In the Public Interest

Grover G. Norquist, chairman of the Reagan Legacy Project, is a man with a rapid mission. He and his colleagues want to place the former president’s name on one location after another, while the ailing Gipper is still alive and accorded public sympathy for his condition. For once Reagan passes, he joins other deceased Presidents…

Congress is in a twitter about the Internet. Bills are pouring into the legislative hopper regarding issues of privacy, taxation of sales, wiring schools to the information highway, identity theft, spammers sending unsolicited e-mail advertisements and online gambling. Last month, the Council for Excellence in Government released a plan for “achieving full electronic government in…

As a state dominated by the oil and gas industry and other large corporations, Texas has generated little excitement about government reforms. That’s changing, and much of the credit goes to the bright light that a public interest group, Texans for Public Justice (TPJ), has focused on the state’s judiciary, legislature and the governor’s office.…

There can be no vibrant American democracy without a vibrant labor union movement. Unions enable working people to band together to enliven our modest political democracy and they are by far the most important institution working to infuse at least a modicum of the nation’s democratic values into the economic sphere. Whatever their limitations and…

President Bush may not realize it, but moderate and liberal members of Congress could save him a lot of grief if they voted down or sharply modified the Administration’s proposal for a massive tax cut. Fueled by the excess of campaign promises, the President’s $1.6 trillion tax cut threatens to return the nation to the…

When Bill Clinton headed out of town last month, political pundits were anointing the former President as Washington’s master politician. Perhaps not the most ethical, but the most skilled was a near unanimousverdict. Did these pundits overlook Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve Chairman who has had everyone from right wing conservatives to staunch liberals sitting…

Richard A. Grasso, chairman and chief executive officer of the New York Stock Exchange and his merry band of traders must believe that Robin Hood had it all wrong. Grasso and company want to take from the working families, small business people and the other taxpayers of New York and give to the wealthy investors…

Revolving doors through which corporate executives glide effortlessly between private sector employment and government jobs and back again seem to be a fixture of every national Administration. Neither the Democratic nor Republican Administrations are immune from the practice which blurs the distinctions between the interests of corporate America and the broader concerns of the public…

Next time some major industry starts talking about the glories of deregulation, consumers should hold tightly to their billfolds. The rush to deregulate has intensified over the past 25 years as lobbyists for airlines, cable television, financial institutions and telephone, natural gas and electrical utilities have succeeded in convincing compliant local, state and national legislative…

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are the envy of the corporate world. When it comes to corporate welfare subsidies and implicit government guarantees—they are in a league all to themselves. Increasingly, the two corporations dominate the mortgage finance market and largely dictate the terms and conditions on which home buyers may obtain shelter—while using their…