Random Excerpts

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other data collections currently release data by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, English language proficiency, disability, and sex. However, one of the most important—if not the most important—factor influencing student educational achievement and attainment is family structure. As education scholar Ian Rowe has noted, NAEP already collects data on students’ family structure; it just does not make those data publicly available.

in this country. It was a step taken by Congress to meet what the public had found to bea growing and intolerable evil in combinations between many who had capital employed in a branch of trade, industry, or transportation, to obtain control of it, regulate prices, and make unlimited profit.

• Create CLIA-certification-equivalent pathways for non-clinical laboratories and researchers. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that the U.S. needs to leverage the expertise of non-clinical laboratories and researchers in order to bolster clinical testing capacity. To accomplish this,

• Pursue reforms of the Human Capital Management process and operations within the VBA to build a more blended workforce with more contractors to process claims. This would free federal employees to perform other duties and be involved solely with the final decision to award benefits.

Unfortunately, the department has lost its way in recent years and has forfeited the trust of large segments of the American people. Large swaths of the department have been captured by an unaccountable bureaucratic managerial class and radical Left ideologues who have embedded themselves throughout its offices and components. The department also suffers from institutional inattentiveness to its core functions. Instead of being perceived as possessing the utmost impartiality and fairness as it advances the national interest on behalf of the American people— fighting crime and defending the rule of law—the DOJ has become a department that 46.6 percent of Americans recently indicated is, in their view, “too political, corrupt, and not to be trusted.”*

Multiemployer Plans. At the request of multiemployer union pension plans, the government has given such plans much more lenient rules and discretion over funding than it has given to single-employer plans. Multiemployer plans have been severely mismanaged, and the plans have abused the discretion and deference given them by federal law and enforcement agencies to make promises that they cannot keep. As a result, these plans are generally severely underfunded, with $757 billion in aggregate underfunding, and a funding level ofjust 42 percent. The Biden Administration has provided a massive taxpayer bailout to some of these plans, but without any needed reforms. Even worse, it gave out funds in excess of what the law allows.

Revisit the No Surprises Act on surprise medical billing. The No Surprises Act*’ protected consumers against balance bills, but it also established a deeply flawed system for resolving payment disputes between insurers and providers. This government-mandated dispute resolution process has sown confusion among arbiters and regulators as judges have sought to ascertain its meaning. The No Surprises Act should scrap the dispute resolution process in favor of a truth-in-advertising approach

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is the primary provider of health care, benefits, and memorial affairs for America’s veterans and their families. The VA has the noble responsibility to render exceptional and timely support and services with respect, compassion, and competence. The veteran is at the forefront of every VA process and interaction. The VA must continually strive to be recognized as a

To help further the legislative intent behind IRTPA, DNI Ratcliffe advised during the transition of incoming Biden DNI Avril Haines that the DNI should be the only Cabinet-level intelligence official.!° While his recommendation was adopted and has corrected the previously allowed imbalance by making the DNI the only Cabinet official and head of the IC at the table, the ODNI’s effectiveness and direction leave much to be desired.

Under the Stafford Act, FEMA has the authority to adjust the per capita indicator for damages, which creates a threshold under which states and localities are not eligible for public assistance. FEMA should raise the threshold because the per capita indicator has not kept pace with inflation, and this over time has effectively lowered the threshold for public assistance and caused FEMA’s resources to be stretched perilously thin. Alternatively, applying a deductible could accomplish a similar outcome while also incentivizing states to take a more proactive role in their own preparedness and response capabilities. In addition, Congress should change the cost-share arrangement so that the federal government covers 25 percent of the costs for small disasters with the cost share reaching a maximum of 75 percent for truly catastrophic disasters.