have had government-issued ID, in the form of a drivers’ license, since the age of 16, so we don’t easily recall the process and documents necessary for obtaining our first ID. Depending on the state, applicants must supply one form of primary documentation and/or two secondary forms. Primary forms of documentation are government-issued documents or receipts that indicate a person’s full legal name and date of birth, such as a birth certificate. Secondary forms include both a name and evidence of residency, such as a utility bill or school records.

Prisoners incarcerated in a state other than the one that issued their previous ID will first have to locate their birth certificates, a time consuming process even in the best of circumstances. If born in the state of their release, obtaining a birth certificate can take around two weeks after the responsible agency receives the application, with some variance in the timeline depending on the state (1). However, if the formerly incarcerated person was serving a sentence in a state other than the one in which they were born, then this process can take up to eight weeks (2). 

Of course, this scenario assumes that the individual has a place to receive mail (which is difficult to secure without government identification) and knows the county in which they were born, the hospital they were born in, and their mother’s full maiden name (3). Also, formerly incarcerated people often do not have the luxury of being able to wait eight weeks to find employment. Many need money quickly for food and shelter; moreover, evidence shows recidivism becomes much less likely with stable employment (4).

Fortunately, some states are moving to help people released from prison get IDs. For example, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, and Wyoming have passed laws or forged interagency agreements aimed at providing inmates with state ID prior to or upon release (5).

Other states have turned to a simpler, cheaper (albeit less effective) option: allowing prisoners to exchange release documents and/or prison identification for state ID (6). One such state, Ohio, began providing “offender release cards” that contain all the information required by the federal Real ID Act, which lays out the minimum information necessary (7).

The former prisoner can then take that card to any Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and obtain a state ID. The introduction of the offender release cards was one of several reforms that correlated with a drop in the state’s three-year recidivism rate to 27.5 percent back in 2015, which was over 20 percentage points below the national average (8) 

Both federal and state agencies operating prisons should have gathered all of the information provided on the cards through the process of verifying the inmate’s identity. Giving it to prisoners upon release would be a radically pragmatic addition to standard release procedure, and allowing it to suffice for obtaining a state ID is in every state’s interest.

Let’s stop punishing prisoners after they’ve paid their debt to society. Helping newly released prisoners get an I.D. can give them a fresh start and reduce the cost of recidivism in the bargain.

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  1. Stephen Lilly, “How Long Does it Take to Receive a Birth Certificate?” PocketSense, November 6, 2018, https://pocketsense.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-receive-a-birth-certificate-12213245.html.
  2. Ibid.
  3. City of Columbus, Columbus Public Health Department, “Birth Certificate Walk-in or Mail Application,” Accessed July 29, 2019, file:///Users/romandarker/Downloads/BirthCert_Application.pdf. 
  4. G. Mesters, V. van der Geest, and C. Bijleveld, “Crime, Employment, and Social Welfare: An Individual-Level Study on Disadvantaged Males,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 32, no. 2 (2016), 159-90. doi:10.1007/s10940-015-9258-5.
  5. Juleyka Lantigua-Williams, “The Elusiveness of an Official ID After Prison: A bureaucratic maze within the federal government leaves scores of former inmates without the key to a fresh start,” The Atlantic, August 11, 2016. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/the-elusiveness-of-an-official-id-after-prison/495197/.
  6. Ibid.
  7. U.S. Congress, House, Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 (Enrolled as Agreed to or Passed by Both House and Senate): Title II–Improved Security for Drivers’ Licenses and Personal Identification Cards, H.R. 1268, 109th Cong., 1st sess., Introduced in House January 26, 2005, https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/real-id-act-text.pdf.
  8. Brian Bull, “As Recidivism Rates Drop In Ohio, Officials Work To Keep Ex-Felons From ‘Revolving Door’ Of Prisons,” ideastream, September 24, 2015, https://www.ideastream.org/news/as-recidivism-rates-drop-in-ohio-officials-work-to-keep-ex-felons-from-revolving-door-of-prisons.

 

Cribb for The 74: “The English Embrace Charter-School-Like Academies – and Learn the Free Market Is No Substitute for a Quality Authorizer”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The English Embrace Charter-School-Like Academies — and Learn the Free Market Is No Substitute for a Quality Authorizer

by Phoebe Cribb, Summer Intern

New Orleans is the first major U.S. city to convert all its traditional public schools to public charter schools. Now imagine an entire country moving in this direction. That is exactly what England has done.

Academy and free schools, England’s equivalent of charter schools, currently educate more than half of all public school students, far more than the 6 percent of U.S. public school students who attend charters. In just nine years, England’s conservative government has pushed academy and free school numbers from 200 to more than 8,600, representing a third of all primary schools (grades 0-5) and 76 percent of all high schools (grades 6-10). (After grade 10, English students choose to remain in full-time education for two more years or enter into employment or vocational training.)

Since 2016, the government has required public schools rated “inadequate” to become academies. Unfortunately, it created only eight authorizers to hold the explosion of autonomous schools accountable for performance, and they have been overwhelmed by the numbers, leaving England’s academy sector with uneven performance. The English have learned the same lesson we have on this side of the pond: The key to quality charter schools is quality authorizing.

Read the full piece.

Marshall for NY Daily News: “Why the moderates must prevail”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Thanks to CNN’s penchant for elaborately staged political melodrama, it’s easy to dismiss Round 2 of the Democratic presidential debates last week as a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. But amid all the sniping and squabbling, a larger theme did emerge: Democrats won’t beat an unpopular president with unpopular ideas.

The pragmatic candidates in the field finally found their voice and pushed back hard against what Montana Gov. Steve Bullock called the left-wing “wish list” that so far has dominated the debates. They took aim at the massively expensive “Medicare-for-All” schemes pushed by Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris; at calls from former HUD Secretary Julian Castro and others to decriminalize illegal immigration; and, at racing to shut down U.S. oil and gas production as part of the “Green New Deal.”

Read PPI President Will Marshall’s full piece here.

Janda for Medium: “Would Single Payer Set Back Progress on Paying for Value?”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

While the left and center-left have been debating the wisdom of abolishing private insurance, another critical policy issue has not gotten much attention: The Medicare-for-all bill currently in question would create a single-payer health care system based on fee-for-service, disregarding the financial and outcome-based successes of Accountable Care Organizations, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), Medicare Advantage, and other payment reforms emphasizing value-based care.

 

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here. 

Long for Medium: “The Canadian App Economy is Global and Diverse – But Can Improve”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Canadian App Economy is strong both in terms of app exports and compared to its industrialized peers. The Canadian App Economy has 262,000 App Economy workers as of November 2018, according to a recently released report by the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). App Economy workers are those that develop, maintain, or support mobile applications. What’s more, Canada is outperforming many of its industrialized peers.

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here. 

The Impact of Electronic Cigarettes on Cigarette Smoking By Americans and Its Health and Economic Implications

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Cigarette smoking by Americans declined steadily from the mid-1960s to around 2005, when this progress began to slow. From 2013 to 2017, however, cigarette smoking rates fell sharply, during a period in which the use of electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes increased sharply. This study examines the connection between these two developments and the implications.

 

  • Among adults, cigarette smoking rates fell from 18.0% in 2013 to 14.0% in 2017, while the use of e-cigarettes increased from 1.9% to 2.8%.
  • Over the same years, cigarette smoking rates among high school students fell from 12.7% to 7.6% while their rates of e-cigarette use increased from 4.5% to 11.7%. Among adolescents, the association between declining smoking rates and rising e-cigarette use was even stronger than among adults.
  • Statistical analysis of the changes in smoking rates and e-cigarette use by age, gender, race and ethnicity suggests that about 70 percent of the increased decline in cigarette smoking from 2013 to 2017 was associated with the rising use of e-cigarettes. The remaining 30 percent was associated with higher cigarette taxes, bans on cigarette sales by the CVS pharmacy chain, and increased use of anti-smoking prescription drugs.
  • Statistical analysis also strongly suggests that e-cigarettes are not a gateway to smoking cigarettes.
  • Rather, statistical analysis and numerous studies establish that e-cigarettes are an effective tool to help people stop smoking or avoid starting to smoke cigarettes.

 

Based on these analyses, we estimate that pre-existing trends and factors other than e-cigarettes can explain a decline in smoking rates by people ages 18 to 44 from 20.2% in 2014 to 17.9% in 2017. However, the rate fell from 20.2% to 14.6% in 2017, and the rising use of e-cigarettes can explain the additional 3.3 percentage-point decline in cigarette smoking rates.

 

  • By this account, e-cigarette use is closely linked to a reduction in cigarette smoking from 2014 to 2017 by 922,301 people ages 18 to 24 and 2,922,540 people users ages 25 to 44, or a total of 3,844,840 people.

 

We also calculated the healthcare savings and costs and the productivity benefits associated with the reductions in cigarette smoking and the increased use of e-cigarettes from 2014 to 2017 by those 3,844,840 people ages 18 to 44. These calculations are based on healthcare costs, life expectancy, and the differences in the incidence of illnesses that interfere with work for smokers, ex-smokers, nonsmokers and e-cigarette users.

 

  • E-cigarette use lowers people’s annual per capita healthcare costs, compared to cigarette smokers and ex-smokers, for all age groups up to age 75.
    • For people ages 25 to 44, the annual per capita healthcare costs of cigarette smokers are 9.8 percent greater than those of e-cigarette users, and the average annual per capita healthcare costs for ex-smokers are 19.8 percent greater than for e-cigarette users.
    • For people ages 45 to 64, annual per capita healthcare spending for cigarette smokers is 8.8 percent greater than for e-cigarette users, and average per capita healthcare costs for ex-smokers are 34.4 percent greater than for e-cigarette users.
    • Treating cigarette-smoking-related diseases accounts for an estimated 8.7 percent of annual healthcare spending, or $303.8 billion in 2017.
  • By reducing the number of people who smoke cigarettes, e-cigarette use also extends the lifespans of millions of people, raising their lifetime medical costs across all age groups except those 18 to 24.
    • We calculate that the use of e-cigarettes by the 922,301 people ages 18 to 24 in 2017, who otherwise would have started smoking cigarettes, should reduce their lifetime healthcare costs by $11.3 billion.
    • However, the use of e-cigarettes by the 2,922,540 people ages 25 to 44 in 2017,
      who otherwise would have started smoking cigarettes, increases their lifetime healthcare costs by $284.5 billion.
  • Those higher lifetime healthcare costs reflect spending for 330,489 people whom we would expect to have died before their mid-to-late 60s if they started smoking cigarettes in 2014- 2017, and for 500,865 people whom we would expect to have died before their mid-to-late 80s if they had started smoking instead of using e-cigarettes.
  • E-cigarette users (and nonsmokers) also are more productive than smokers, because smokers miss more work due to illness, come to work still impaired by illness more often, and take smoking breaks. We found that e-cigarette users are on average $820 more productive per-year than ex-cigarette smokers and $2,371 more productive per-year than current smokers, and that ex-smokers who shifted to e-cigarettes are on average $1,554 more productive per-year than current smokers.
    • The additional productivity of the share of the 922,301 e-cigarette users ages 18 to 24 in 2017 who worked from 2017 on, and who otherwise would have become smokers in 2014-2017, would be worth $14.7 billion over the 10 years from 2017 to 2027;
    • The additional productivity of the share of the 2,922,540 e-cigarette users ages 25 to 44 in 2017 who worked from 2017 on, and who otherwise would have continued to smoke in 2014-2017, would be worth $29.2 billion over the years from 2017 to 2027.

 

Read the full report.

Press Release: More Americans Quit Smoking with Assist from E-Cigarettes

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

More Americans Quit Smoking with Assist from E-Cigarettes

For Immediate Release (8/1/19)

Contact: media@ppionline.org, 202-525-3926

WASHINGTON – Electronic cigarettes or e-cigarettes offer the most effective means currently available for reducing cigarette smoking, according to economist Rob Shapiro, President of Sonecon, in a new analysis for the Progressive Policy Institute. 

Center for Disease Control data show that cigarette smoking by Americans declined steadily from the mid-1960s to around 2005, when this progress slowed. Yet, from 2013 to 2017, the rate at which Americans use of e-cigarettes accelerated sharply. 

“The rate at which Americans have successfully stopped smoking cigarettes has accelerated substantially since 2013,” said Robert Shapiro, President of Sonecon in his report for PPI, “and our statistical analysis of the CDC’s data in this area shows that increased use of electronic cigarettes can account for 70 percent of that acceleration.” 

Among adults, cigarette smoking rates fell from 18.0% in 2013 to 14.0% in 2017, while the use of e-cigarettes increased from 1.9% to 2.8%.

“This groundbreaking research makes clear that vaping is not a gateway to cigarette smoking but an exit from it. Innovations like “heat not burn” and vape are proving to be highly effective in helping U.S. smokers kick the harmful habit of burning tobacco,” said Lindsay Lewis, Executive Director of PPI. 

Lewis continued, “Concerns about nicotine addiction among the young are valid, but Congress should address them by quickly passing laws banning sales of all tobacco products to people under 21, not by making it harder for adult smokers to transition to less harmful products. “

Among adolescents, the association between declining smoking rates and rising e-cigarette use was even stronger than among adults. From 2013 to 2017, cigarette smoking rates among high school students fell from 12.7% to 7.6% while their rates of e-cigarette use increased from 4.5% to 11.7%.

The report also found no evidential basis for concerns that e-cigarettes could be a gateway to cigarette smoking among adolescents.  Finally, the study also found that by reducing cigarette smoking rates, e-cigarettes lower people’s annual healthcare costs, enhance productivity, and extend people’s lives.

You can find the full report by clicking here. 

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Curtis Valentine on NNPA: “Educator Spotlight: Lakisha Young, Oakland Reach”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

Lakisha Young is no stranger to education reform. A former Teach For America corps member and founding member of a KIPP Charter School, Young knows the power parents can wield when they demand educational options for their children. The daughter of a single mother who enrolled her in a traditional public school, a Catholic school, and later a private high school, Young expected to have the same power to make choices for her children when she became a mother.

A single mother of three, Young is satisfied with the choices she’s made: Her sons attend a charter school, and her daughter attends a selective high school. However, successfully securing places in these schools was no easy feat. Young knows firsthand the aggravation of dealing with the Oakland school lottery. She also understands the anxiety parents feel not knowing whether their children will have to enroll in a low-performing neighborhood school should there not be enough seats available at quality schools. Her personal experience led her to organize other parents and teach them how to advocate for their children.

Read the full piece here.

Goldberg for the Washington Examiner: “Forcing More Litigation Isn’t the Answer to Litigation Abuse”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

To avoid the expense and stress of going to court, Americans are turning to arbitration to settle workplace, and other, disputes. Free enterprise depends on businesses, employees, and consumers to be able to resolve disputes quickly and fairly. Plaintiffs’ lawyers, who file lawsuits for a living, are trying to convince Congress to take that option away.

The House recently held a hearing to ban pre-dispute arbitration agreements in employment, consumer, and anti-trust matters. Their supporters are attaching anti-arbitration clauses to various bills, including the National Defense Authorization Act this month, and want action on a comprehensive ban (the “FAIR Act”) before recess. They also are trying to leverage the #MeToo movement, which is critical to the success of women in the workplace, to suggest that courts are the only places for protecting people’s rights.

 

Read the full piece by Phil Goldberg by clicking here. 

Funding America’s Future: A Progressive Budget for Equitable Growth

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

OVERVIEW:

PPI’s Progressive Budget for Equitable Growth gives the next administration a framework for investing in our country that doesn’t stick young Americans with the bill. It powers the engines of American innovation by increasing investments in infrastructure, education, and scientific research by more than 70 percent relative to what they would be under current law. We tackle the greatest challenges facing our society, from rising economic inequality to climate change, through dynamic tax and spending policies that also help smooth the business cycle. And we pay for all of it, giving future policymakers the fiscal space necessary to respond to other unforeseen challenges and demonstrating that fiscal responsibility and investing in the American people are not contradictory – they are in fact complementary. By supporting both equity and growth, our blueprint would once again make fiscal policy an instrument of national progress.

Read the Blueprint:

 

 

Media Advisory: Building a #BetterBudget, A Forum on Investing in America’s Future and Tackling Our National Debt

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

WASHINGTON—The Progressive Policy Institute and House Blue Dog Coalition will host a lunchtime discussion today at the Longworth House Office Building about what leaders in Congress can do to invest in equitable growth while reducing our national debt.

America suffers from a shortsighted fiscal policy that promotes consumption today instead of investing in tomorrow. The federal government now spends more to service our growing national debt than it does on public investments in education, infrastructure, and scientific research combined. Meanwhile, a perfect storm of fiscally irresponsible tax cuts and an unwillingness to tackle escalating health and retirement spending are feeding trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see. This is not a fiscal policy for strengthening America’s future – it’s blueprint for American decline.

At the event, PPI will release a comprehensive budget plan with over 50 policy recommendations for the next administration to make room for public investments in education, and infrastructure, and scientific research; modernize federal health and retirement programs to reflect an aging society; and create a progressive, pro-growth tax code that raises the revenue necessary to pay the nation’s bills.

Lunch will be provided. This event is open to the press.

Who:

  • Rep Stephanie Murphy (D-FL), Co-Chair of the House Blue Dog Coalition
  • Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), Co-Chair of the Blue Dog Task Force on Fiscal Responsibility and Government Reform
  • Rep. Ben McAdams (D-UT), Co-Chair of the Blue Dog Task Force on Fiscal Responsibility and Government Reform
  • Ben Ritz, Director of PPI’s Center for Funding America’s Future
  • Marc Goldwein, Senior Vice President at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
  • Emily Holubowich, Executive Director of the Coalition for Health Funding and Co-Founder of NDD United
  • Will Marshall, President of PPI, Moderator

When: Thursday, July 25, 2019
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM

Where: Longworth House Office Building, Room 1302
15 Independence Ave, SE
Washington, D.C. 20515

For press inquires, please contact Carter Christensen, media@ppionline.org or 202-525-3931.

Prescription drug inflation slows

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

In the first half of 2019, the consumer price index for prescription drugs fell by 0.8% compared to the first half of 2018.  That’s the first year-over-year decline in prescription drug prices since the mid-1970s, according to BLS data.

Looking at five-year inflation rates,  the consumer price index for prescription drugs rose at a 2.7% rate from 2014 to 2019, based on the first six months of this year (see chart below).  This represents the slowest rate of prescription drug inflation in forty years, according to BLS data.

We also note that prescription drug inflation is now only slightly above core CPI inflation, which is running at a 2.0% pace from 2014-2019.

That doesn’t let the pharma industry off the hook for the behavior of bad actors,  especially as we learn more about the opioid epidemic. But it does suggest that the problem of drug pricing may be a bit more complicated than it seems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ritz for Medium: “Budget Deal Perpetuates Broken Status Quo”

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The budget deal scheduled for a vote tomorrow gets two things right and nearly everything else wrong. The main thing it gets right is the need to unshackle domestic public investment that would be subject to an across-the-board cut known as “sequestration” in the absence of legislative action. It also suspends the federal debt limit for two years, which will allow the Treasury Department to continue paying the bills America has already incurred without risking the prospect of a catastrophic default on our debts. What it gets wrong is charging $320 billion in new spending to our national credit card, which will further grow those debts and so perpetuate Washington’s governing dysfunction.

 

Read the full piece on Medium by clicking here. 

Health Care 2020: What’s Missing from the Debate?

Posted on by The Progressive Policy Institute

The Progressive Policy Institute’s Health Care 2020 panel relayed the overwhelming opinion that the American health care system is broken and in desperate need of reform. 

Americans need health care reform to achieve timely access to effective, affordable, and quality medical care. The Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) hosted a panel discussion on Wednesday, July 24th featuring the Honorable John Kitzhaber, MD, Tara O’Neill Hayes, Anand Parekh, MD, and Arielle Kane on the often forgotten elements of comprehensive health care reform.

The panelists discussed how to get to universal coverage, how to transition to an accountable delivery system, the need for a global budget, and, most importantly, how to reinvest savings to address social determinants of health. Governor Kitzhaber said that “at 18 percent of GDP, we know that health care has huge opportunity costs. When you look at the things that have long term impacts on health, it’s housing, safe communities, maternal care, and other social determinants of health.”

This conversation, with over 80 people in attendance, focused on crucial elements of holistic health reform rather than the more frequent discussions around “repeal-and-replace” or “Medicare-for-all.” Anand Parekh, MD, MPH, the chief medical advisor of the Bipartisan Policy Center noted that: “A lot of the oxygen in the debate surrounds increasing access to affordable health insurance and access to affordable prescription drugs. Those are critical — but it’s also important to focus on what happens beyond the four walls of a health center.” This focus on health beyond the hospital included a discussion of preventative care and improving health in a financially sustainable way.

Tara O’Neill Hayes, the deputy director of Health Care Policy at the American Action Forum, said “Medicare and Medicaid already account for 26.5 percent of the federal budget, with a percentage that’s grown each year. By 2027, these two programs alone will cost the federal government over $2 trillion.”

The overwhelming sentiment was that the American health care system is broken and in desperate need of reform in a manner that is both financially sustainable and prioritizes patient outcomes.