Media

With the failure (a foreseeable and eminently welcome development ) of the so-called

The supercommittee's failure is producing a predictable rash of handwringing about America's broken democracy.

Now that the supercommittee has closed it's doors, Congress can get on with the all-important work of extending two of the most powerful stimulus measures in effect today -- the reduced payroll tax and extended unemployment benefits.

Attentive students of Washington's now perpetual budget saga will recall that the deal to raise the debt ceiling back in August mandated an end to both the payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits. As we noted back then:

NEW YORK -- In a new analysis released today, national policy center Demos announced a major milestone in its work to build a more inclusive democracy: Across five states, more than one million additional low-income Americans, the most vulnerable of “the 99%”, have filled out voter registration forms at public assistance agencies since 2007.  

Energy Secretary Steven Chu testifying last week

Talk about a waste of taxpayer dollars.

Ok, it’s true. The Obama Administration did make an environmental decision based on politics and undue outside influence. But it’s not the one that you think.

A coalition of civil rights groups are preparing an amicus brief to defend the “No Representation Without Population Act” challenged in Fletcher v. Lamone. Maryland’s first-in-the-nation law requiring the state to count prisoners at their home addresses is protective of minority voting rights.

If libertarians had been calling the shots in Washington in the fall of 2008, the United States might now be in a second Great Depression.