Search results

Title: The Handicapped Children's Protection Act of 1986: The constitutionality of its retroactive authorization of awards of attorneys' fees
Date: 1987
Summary: In 1986, Congress, overturning a Supreme Court decision, authorized courts to award attorney's fees to prevailing plaintiffs in actions or proceedings brought under the Education of the Handicapped Act. This report examines whether retroactive application of the 1986 Act, to the data of the Supreme Court decision, is constitutional.

Title: Private school enrollments: A review of selected data
Date: 1985
Summary: This paper provides a brief overview of selected data on the following aspects of private elementary and secondary school enrollment: numbers of students, enrollment of minority (blacks and Spanish origin) students, enrollment in religiously affiliated private schools, and enrollment of students from families with different levels of annual income. Where appropriate, comparisons are made to enrollment in public elementary and secondary schools.

Title: Jobs and the economic recovery: How have industries, regions, and workers fared?
Date: 1985
Summary: After nearly three years of economic expansion, there has been widespread failure across manufacturing industries and regions to fully recoup their precession employment levels. Even if each manufacturing industry eventually recovers all its jobs losses in the same regions in which the lay offs occurred -- a very unlikely assumption -- dislocated workers probably will be unable to await their recall by former employers; instead, they will have to take new jobs in different industries, occupations, or areas. While the greater availability of jobs since the recovery began has enabled a majority of dislocated workers to be reemployed, dislocated workers today represent about 1 out of every 10 employed workers.

Title: Hold the phone: The federal excise tax on telephone service; a history and discussion of issues
Date: 1984
Summary: In April 1984 the House of Representatives passed the Tax Reform Act of 1984 (H.R. 4170) and the Senate its Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (an amendment to H.R. 2163, a bill to amend the Federal Boat Safety Act of 1971), both of which provide for the continuation of the excise tax on telephone service at its 3-percent rate for an additional two years, through 1987. This action was deemed appropriate by congress in light of the large existing budgetary deficits. This paper presents an overall view of the Federal excise tax on telephone service. A description of the history of this tax and revenue collections are followed by an explanation to clarify the relationship of this tax to the U.S. actions in Vietnam during the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, this paper concludes with the principal arguments made by proponents for continuation of the tax and the opponents of the tax who support repeal.

Title: Recent judicial expansions of tort law in the area of environmental pollution
Date: 1986
Summary: This report assesses whether increased losses of liability insurers may be due in part to expanded tort-law interpretations in the field of environmental pollution. It concludes that there has indeed been such an expansion in recent decades, but numerous other factors may also be contributing to the claimed liability insurance crisis.

Title: Influence of structural movement on sedimentation: during the Pennsylvanian period in Western Missouri
Date: 1968
Summary: Includes eight plates. University of Missouri studies, volume 45.

Title: In vitro fertilization and human embryo transfer: Current status and issues
Date: 1985
Summary: The techniques used in In Virtro Fertilization (IVF) have expanded significantly since the birth in 1978 of the first so-called "test-tube" baby. Technical advances, such as the use of a freezing technique known as cryopreservation and the application of drugs to stimulate the maturation of multiple ova during a woman's menstrual cycle, have contributed to improved successful pregnancy rates and also to wider uses of IVF as a means of treating infertility. This paper describes the techniques currently being used in this area of reproduction and also presents some of the problems associated with the uses of these techniques.

Title: The legality of securities brokerage activities of financial institutions
Date: 1985

Title: Economics book reviews: Regulation and industry studies: January/June 1986
Date: 1986

Title: Vocational education and proposals for trade competitiveness
Date: 1987
Summary: The inclusion of vocational education as a component in some of the recent legislative initiatives related to American trade competitiveness is analyzed. The proposals are described, and sponsors' statements summarized. The history of vocational education, studies of its effectiveness, and its role in current recommendations to reform the American educational system are reviewed as they might relate to current trade problems.

Title: Section 8 and section 202 housing programs: Summary and pro-con analysis
Date: 1986
Summary: This paper briefly describes two housing programs of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): Section 8 and Section 202. Since 1976, Section 8 has been the Federal Government's chief rental assistance program, sheltering approximately 2.2 million households. Section 202 is a program designed specifically to house the elderly and handicapped, and since its revision in 1974, it has housed approximately 143,000 households. There have been criticisms of both of the programs and these criticisms are also discussed in this paper.

Title: Budget sequestration procedures for fiscal year 1987: Summary of congressional action
Date: 1986

Title: The cumulative educational debt of postsecondary students: Amounts and measures of manageability
Date: 1984
Summary: Concerns about the increasing levels of debt incurred by postsecondary education students have been expressed with growing frequency in the past several years, particularly with regard to the borrowing by graduate and professional level students. This paper reviews and assesses what has recently been reported on the levels of debt being accumulated by postsecondary students, what various analyses have concluded is the threshold for manageable debt, and what the results are when educational debt manageability thresholds are applied to current levels of student debt. The general findings of the paper are that: (1) the data on student borrowing are very limited; (2) the largest amounts of money are being borrowed by professional level students, particularly those in medicine and law; (3) it is not clear how burdensome these levels of debt are; and (4) the manageable debt burden thresholds have a number of serious problems and, at best, provide only crude measures of the extent to which students incur unmanageable levels of debt.

Title: Farm income and debt: Editorial commentary
Date: 1984
Summary: This compilation presents editorials printed between August 3 and October 11, 1984 on farm income and debt. The editorials represent all those appearing on that subject in 100 newspapers monitored by the Congressional Research Service. The editorials are arranged by region to illustrate the concerns and responses in various parts of the country, and chronologically within each region.

Title: The airport improvement program
Date: 1984
Summary: The Airport and Airway Improvement Act of 1982 provided for reinstitution of a Federal airport improvement program. This report discusses the major features of this program and experience with it to date. The report also discusses major issues that may affect the program in the future.