Apr
25
2012
As the city of Chicago began the plan to transform its notoriously poorly-run Chicago Housing Authority in the early 1990s, many wondered what would become of its residents and the surrounding communities. This recent report from the Urban Institute looks into the “complex relationship between public housing transformation and crime in Chicago and Atlanta.” Authored by five different researchers at the Institute, this 11-page document takes a close look at crime rates in the communities that relocated public housing residents into private-market housing. The report notes that the effects were “not the simplistic relationship implied by media accounts, but rather a complex picture of declining crime rates in both cities, a small net decrease in violent crime citywide associated with the transformation efforts, but effects in some neighborhoods—those that received more than a few relocated households—that suggest that crime would have been lower in those neighborhoods had there been no public housing transformation.” The report includes a number of helpful charts and summary statistics, and it will be most useful to policy analysts and planners
[Source: The Scout Report, Volume 18, Number 16, April 20, 2012]
Apr
25
2012
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THE SIZE OF TAX PREFERENCES
Tax expenditures are getting increased scrutiny from budget hawks and tax reformers. New Treasury estimates, released as part of President Obama’s recent budget, indicate that these tax preferences will reduce individual and corporate income tax revenues by almost $1.1 trillion in 2012. Those provisions will also increase spending on refundable tax credits by $91 billion and will reduce payroll and excise tax receipts by $113 billion. Together, tax expenditures will total almost $1.3 trillion this year.
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Institute’s Health Policy Center is tracking implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 10 states: Alabama, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Each case study chronicles successes and hurdles, with a special look at exchange establishment, private-market reforms, and preparations for Medicaid expansion.
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At a conference cosponsored by the Urban Institute, the Pension Rights Center, and Covington & Burling, Institute fellow Eugene Steuerle presented options for allowing workers to purchase annuities within Social Security, as well as granting partial benefits to accommodate phased retirement. While such options technically exist today, they are buried deep within the maze of Social Security’s complex provisions. Simplifying and clarifying these options would enable workers to provide themselves with a greater degree of inflation-protected longevity insurance in retirement.
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COMMENTARY ON HEALTH CARE
”On health care, what’s ‘proper’?” - By Stan Dorn
The most worrisome part of the Supreme Court’s three-day hearing on the Affordable Care Act completely escaped mention in all the oceans of real and virtual ink that were spilled to cover the case. Stan Dorn explains in his “proper” commentary for the McClatchy-Tribune News Service.
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VIDEO ON THE RICH AND TAXES
Watch a spirited debate on such pressing issues as whether there should be a “Buffett Rule” to ensure that high-income taxpayers pay a minimum tax rate.
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FRESH DATA ON OLDER AMERICANS
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[Source: Urban Institute]
