Penn Washington Senior Fellow Steven Pearlstein‘s latest piece in Roll Call examines the congressional dysfunction preventing consensus on health care premiums. Twenty-four million Americans face big premium hikes in January when ACA tax credits expire—a bipartisan fix should be straightforward, but both parties would rather have a campaign issue than a legislative win. This is…
Biography Patrick T. Harker is a distinguished scholar, academic leader, and public policy expert with a career spanning the highest levels of academia, government, and finance. He currently serves as the Rowan Distinguished Professor, Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and as Director of Academic Engagement…
Penn Washington was honored to host Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washington Post reporter Maegan Vazquez for an engaging dialogue on protecting democracy and bringing passion to public service. The conversation was a partnership with Penn’s Andrea Mitchell Center for Democracy, the NYU John Brademas Center, and the Association of Marshall Scholars. As…
Penn Washington Senior Fellow Steve Pearlstein’s new piece in Roll Call on the compromise that ended the government shutdown, part of our continuing “Fixing Congress” series. Pearlstein argues that the eight Senate Democrats who broke ranks to end the federal shutdown should be celebrated for choosing bipartisan compromise over party unity. He contends that rigid…
In his recent opinion piece for Roll Call, Penn Washington Senior Fellow Steven Pearlstein rejects the partisan finger-pointing and instead blames all members of Congress for choosing political gamesmanship over doing their jobs. Insisting that the shutdown could end immediately through straightforward compromises if members had the courage to defy their party leaders and act…
In a recent article in Bloomberg, Celeste Wallander, the Executive Director of Penn Washington, cautioned that without a plan from the White House to impose costs on Russia, a second meeting that concludes without an acceptable agreement would “allow Putin to use the opportunity to send a message to the world that he’s kind of…
We are now in the second week of another government closure and there should be no doubt about its root cause: that members of Congress pay no political penalty for failing to do their jobs. Indeed, one reason there is another funding standoff is that members widely believe that the greatest political risk would come…
Contact Biography Elizabeth Klein is an experienced leader in clean energy, climate change, and environmental law and policy. Klein most recently served as the Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at the U.S. Department of the Interior, responsible for the management of America’s offshore energy and mineral resources. Prior to assuming that role,…
Contact Biography Mike Nelson is the Chief of Staff/ Director of Communications at Penn Washington, the University of Pennsylvania’s office in Washington, D.C. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. Michael Nelson most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer at the Global Energy Security Institute and, prior to that, as…
Biography Aaleyah is a senior at the University of Pennsylvania from Bentonville, Arkansas, studying Political Science and Africana Studies in the College, with a language certificate in Mandarin Chinese. She is passionate about advocacy, law, public policy, and social change, with particular interests in criminal justice, educational equity, and voting rights. She enjoys learning about other…