Live from the Nuke Free Zone

Back in 1969, Congress identified 155 households making bunches of money, tax-free, who were managing to avoid taxes. They passed some legislation called the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that forced these households to pay at least a minimum tax payment in order to be fair….

Regarding the Democratic debate to be held here at Drexel in two weeks, I last posted that I was pondering some questions to ask.  Here are some possibilities I’ve come up with; comments solicited:
1.) Thomas Jefferson exhorts us to “Fix Reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.’  What […]

I am currently working at Drexel University, which has recently been scheduled to host the October 30th Democratic Presidential debate. This means, presumably, that I may have the opportunity to ask a question.
Being a mathematician and educator by trade, I am particularly interested in questions on math, science, education, or combinations of these. […]

We got the House.
It looks like we got the Senate.  Hopefully.
We took several state legislatures.  This has national implications because it may allow redistricting to favor Democratic candidates in the next round, though I would rather bite the ethics bullet and have our new majorities push for simply drawing representative districts under neutral oversight rather […]

Recently in discussion with friends it was suggested that the accumulated damage being done to our social fabric by the actions of this administration was possibly nearing the point of irreparability.  I held this not to be the case, and mentioned a list I have been keeping for some time.  This is my To Be […]

Tomorrow I’ll be attending the Centre County Democratic Party’s monthly breakfast.  It’s more of a social event than a working event — it builds party bonds and attracts new people.  However, we also have a speaker — I may blog on the discussion next week — and tomorrow’s topic will be immigration.  This topic has […]

Well, I missed my regular Friday Questions column, but I’ve got a pretty good late version today, I think.
I’m reading articles about the Democrats challenging the Administration’s administration of the Iraq war, and the Republicans firing back in general with either “you don’t have a plan” or, if a plan is presented, “you want to […]

It’s a state race, but control of the Senate is at stake so it’s a national issue: Bob Casey will debate Rick Santorum on Meet the Press this Sunday. This should be a blast — check your local listings and watch Bob stomp our weird junior Senator into the ground!

Seriously, I’m trying to get out of the habit of linking a NYTimes article as the meat of my post, but for crying out loud. How much clearer can we be that ideology has trumped policy? The I.R.S. has a responsibility to collect unpaid taxes. Congress refuses to let the I.R.S. hire […]

Last year, the Zone noted a very localized, substantial increase in the minimum wage of Santa Fe, NM, an inland city reasonably representative of average American cities. The increase not being surrounded by a statewide increase, we thought it would make a good test case for arguments for and against raising minimum wages: namely, that […]