Congress is a basket case. Our national legislature has passed only a couple dozen laws this year, a count which includes legislation naming a post office and appointing former Senator Bob Dole a colonel. Committees, once congressional powerhouses, are moving little legislation and are conducting fewer oversight hearings than in past decades. Meanwhile, huge issues—like […]
Early this month, on the opening day of the 116th Congress, something unusual happened: The House of Representatives took a step to reform itself. Legislators approved a package of rules changes to fix some of its more glaring problems. Some of these are long overdue: As of Jan. 4, representatives can no longer sit on […]
Donald Trump startled corporate America this week by unleashing a broadside against Amazon.com for, of all things, victimizing the Postal Service. As he put it on Twitter….(Read more)
In 1897, a year when mail was still largely delivered by horse and wagon, construction began on an innovative scheme beneath the streets of Philadelphia. Using an intricate network of compressors and metal pipes, the new system could shoot a capsule holding a few hundred letters across a city in several minutes, far faster than […]
The executive order issued by President Donald Trump yesterday has a goal nearly every citizen and legislator would cheer: to “improve the efficiency, effectiveness and accountability of the executive branch.” What’s not to like? The executive branch is an organizational basket case, and it sorely needs a re-think. For 238 years, citizen legislators and presidents […]
On Monday, the Trump Administration made its first big move against overregulation, issuing an executive order requiring agencies to repeal two current regulations for each new one they propose. The order also imposes a regulatory budget come FY2018, which would limit the amount of new regulatory costs agencies can impose on individuals and businesses each […]
