Brookings Today, 3/4/14

A roundup of some of the content published today by Brookings.

• Rethinking the budget process. David Wessel addresses three challenges of rethinking the federal budget process to help produce a durable consensus between the parties.

• Putin’s own world. Marvin Kalb says that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “very much in his own world” … “a frothy, determined Russian nationalism.”

• Health insurance for the “justice involved.” Kavita Patel, Amy Boutwell, Brad Brockmann and Josiah Rich write about expanding health coverage to people released from prison, 90 percent of whom lack insurance.

• Should unemployment be lower? George Perry argues that the ongoing economic expansion should give us 4.5 percent unemployment.

• Italian PM Renzi’s challenges. Riccardo Alcaro discusses new Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s EU economic policy challenges and the position the U.S. should take.

• Getting technology from universities to the public. Walter Valdivia explains why reform is needed in the process by which universities market patents to partners in the private sector.

Mingwei Ma contributed to this post.