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As states look to expand education funding and provide health care for
their citizens-- along with paying for other social needs-- the hardest
challenge is figuring out what taxes need to be raised to accomplish
this.
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Legislators in North Dakota are promoting the radical idea that the candidate who wins the most votes for President should actually be President. The legislature introduced a bill last week to award its electoral votes to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. A national...
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Tax cuts for seniors? Helping older voters on fixed incomes seems like
a good idea to many legislators, but a number of states are passing tax
cuts for taxpayers over age 65 regardless of whether the seniors need
the help:
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Yesterday, state legislators from across America joined with U.S.
Senator Ted Kennedy, Progressive States, and our partners at MoveOn,
the Women Legislators' Lobby, and Americans Against Escalation in Iraq
to discuss the power (.wav format) of states to play a key role in preventing President...
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The debate to reform California's health care system is on. This past Monday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed a sweeping reform of the state's health care system designed
to achieve universal coverage through a mix of new rules and
requirements targeting employers, insurers, and individuals...
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Here's a simple way for consumers to save nearly $23 billion a year in
energy costs: just shift 7 percent of their electricity usage from a
peak period (when everyone else is tapping the grid) to a less costly
time. Run more washes at night -- when many power plants are currently
idle -- and we can...
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The past thirty years have seen a marked decline in job quality for a substantial portion of the U.S. workforce: stagnant wages, shrinking health benefits and less job security.
While a number of factors explain this decline, there is little
question that the decline in the strength of labor...
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When an impeccably pro-business outfit like Business Week declares victory for the business lobby in shutting the courtroom door to victims of corporate negligence, you know injured consumers and workers have been losing badly. But this week's cover story, How Business Trounced The Trial Lawyers,...
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Last fall, we highlighted how corrupt privatization
of social services management in Texas had handed Accenture a billion
dollars in revenue, even as the company's incompetence led to many
families being unjustifiably denied public services.
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Two years into Maine's DirigoChoice insurance program, designed to
expand access to health insurance to Maine's uninsured individuals and
small businesses, the state is grappling with how to fund the program.
While the program's governing board recently voted to assess a controversial assessment...
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This year's Quality Counts report from Education Week
has broadened its traditional focus on K-12 education to examine what
states are doing in early education to prepare students for public
school -- and how K-12 education is helping students prepare for
college and the workforce. The report...
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State governments are not waiting on D.C. to develop an energy
independence policy for their states. Instead, almost half the states
have taken the lead on promoting and utilizing renewable energy.
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