In the States

Three years after the stock market cratered in 1929, American schools suffered their own crash. School districts had managed to ride out the early years of the Great Depression; in fact, because many districts depended on property taxes, which didn’t crash as fast as income taxes, more than a few managed to increase spending.

Moderator Len Downie, formerly the Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Washington Post and current professor at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, and Lattie Coor, former president of ASU and current CEO of The Center for the Future of Arizona, laid the foundation for the day’s discussion, and provided ample context for the teleconference portion of the event with Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Pima County Supervisor Ramòn Valadez, a Democrat.  Dr.

While the federal deficit captures the news headlines, there is a deep and pervasive fiscal crisis in state finance. This crisis is largely a result of the Great Recession, which has caused the steepest decline in state tax receipts on record. It is also a structural issue, resulting from unfunded retirement plans that are beginning to come due. With state spending accounting for one eighth of US GDP, this crisis has serious implications for economic recovery, for jobs and for the credit markets, where states and municipalities have borrowed nearly $3 trillion.

On July 7th Naomi Cahn and June Carbone, co-authors of Red Families vs Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture, Patrick F. Fagan, a Senior Director and Fellow of the Center for Research on Marriage and Religion, and Eyal Press, a Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation and author of Absolute Convictions met to discuss why family structures vary across the United States and how politics impacts upon family structure. David Gray, the director of the Workforce and Family Program at the New America Foundation, hosted the panel discussion.

Effective May 1, Maryland eliminated its assets test for families applying for Temporary Cash Assistance (TCA), the state’s name for its TANF assistance program. The decision not to count cash assets against a family’s eligibility to receive temporary cash assistance is a significant step towards promoting self-sufficiency and asset building among families receiving public assistance.

On January 12, Bernard L. Swartz Fellows Peter Beinart and Megan McArdle discussed the legacy of the past decade, with particular focus on U.S. foreign policy and the economy. The event was moderated by Andrés Martinez, Director of the Fellows Program. The speakers were introduced by Steve Coll, President of New America.

The following op-ed originally appeared in Sunday's Denver Post.

Coloradans cannot turn on the television without coming face to face with the health care reform debate in Washington. But with so many conflicting messages from different interest groups, it is hard to know what to believe.

Over the past year, the New America Foundation, along with the Center for Colorado's Economic Future at the University of Denver, conducted a study called The Future of Colorado Health Care. Its purpose was to make sense of the chatter and to answer one fundamental question: Do the economic benefits of health care reform in Colorado outweigh the costs? The answer, we determined, is yes.

Talking about health care reform all over the country, I have the opportunity to see many states' health systems up close. In particular, we spend a lot of time in Colorado -- as evidenced by our study on Grand Junction.

What is comparative effectiveness research?