All U.S. states provide tax credits and exemptions to older Americans, who clearly benefit and appreciate the help. Of course, people retired from the labor force do not owe payroll taxes, and their income tax rates may fall as well. Nevertheless, most citizens over age 65 must get by on relatively fixed budgets – and income for the typical older household is about half the level for all U.S. households. For many seniors, the cost of state and local taxes can loom large.

Not just older residents, but entire states may reap benefit from these tax breaks for seniors. Migrant retirees may move in, establishing new homes and spending pensions earned elsewhere. But there can also be disadvantages for localities and states that provide large and growing tax breaks to older residents. The pros and cons become evident when we look more closely at the various kinds of elder tax abatements and consider their consequences in the context of growing public budget pressures.  more...

The U.S. Senate is considering a bipartisan reform called “the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.” If this bill or something close to it passes the Senate and the House and is signed into law by the President, many of the eleven million undocumented immigrants currently living in the United States could gain legal standing and get on a path to eventual citizenship. But the planned route is long and winding, and most undocumented people would have to wait a decade for legal residency and thirteen years for citizenship. What happens in the meantime if these men, women, and children need access to food assistance, health care, or cash assistance during spells of joblessness?

Researchers have documented that poor immigrants are less likely to use U.S. public benefits than their native-born counterparts. But like American citizens, immigrants can get injured or sick, or they may work full time for wages so low that they still fall below the poverty line. When such adverse events happen, public benefits can be vital sources of assistance. Yet as we are about to see, the current immigration legislation takes unprecedentedly harsh – and arguably unwise – steps to deny all public social supports to most citizens-in-waiting.  more...

Note: The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act was passed by the Senate on June 27 and has moved on to the House.

Pundits are saying the U.S. Congress is about to enact comprehensive immigration reform – that is, legislation combining enhanced enforcement with a path to citizenship for about eleven million undocumented migrants currently living in the United States. Momentum has built since the November 2012 elections put the voting clout of America’s diverse and growing minority groups on full display, and a bipartisan “Gang of Eight” Senators has put forward a bill primed for full Congressional debate. But comprehensive legislation has repeatedly failed before. Will it be different this time?

Although there are no crystal balls, recent history provides sufficient information to make informed predictions. I use some 16,000 earlier Congressional votes on immigration issues to estimate the number of “yes” and “no” votes likely to be cast this time by 535 members of Congress. My analysis suggests that even though a filibuster-proof margin of over 60 votes is well within reach in the Senate, the road to comprehensive reform legislation is much more difficult in the House – and will depend on some legislators changing course. more...

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a milestone in the long fight to ensure all Americans access to the ballot box. For nearly two centuries before President Lyndon Johnson signed this legislation, most African Americans were disenfranchised by law, force, or trickery. Starting in 1965, the U.S. Justice Department gained special authority to enforce minority voting rights, including the use of a Section 5 provision to review, in advance, any changes in election rules in states or districts with a proven history of discrimination. Where poll taxes, literacy tests and sheer terror once kept them from the polls, African Americans gained unprecedented citizen clout. Black interests and candidates gained new representation, and decades later high African American turnout helped elect and re-elect Barack Obama as the first black president of the United States. more...

In 2008, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin grabbed the national spotlight when Republican presidential candidate John McCain nominated her to be his running mate. Although reporters were mistaken in their speculation that Palin was chosen to woo female voters from the Democratic Party, McCain’s choice of a woman for the GOP ticket both underlined and heightened the profile of conservative women in U.S. politics.

Conservative women activists are not a new phenomenon. As central actors in social movements on the right, they have been politically active for as long as feminists and their supporters have pushed goals such as women’s suffrage, equal pay, the Equal Rights Amendment, and legalized abortion. A full understanding of women in U.S. politics is simply not possible without recognizing the many ways in which conservative women have shifted, reshaped, and pushed the boundaries of political engagement and policy debates. more...

Bell, California, is a working-class community of about 35,000 residents – and a textbook case for why U.S. democracy needs serious journalism to hold public officials accountable. For years, Bell’s city councilors awarded themselves exorbitant pay increases without transparency. They claimed stipends for serving on boards and commissions that seldom met. The city administrator took a salary of nearly $800,000, with benefits that brought his annual compensation to $1.5 million; and the police chief enjoyed an annual salary of $457,000 plus benefits, more than twice what the New York City Police Commissioner earned. Glaring corruption continued unimpeded – until 2010 when the Los Angeles Times blew the whistle in a well-researched expose. more...

A recently issued Heritage Foundation report on the cost of legalizing currently undocumented immigrants in the United States has been widely discredited because one of its authors, Jason Richwine, has made outlandish racial assertions about the supposedly lower intelligence of Hispanic immigrants. Nevertheless, some commentators still believe the report’s fiscal projections. “You can’t wish away the facts about immigration amnesty,” says Daily Beast columnist David Frum, as he points to the Heritage claim that “the Senate immigration bill will cost taxpayers $6 trillion over the next 50 years.” However, a close look reveals that this cost projection rests on problematic calculations and morally repugnant assumptions. more...

Congress is currently debating a piece of bipartisan immigration reform called the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act. Devised by eight Senators, this proposal includes key steps to block future surges in illegal immigration. Certain provisions would reinforce militarized barriers developed in the southwest since the 1990s, while other provisions call for strengthened requirements for all U.S. businesses to use the computerized “E-Verify” system to check the legal status of applicants for jobs they offer.

Both approaches are bound to be included in any successful legislation, yet important evidence reveals why workplace enforcement is preferable. Workplace checks to prevent undocumented immigrants from taking jobs need to be refined and applied in ways that respect civil liberties. But reliance on purely militarized barriers at the border does not work as well as promised – and it pushes determined migrants into desert sectors, where hundreds die every year trying to cross into the United States. more...

As Congress considers comprehensive immigration reform, one key issue centers on whether to offer more visas and legal residency to highly skilled foreigners in science, technology, engineering and math fields. High tech employers argue that lawmakers should expand such visas. But organizations representing American workers claim there are plenty of natives who can fill tech jobs, if only U.S. employers would offer better wages and benefits, rather than running to Congress to admit foreigners who work for less in hope of gaining legal residency. I lay out both sides of this vital argument and suggest what balanced reforms might look like.  more...

Death by gunfire is a regularly recurring tragedy in the United States. In 2010, for example, 8,775 homicides were committed with a firearm—equal to one gun death for every hour of every day all through the year. Recent mass shootings like those in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, make Americans even more worried about gun violence—and there is real cause for concern. One of every five Americans reports personally knowing a victim of gun violence. To put this in perspective, that is thirty-five times higher than the number of people expected to graduate from U.S. colleges in 2013.

Police forces often respond to high levels of gun violence with intensely punitive measures. When crime spreads, a common police response is to flood affected communities with police patrols and make as many arrests as possible. This approach is similar to New York City’s infamous “stop-and-frisk” measures, whereby officers stop and search anyone they believe has committed, is committing, or might commit a crime.

Unfortunately, such indiscriminant approaches rely on inefficient and often discriminatory practices to reduce crime through sheer volume and intensity of policing. Simply put, being tough on crime doesn’t always mean that cops are being smart about the best ways to proceed. more...