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It’s not often that good news comes out of Washington. Today is an exception: the Obama Administration is expected to deny TransCanada’s Keystone XL tar sand pipeline application.

 we have to constantly ask a fundamental question: what is our economy for? What is the purpose of the game and therefore, what principles should guide the rules we set?

Few professions have been spared from the corrupting effects of today's intense focus on profits and the bottom line within corporate America. The medical profession has been one of the most notable casualties of this push, as top drugmakers have showered doctors with ethically questionable or illegal financial incentives to prescribe certain drugs.

The Corporate Reform Coalition – made up of institutional investors managing a combined total of $800 billion in assets, as well as public officials, legal scholars, good government groups and CEOs – will hold a telephone press conference to discuss a petition calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue rules on corporate political spending.

The only thing that separates progressives and conservatives when it comes to taxes is more or less  a matter of percentages: what is the best tax rate for each income bracket? Or, how much income tax should corporations pay? In fact, these debates are all variations on the same theme -- taxing wealth and income. A real distinction would start to arise if we started talking about changing what we tax.

Two years after this disastrous decision it’s time to accept that it’s wrong, out-of-touch with modern political reality, and needs to be overturned.

Republicans have made a big deal about the need to streamline government, so you'd think they would have cheered President Obama on today when he proposed bold action to consolidate federal agencies to increase efficiencies and impact.

Of course, though, that's not how Washington works. Today's GOP is reflexively against nearly any idea proposed by Obama -- even if it's their own idea (like cutting taxes to stimulate the economy, as we saw in the payroll tax extension flap last month).

A new study from Indiana University predicts that, while unemployment might be at its lowest rate since February 2009, the ranks of the poor will continue to grow in this decade. At the heart of the problem are the 97 million Americans who, while not poor, make less than 200 percent of the poverty line, approximately $45,000 for a family of four.