2013 Report Recap

2013 was an interesting year for bipartisanship. It saw a mix of government gridlock as well as bipartisan resolutions. The Bipartisan Budget Agreement, a step in the right direction, was a highly visible example of a stalemate leading to cooperation. Despite the gridlock, policy debates on energy, housing, and health, just to name a few, continued and the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) contributed to the discussion through its research.

Here are some reports you might have missed in 2013:

• Throughout the government shutdown and following the agreement, BPC’s Economic Policy Project produced insightful debt limit analysis ranging from the projected X Date to extraordinary measures.
• BPC’s Housing Commission released a 16-month examination of key policy issues affecting national housing policy. To find about more about their report, read Housing America’s Future: New Directions for National Policy.
• In a report from the Health Care Cost Containment Initiative, a collaboration between the Economic Policy Project and the Health Project, the initiative’s leaders Tom Daschle, Pete V. Domenici, Bill Frist and Alice M. Rivlin, discussed what it would take to put the U.S. health care system on a sustainable fiscal path: A Bipartisan Rx for Patient-Centered Care and System-wide Cost Containment.
• The Foreign Policy Project’s report From Rhetoric to Reality: Reframing U.S. Turkey Policy addressed the complicated relationship between Washington, D.C. and Ankara, stressing the need for an assessment of the U.S.-Turkey relationship.
• Twenty members comprising the Energy Board of BPC’s Strategic Energy Policy Initiative, constructed recommendations and objectives for U.S. energy policy in their report, America’s Energy Resurgence: Sustaining Success, Confronting Challenges:

“It is important to emphasize at the outset that the actions we propose in each of these areas should be viewed as a package—no single Energy Board member necessarily agrees with each individual recommendation in isolation. Taken together, however, we believe this set of recommendations provides the blueprint for a balanced and effective plan for enhancing the nation’s prosperity, energy security, and sustainable environmental quality in the 21st century.”

• The first in a series of reports to be released on a yearly basis, the Homeland Security Project’s threat assessment provided recommendations to counter emerging national security threats.
• The Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative provided insight on the financial crisis of 2008 with their report, Too Big to Fail: The Path to a Solution.
• One of BPC’s newest projects in 2013, the Immigration Task Force, released a report illustrating that effective immigration reform can have economic benefits.
• In response to the Food and Drug Administration Safety Innovation Act of 2012, BPC’s Health Innovation Initiative produced Health Innovation: An Oversight Framework for Assuring Patient Safety in Health Information Technology
• Lastly, BPC’s Governors’ Council, made up of seven former governors, released Making Federalism Work: The Governors’ Council Medicaid Recommendations.

Bringing experts with different political views to the table has always been a priority for BPC, and 2014 will be no different.

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