The War on Taxes: Expiration of Bush Taxes, an Opportunity for Growth
At midnight this New Year’s Eve most Americans will be watching the ball drop in Times Square. However, as the ball is dropping there will be a far more important change within the tax system. Set to expire at midnight are the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) and the Jobs […]
Public Security in Private Hands: American Intelligence Goes Corporate
In 2006, under considerable pressure from the public to provide information about the use of tax dollars in matters of national security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) conducted the first comprehensive study of the use of private intelligence contractors since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Alarmingly, it found that […]
Bitter Sweets: The Problem of Child Labor in the Cocoa Industry
Ten-year-old Madi, whose family cannot afford to send him to school, spends his days hacking away at cocoa pods with a machete. Such conditions are common in the Ivory Coast’s farms where 43% of the world’s chocolate is produced. Although United States chocolate companies passed a protocol to get rid of “the worst forms of […]
Fields Without Fences? Negotiating the Net
In the 1960s, the Cold War was in full swing. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had launched the first artificial satellite into space, giving their country the advantage in space over its major rival, the United States. For the first time, the threat of weapons, known as intercontinental ballistic missiles, hung over the […]
Raising or Razing the American Family? Reforming Parental Leave
Family leave policies in the workplace have traditionally focused on women, reflecting traditional American cultural values that assign a dominant role for mothers in the child rearing process. Recent research shows that this framework neglects the role fathers can play. Parents learn the “maternal instinct” through caring for a child in the initial stages of […]