Testimony

Expanding drug courts to all 1.5 million drug-involved offenders would cost more than $13 billion annually, but would return more than $40 billion in benefits, John Roman told a House of Representatives subcommittee. The criminal justice system can maximize the use of drug courts without adding billions in new costs by calling on less expensive strategies, such as Hawaii's Project HOPE, to identify defendants who can be encouraged to desist from offending, allowing drug courts to focus on those who cannot.

Female prisoners returning home face reentry challenges with fewer skills and more deficits than men, and those differences are manifested in higher rates of relapse and recidivism. Nancy La Vigne encouraged a House subcommittee to consider measures to ensure that female D.C. Code violators are housed in prisons close to their homes. Doing so will enhance the women's ability to maintain contact with their children, a critical factor in successful reintegration, and help them link to substance abuse treatment and mental health services.

Donald Marron's testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance on the individual tax system.

Leonard Burman's testimony before the Senate Committee on Finance on whether and how to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.

The best approaches to narrowing racial, ethnic, and gender differentials in retirement wealth are outside the current employer-sponsored pension system, Barbara Butrica and Richard Johnson told the U.S. Department of Labor's ERISA Advisory Council. These tactics include automatic IRAs for employees, efforts to raise wages earned by blacks and Hispanics, more federal funding for training and workforce development, better educational opportunities for future workers, and more financial education for workers and students. Protecting Social Security for low-income seniors is also crucial. Their testimony presents detailed information about differences in pension coverage and wealth.

Expert Harry Holzer testifies that 2009 and 2010 have been among the worst years ever recorded for teen unemployment, averaging 25 percent. Prospects for young African Americans are especially grim, with unemployment around 40 percent. But we can help youth into the labor market—during the "Great Recession" and beyond—through an aggressive policy agenda. Existing programs that could be more fully funded are YouthBuild, the Youth Service and Conservation Corps, Year Up, the National Guard Youth ChalleNGe, Gateways, and Youth Opportunities. While these would cost federal funds, the costs of not investing in our vulnerable youth will be far greater.

Institute Fellow Gene Steuerle testifies on tax reform, its role in budget reform, deficits, income distribution issues, tax gaps, and budget expenditures. Real budget reform, he says, means lower taxes and better spending.

High rates of child poverty exist in the United States even in the best of times, and this poverty tends to limit the health, education, and earnings of adults who grew up poor throughout their lives. This creates costs not only for the individuals themselves and their families, but for the U.S. economy as a whole. The current recession will raise child poverty rates substantially and for many years to come, thus exacerbating these problems. Even short spells of poverty or parental unemployment can scar children and youth for many years. Policies that tend to limit child poverty in the next few years by strengthening the safety net, raising employment, or improving the skills of disadvantaged children and youth might thus have a high social payoff over time.

City and county governments, caught between escalating and costly criminal justice populations and strapped budgets, are searching for ways to control costs without compromising public safety. In testimony before the U.S. House Crime Subcommittee, the Urban Institute's Nancy La Vigne explained how justice reinvestment -- a process for identifying the drivers of criminal justice costs and developing new ways of reinvesting those scarce resources – can benefit localities.

Successfully reintegrating prisoners into society hinges on connecting them to jobs, housing, substance abuse treatment, faith-based institutions, and other resources, Nancy La Vigne told a U.S. House subcommittee. Reaching that goal is made more difficult by the long distances that often separate incarcerated men and women from their families and communities. District of Columbia felons are typically incarcerated over a hundred miles from their families, potential employers, and postrelease services. As much as 20 percent are housed more than 500 miles from their homes.