The House has spent much of the last two months of this year trying to catch up on its work. It passed 22 bills in one recent day and held 13 committee meetings and hearings the day after. All told, the House has passed 41 bills since the end of the government shutdown on Nov. […]
Cancel Culture Goes Back At Least 50 Yea...
On March 20, 1974, Edward C. Banfield took the stage at the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute. He was there to deliver a lecture, “The City and the Revolutionary Tradition,” which was one of a series of talks to commemorate the upcoming bicentennial of the American Revolution. Banfield was a bespectacled, thin man with stooped shoulders from […]
Senate and Trump on a collision course o...
Gene L. Dodaro is not a household name. He is a mild-mannered man who is rarely seen without a necktie and dark suit, and who speaks in a flat, matter-of-fact tone. He has worked for the federal government since 1973. Yet, his retirement in December may well set off a separation-of-powers battle royale between President […]
After decades of red ink, a fresh push f...
The U.S government’s debt hit $37.6 trillion on Sept. 30, the end of the most recent fiscal year. To put that number in perspective, a stack of $1 bills in that amount would be 2.5 million miles tall. One day after the nation reached this ignominious fiscal mark, the federal government shut down due to a lack of funding. Legislators are […]
The US Postal Service is going broke
The US Postal Service (USPS) recently reported its third quarter financials, tallying a loss of $3.1 billion. That is 21 percent higher than the agency’s shortfall during the same period last year and the latest sign of the Post Office’s increasingly dire state. At its core, the Post Office is sinking. The $18.8 billion it earned in […]
Portland City Elections: Toward Two Part...
Portland, Oregon, first used its new proportional ranked-choice voting electoral system to elect city council members in November 2024. A variety of groups endorsed candidates in this nonpartisan election. Analyses of these groups’ endorsements point to the emergence of four political blocs: national progressivism, pro-business pragmatism, local progressivism, and laborism…. (Read more)