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May 6, 2025
What DOGE Flagged as Unemployment Fraud Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg—Most of Which Will Never Be Recovered
…projected in fraud involving pandemic unemployment benefits. It gets worse. A recent Department of Labor (DOL) Inspector General report leaves little doubt that nearly all of these losses, which veteran lawmakers have called “the greatest theft of tax dollars in US…
April 17, 2025
Turn Public Service Loan Forgiveness into a State Block Grant
As Congress negotiates a bill to overhaul the federal budget, lawmakers looking to save money should note $30 billion in potential savings hiding in plain sight. The Public Service Loan…
March 25, 2025
Reimagining Federal Education R&D: IES, Workforce Skills, and State Leadership
…countries that participate in the study (over 30 in PIAAC). This produces a diffuse survey covering far too many aspects of skills than are needed by US policy makers. An…
February 28, 2025
Less Than Half of Medicaid Recipients Work Enough to Comply With a Work Requirement
…policymakers should consider when determining whether to institute a Medicaid work requirement, the form it should take, and to whom it should apply. For example, such factors should include the…
February 4, 2025
The Family First Act Would Expand Net Income Tax Refunds to Higher Income Families
…families in the top half of the income distribution. At a time when lawmakers are seeking ways to reduce the federal deficit, they should consider whether these changes are prudent….
January 6, 2025
Congress Can Block Student Loan Cancellation—Forever
…extend the 2017 tax cuts, increase funding for immigration enforcement, and pursue other priorities. Lawmakers will need to find budget offsets to pay for all this. Most of the savings…
December 3, 2024
Avoiding an Unemployment Loan Bailout
Taxpayers in most states may have dodged a billion-dollar bullet on election day. That is, if the outcome had been different, liberal lawmakers would have been uniquely positioned to bail…
November 25, 2024
Don’t Write Off Workforce Pell Grants
…by an average of $4,000. High-quality programs such as FastForward shouldn’t lose out on federal funding simply because other workforce education courses demonstrate worse outcomes. Policymakers should adopt a posture…
November 20, 2024
End Federal Loans for Graduate School
…willing to step in and help these students pay for their educations. Indeed, a thriving private market for graduate student loans existed before Congress removed limits on federal lending. But if policymakers…
November 12, 2024
The National Assessment of Educational Progress Recompete: Is It Real Change or Lipstick on a Pig?
…but policymakers must do more to encourage competition and ensure transparency for the new likely $1 billion NAEP contract. Read the PDF. The American government runs on contracts between government…