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A Nation of Tax-Evaders

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The furor over the non-payment of taxes by Tom Daschle and a few other recent nominees for public office should not obscure the deeper truth that the United States has become a nation of tax-evaders.On the simplest level, this tax evasion is exemplified by the fact that vast numbers of people, including some who are quite wealthy, under-report their incomes to avoid paying their lawful share of the nation's taxes.  And still others, especially millionaires and billionaires, avoid

The Chimera of Bipartisanship

by Daniel Mandel

I am not alone in being puzzled by the preoccupation with the alleged need for bipartisanship in our politics. True, President Obama did made a big show when campaigning for the White House of calling for a new era on precisely this basis, but some, like the Washington Post's David Broder seem to have confounded rhetorica

We're Not Heading to Socialism

by Robert Brent Toplin

Socialism has become our new scare word. It is not yet the major bugaboo that communism became during the Cold War or terrorism became after 9/11, but this “ism” has been getting a lot of nervous attention of late. Some politicians warn that the government’s stimulus package and aid to financial institutions could put the country on a road to socialism. Newsweek’s editors summed up the concern in a recent cover story: “We Are All Socialists Now: The Perils an

Finally, Too Many Cars

by Carl Abbott

Rushing to beat a deadline, General Motors and Chrysler last Tuesday afternoon filed required restructuring plans with federal officials. Chrysler wants $5 billion more in federal loans to stay afloat. GM needs another $9.1 billion now, with more requests likely down the road. The short-term question of whether the two auto giants warrant a bailout or bankruptcy sidesteps the deeper reality: Americans finally have enough cars. The precipitous plunge in aut

Lunar Man-Bats? Nineteenth Century, Meet the Twenty-First

by Matthew Goodman

In the summer of 1835, a newspaper in New York called the Sun managed to convince a majority of the city’s residents that the

The Election of Barack Obama and the Politics of Interracial and Same-Sex Marriage

by Peggy Pascoe

The election (and now the inauguration) of Barack Obama has inspired a widespread sense of awe at the scope and scale of change in race relation

Vertigo Years: Living in an Age of Uncertainty

by Philipp Blom

What a first decade for a century! Even before Wall Street collapsed as the speculation bubble burst there was uncertainty everywhere: the United States was embr

The Internet and Jefferson's Moose

by David G. Post

In 1995, I wrote a small essay for the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s then-newfangled “website,” entitled “Jefferson in Cyberspace.”  The thesis was this:  the great

Can Evangelicals Be Part of a Pro-Choice Consensus? Lessons from the Past

by Blake Ellis

Despite a flurry of articles questioning the potency of the Christian Right in national politics, the movement continues to demonstrate its stranglehold over Republican politicians. The most recent example of its influence was Republicans’ successful effort to remove birth control funding from Barack Obama’s stimulus package. The provision would have made it easier for states to offer contraception through Medicaid to women who are not currently covered by the program. Despite substa

The End of the Ownership Society?

by Marc Goldwein

In his second inaugural address, President Bush offered a vision of an"ownership society" In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence… To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will… build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By

Barack Obama Didn’t Win the Presidential Debates – And Neither Did John McCain

by Aaron Zelinsky

The 2008 Presidential Election has passed from current events into recent history. From a broader historical perspective, the 2008 presidential debates had little impact on the two major party nominees. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain committed a slip-up on par with Gerald Ford's supposed gaffe that Poland was"independent." Neither scored the knockout blow of Ronald Reagan's now legendary put down of Jimmy Carter:"There you go again." Neither Sarah Palin nor Joe Biden came close to Lloyd

What We Should Learn from the Founders' Decision to Put Off Hard Choices About Slavery

by Douglas R. Egerton

In the summer of 1800, as white Virginians organized to elevate Thomas Jefferson into the Executive Mansion, slaves in half a dozen counties prepared to r

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner:  Barack Obama and the Myth of a Post Racial America

by Ron Briley

Despite the best efforts of Rush Limbaugh to take credit for spoiling the Obama political honeymoon by convincing all Republican members of the House of Representatives to reject the President’s economic stimulus package, public approval rates for the President remain at record highs; leading some to conclude that we have entered a post racial America.  Indeed, there is much to celebrate in electing and inaugurating a black President in a Southern city where, as Obama remarked in his

Jews, Commerce and Controversy

by Jonathan Karp

As the story of Bernie Madoff ‘s massive fraud began to circulate following his December 11 arrest, many Jews experienced a profound sense

The Economic Crisis is an Environmental Crisis: Trash Has Crashed

by Carl Zimring

Trash has crashed.  So said the New York Times in December, observing the swift decline in value for recycled paperstock, plastics, and metals over the final two months of 2008.  During that time, mixed paper fell from $105 to $25 per ton.  The Ti

A New Era or the New Deal?

by Nick Underwood

President Barack Obama aims to “hit the ground running” in his attempt to fix the current economic situation.  This immediacy has enabled a public discussion that equates Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan (ARRP) with that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first “New Deal” and the “Three Rs”—Relief, Reform, and Recovery.  Little discussion, however, has been made of three Rs themselves, muddying the comparisons between

Obama’s Opportunity to be a Transformational Leader

by John W. Sloan

The election of Barack Obama has generated speculation that he can—and will—emulate the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the manne

So Geithner Thinks He Has Problems?

by David Huyssen

Many in Congress have denounced the financial bailouts underway in the U.S., some calling them “un-American.” They’ve forgotten that the man who financed American independence needed a bailout too. Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence and prominent pre-war Philadelphia merchant, faced a task that would have made Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner quail when the Continental Congress appointed him Superintendent of Finance in late spring of 1781. In i

Should Obama Really Be Pressing for a Consensus?

by John A. Grigg

Bipartisanship—or consensus—has become a powerful motif in American politics. Pragmatically, the American political structure with both a strong legislative branch and a strong executive branch as well as a party structure that does not enforce legislative conformity on its members requires some degree of cooperation across party lines. On the other hand, politicians of all stripes invoke the term in a cynical effort to silence dissenting views. Nor should we discount the natural hum

Warren Harding, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Whaat?

by Phillip Payne

In the movie Gabriel Over the White House (1933) an ineffective, philandering, president is transformed by a near-tragic accident from a party hack into an activist pre