Social Issues

For decades, the Chamber of Commerce has called for stepped-up efforts to restrain health-care inflation, saying it hurts U.S. competitiveness and keeps businesses from hiring.

But now, the Chamber is paying millions of dollars to blanket our state with commercials that accuse Democrats of cutting $500 billion from Medicare through the Affordable Care Act. The commercial is an attack ad against Sen.

Almost none of the money that the federal government provides to state and local governments for justice system improvements goes to helping to defend poor people, says a Government Accountability Office study quoted by The Constitution Project. The organization says the report bears out claims that supporters of indigent defense have made for years that there is an enormous disparity between governmental financial support for prosecutors and defenders.

It's a common refrain for victorious politicians who campaigned on promises of roads paved with gold and ponies for all.

Once they get into office, they realize, to their horror of course, that their predecessors had patched together the budget with duct tape and Laffy Taffy. There's no money to be had.

Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Gov. Madeleine Kunin, a Democrat and the first woman to serve as the governor of the state of Vermont.

If anyone still clings to the belief that social change is impossible in this country they have to think again after President Obama’s announcement last week that he supports the right of gay and lesbian Americans to marry.