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New York, NY - On May 5 2012, the Connecticut Senate passed legislation introduced by Governor Dannell Malloy, and Secretary of the State Denise Merrill to enact Same Day Registration and online voter registration, effective July 2013 and January 2014, respectively. The bill, HR 5024, had been previously passed by the state House. It now heads to the governor’s desk for his signature, expected later this month.
What do Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber), Charles Manson, and a large majority of Americans have in common? People who are not insane would say nothing. The Heartland Institute, a right-wing think tank, however, recently put up a billboard that equated the 62 percent of people that think the weather is changing (i.e.
Earlier this year, when President Obama's critics were in overdrive trying to blame the White House for rising gas prices, we wrote that there were three main ways to bring gas prices down: end oil speculation to prevent market distortions, reduce tensions with Iran, and meaningfully increase investment in alternative energies to diversify our fuel supply. We also noted that if Americans drove more fuel efficient vehicles, fluctuations in gas prices would be less of a big deal.
If Washington is going debate tax reform, fundamental questions should be on the table: Like, for instance, how we might tax bad things -- i.e., pollution and over-consumption -- instead of good things, like work and wealth creation.
One obstacle to such a rethinking, though, is that energy and pollution taxes scare the heck out of elected leaders. Everyone remembers Bill Clinton's disastrous BTU proposal in 1993 and -- more recently -- how easily a vote for climate change legislation in 2009 was turned into a liability for House members.
The Federal government has been regulating electrical products almost since electricity was invented. And, for decades, it has set energy efficiency standards for a variety of products -- from cars to air conditioners to refrigerators.
Every single working day of the year, American women pay a 22.6 percent gender tax on their income. By gender tax, I mean a negative transfer imposed upon women’s wages which reduces the wealth they control and increases the amount of time they work.
The April 2012 employment situation summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a continuation of the apparent slow-down in job growth that began in March. With just enough jobs added in April to keep up with the expanding population and fewer people participating in the weak labor market, the drop in the unemployment rate to 8.1 percent denotes a lethargic recovery rather than the kind of improvement that workers can celebrate. As is typical, young people faced higher unemployment