Social Security has built into its law and budgets a ‘Cost of Living Adjustment‘ (COLA) tied to inflation and/or rising prices. Those prices have, if anything, fallen during The Great Recession, so recipients have not seen a COLA since 2009. But the Social Security Administration published its formula this week to account for a 3.6% […]
#PublicPolicy: Net Neutrality Remains Hot, Unspoken, Political Issue
You might recall a great line from a little ditty from the 1780s. It is from a song we like to call The Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the […]
ACORN Shuts Down and/or Breaks Up
The board of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now announced today that its national organization was shutting down operations, though state-level community organizations may (and surely will) continue to function. The move likely was, as Frank James at NPR‘s blog put it, a “mercy killing.” The national organization faced charges of bending rules […]
In-depth: ‘Series on 10 Ways to Use Recovery Funds for Green Buildings’
Last Friday (22 January) we blogged about some of the ways money from the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)” was being put into the greening of standing buildings and the creation of green public and government buildings. There was a very positive response to the posting, so this week we are starting an occasional […]