“Caterpillar has pioneered a two-tier wage system in which workers hired after a certain date are consigned to a significantly lower wage scale than others and it recently pressed its longer-term employees into accepting a six year wage freeze. Many Caterpillar workers ask why the company insisted on a pay freezer when it reported repeated record … Read More
In September 2012 the Library Board of Pulaski County raised property taxes $1 per year for a typical homeowner to maintain the existing level of services in its five libraries. Voters were not given the opportunity to reject the increase; in 2006 however, they were and resoundingly approved a much larger increase to finance a new … Read More
Our attitude toward medical marijuana has unfolded like a sisyphean tragedy in three acts. Act I: The People Press Their Case, Again and Again In 1937 Congress passed the Marihuana Tax Act, which made the recreational use of marijuana illegal. But it affirmed the right of physicians and pharmacists to prescribe and dispense it. The American … Read More
The gridlock that plagues Washington leads many, fairly or unfairly, to lump together the two parties and declare a pox on both their houses. But most state governments are not gridlocked. Just the opposite. In almost two thirds one party controls both legislative houses (Nebraska has a unicameral legislature) and the governorship: Republicans 20, Democrats 13. … Read More
For 225 years the U.S. Post Office has been the most admired and ubiquitous manifestation of government. From 1789 until the 1960s, the Cabinet level agency saw its mission not only to deliver the mail but to aggressively defend the public good. In the late 19th century when oligopolistic mail order delivery companies abused their rural … Read More
In his 1996 State of the Union Address Democratic President Bill Clinton famously declared, “the era of big government is over.” And during his tenure he did everything he could to make that true–deregulating the telecommunications and the financial industry, enacting a free trade agreement severely restricting the authority of the federal government to protect domestic … Read More
I’m not saying it’s time to break out the champagne and start chanting, “The people united will never be defeated”. But the past few weeks have brought us some heartwarming demonstrations that the popular will still has a bite. February 22: After a major public outcry, the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) directed federal … Read More
Back in 1977 Mother Earth News asked ILSR to write a column called Local Self-Reliance. Over the next several years we ended up writing more than three dozen. Rereading them after all these years, we’re struck by how current they seem. Back then we were identifying pioneering communities that were establishing solar utilities, expanding recycling, developing … Read More
“When the post office is closed, the flag comes down. When the human side of government closes its doors, we’re all in trouble.” Senator Jennings Randolph (West Virginia) 1958-85 For the post office the end game is on. This year the post office will close half its processing centers. By late spring a first class … Read More
