A mere one-seat change in the U.S. Senate would dramatically transform the world of public affairs in Washington. For the last year, divided government has blocked many major initiatives from passage. With Republicans running the House and Democrats enjoying a one-vote majority in the Senate, President Bush and Congress have failed this year to enact …
The upcoming elections will do more than determine the makeup of Congress, statehouses and city councils. They surely will generate another round of hand-wringing about low voter turnout and, in turn, the sorry state of American democracy. In fact, the hand-wringing has already begun. A recent op-ed in The Boston Globe by Thomas Patterson, a …
Continue reading “Voting Isn’t the Be-All, End-All of American Democracy”
With Congress engaged in partisan warfare over whether to raise the federal debt limit, jeopardizing the government’s ability to pay its bills in the coming days, lawmakers should take a much bolder step: Scrap the debt limit altogether. The debt limit is worse than useless. It’s dangerous. It creates the risk that Washington will default …