Almost Fell Through the Cracks

by Andrew Gillen

These stories almost feel through the cracks.

Chad Aldeman:

Broward County, Fla., for instance, gives teachers an average raise of only $320 in their first 10 years on the job, but back-loads $20,000 in raises into a short time period between year 18 and 21 on the job… The money [for pensions, typically based on your highest earning years] comes from the state, after all.

AG: Add to this the new IBR loans that are forgiven after 10 years if you work in the public or non-profit sector. Here is a crazy idea; if you want people to go into teaching, public or non-profit sector work, how about just paying them more instead of coming up with all these crazy Rube Goldberg devices.

Annamaria Conti and Patrick Gaulé:

Is Europe lagging behind the US in university technology licensing?

Survey evidence reveals that US technology transfer offices tend to employ more staff with experience in industry and to have greater flexibility in managing their budget, which might allow them to offer better salary terms and attract personnel with higher human capital.

Tim Ranzetta details the lobbying blitz launched by Sallie Mae.


The Economist:

The CBO is a very limited institution in what it is able to say about the likely effects of various pieces of legislation. These limitations lead it to offer misleading analyses in some cases and to predictably err on costs and savings in others. The problem is that these analyses tend to cut both ways politically. That is, sometimes the errors benefit one party and sometimes they benefit the other. And so at various times, each party finds itself pointing to the CBO as the best and highest arbiter of truth.

And truthfully, it is one of the most rigorous and respected institutions in Washington. Ideally, the parties would approach each piece of analysis produced by the CBO as being informative but recognizing potential shortcomings. Instead, the side helped by a release trumpets it as unassailable and the side harmed by it says that this time the CBO blew it. So instead of having profitable debates about an agreed upon set of imperfect figures, we get unhelpful chaos.