A good start to a midsummer week, as Brian Howey notes: “We live in an era of eroding faith in government while we face an array of intractable problems.”
Howey: New Approach To The Social Safety Net
Brian Howey – JCOnline
We live in an era of eroding faith in government while we face an array of intractable problems.
U.S. Rep. Todd Young entered Congress as part of the 2010 tea party wave that was fueled by a distrust in a growing federal government. Yet the Bloomington Republican finds realities on the ground he believes should be addressed by public and private enterprises. He regularly interacts with what he calls “at-risk populations” facing access to health care issues that stoke up things like Indiana’s Russian-like infant mortality rate.
“I care about these people,” he said. “I see them every day. It is sad to see so many failed efforts. I went to Washington to innovate, not just move deck chairs around.”
In June, Young and Maryland Democrat John Delaney introduced H.R. 4885, the Social Impact Bond Act. The two representatives described the legislation that would establish desired outcomes to pressing social challenges that, if achieved, would improve lives and save government money. State and municipal governments could then submit proposals to work toward those outcomes — such as increasing adoption rates of teenagers in foster care, or improving the health and mortality rates of infants born into low-income families — by scaling up existing, scientifically proven interventions.
“Private-sector investors would provide the capital needed to expand the existing programs, and, if an independent evaluator were able to validate that the desired outcomes were met and money was saved, the investors would be paid back their initial investment plus a small return from the realized government savings,” the two representatives said.