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A new report from the Congressional Research Service looks how a carbon tax could be used for deficit reduction or other fiscal measures. The CRS projects that a tax rate of $20 per metric ton of carbon dioxide would generate approximately $88 billion in 2012 and up to $144 billion by 2020. This would be enough to cut the 10-year budget deficit in half under the 2012 baseline CBO projection.

What's wrong credit card companies?

Here is an industry that has been repeatedly chastised and penalized for all sorts of bad behavior -- an industry that abused its customers so badly for so long, with hidden fees and usurious interest rates, that one of the first things Democrats did when they took control of the White House in 2009 was to enact legislation to rein in credit card issuers.

Each major election, thousands of volunteers fan out in communities all across the nation to register their neighbors to vote. You may see some of them in your travels today, National Voter Registration Day. Community voter registration drives like these provide an essential service, adding many thousands of unregistered citizens to the voter rolls.

Outside money transforms California’s income inequality, among the worst in the country, into political inequality.

NEW YORK – Governor Jerry Brown signed California Assembly Bill 1436 providing for future implementation of Election Day Voter Registration, also known as “Same Day Registration,” a reform that Demos and over two dozen voting rights organizations supported.

An income gap exists between Congress and the general population, and the gap is getting bigger. The Center For Responsive Politics documents the increase of congressional wealth over the past few years. In effect, Americans are now being represented not by their peers; but by the 1 percent.

Mitt Romney's release of his 2011 tax rates -- which showed that he paid a 14 percent tax rate -- has again spotlighted the preferential ways that the tax code treats invested wealth. While a multimillion dollar income earned by an employee -- say, a baseball player or a news anchor -- would be taxed at 35 percent (not including payroll taxes), the rate for capital gains income is 15 percent.

When the Supreme Court in Citizens United allowed corporations to spend money in elections they thought that shareholders would be able to monitor the use of corporate funds “through procedures of corporate democracy.”

On the eve of National Voter Registration Day, California has taken a huge leap forward in reducing the barriers to voting. Governor Brown signed into law a Same Day Registration program, making California the 11th (and largest) state – plus Washington, D.C.