“We were robbed” is an age-old kvetch in American politics. Candidates, who toil and suffer innumerable indignities while campaigning understandably will feel pain when votes tallies indicate it was all for naught. And, it must be admitted, election fraud and mischief do occur — although rarely on a scale that
Last week, the US Postal Service (USPS) announced that it had brought in $77 billion in revenue in the past year. That record-setting number popped a few eyes. It is $4 billion more than the agency reaped last year, and it exceeds the agency’s high-water mark (2008) by $3 billion, buoyed by
I got this book (John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2003) from a friend many years ago, but it sat on my shelf unread. Recently, I was thinking about this late friend and decided it was past time to crack The Iron Triangle. I study governance for a living, and I
Nobody can argue that Congress or recent presidents have been particularly serious about managing the nation’s finances responsibly. Excepting the fiscal bargain struck in 2013 that slapped caps on outlays, our nations’ leaders have shown themselves happy to cut taxes while jacking up spending…. (Read more)
Jan. 6, 2021, was a very bad day for our nation. A mob gathered on Capitol Hill. Some of them erected gallows. Others smashed onlooking journalists’ cameras and equipment. Still, others flew Confederate battle flags, the banner of mid-19th century southern insurrectionists. Then the crowd assaulted police officers and broke
Across the country, debates are erupting over the use of partisan primaries and first-past-the-post voting. There is a concern that this century-old way of voting is producing extreme candidates who have little incentive to govern competently. Various municipalities and states are experimenting with open primaries, ranked choice voting (RCV), and