BY JIM HIGHTOWER One thing that governors and mayors absolutely love to do is win a prize in the national game called “Corporate Welfare Roulette.” It’s a simple casino-style game in which politicos put down a big stack of taxpayers’ money on an out-of-state corporation as an “incentive,” hoping that their bet outbids other states […]

BY FROMA HARROP The age of adulthood – and the rights and responsibilities that come with it – is largely a matter of opinion. Age 18 traditionally separates minors from adults. But one can’t legally buy a drink in America until age 21. Meanwhile, many states are now sending minors into the adult criminal justice […]

BY SUSAN ESTRICH Everyone knows that what doesn’t destroy you makes you stronger. That is particularly true in politics, where a hard kick either knocks you down or wakes you up. President Obama and the Democrats got that hard kick last month, when a perfect storm resulted in the election of Massachusetts’ first Republican senator […]

BY JOE CONASON The most revealing moments in President Obama’s State of the Union Address were not in his remarks, but the reaction to them by those listening on the Republican side of the aisle. When he proposed to recover a “financial responsibility fee” – in plainer English, a bank tax – from the largest […]

BY FROMA HARROP Sunbelt-and-sprawl advocate Joel Kotkin wrote two years ago that the future of American urbanism wasn’t in the “elite cities,” such as New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco, but in “younger, more affordable and less self-regarding places.” He named [his order] Houston, Charlotte, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dallas and Riverside, CA. Boom-city […]