After decades of suffering environmental torture at the hands of polluting industries, West Virginians might regard a chemical spill that poisoned the drinking water of 300,000 residents — and is still scaring folks after the dangers have presumably passed — as a last straw. But there never seems to be a last straw for them. […]

In the beginning, Massachusetts opened the gates to same-sex marriage and universal health coverage. California started to liberalize drug laws by legalizing medical marijuana. The sky didn’t fall on any of these efforts, initially regarded as dangerous social experiments by many conservatives. Now red states such as Kentucky are launching state-run health insurance exchanges. Federal […]

A New York voice boomed from the back of the long car rental line: “Wha’d they do, lay off half the people?” One of my thoughts no doubt shared by fellow detainees waiting, waiting at the big-name car rental office at a Florida airport. Behind the desk flashed a screen informing us of the company’s […]

Could an aging population be good for economic growth? I mean, isn’t it an accepted fact that our economy will suffer as more Americans pass age 65 and start sitting around all day, soaking up government benefits? That’s the spiel, but many economists are not buying it. Older workers can fill in the labor gaps […]

Proposals to raise Social Security benefits are a refreshing antidote to portrayals of the program as a mere drain on the Treasury. Details of some such plans are troubling — for reasons I’ll go into — but the change in tone is most welcome. Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Sherrod Brown of Ohio […]

This week, a guard insisted on looking into my handbag as I entered Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular. He had absolutely no reason to suspect me or the hundreds of other patrons whose bags he similarly inspected of carrying guns or explosives. But none of us objected to the incursion. Speaking […]

Americans don’t care much about rising economic inequality, recent surveys suggest. But that’s not quite right. The public may know that the top 10 percent pulled in about half of pretax income in 2012 — and that income inequality is the widest it’s been since right before the Great Depression. Its brain understands that these […]