Opinion

Here is an idea: Let’s end taxes on corporations. Yes, I mean it —zero taxes for the big businesses of America. By now, some readers’ noses are completely bent out of shape. What? Are you crazy? Let corporations escape paying their “fair share”? How outrageous. Free them from their civic duty? Obscene. This would be […]

Student-loan debt and the high cost of living can make it difficult for many to achieve the dream of owning a home. To try to help, I have drafted and introduced legislation that would incentivize graduates of New York state colleges to purchase homes rehabilitated by local land banks. This legislation, known as the NYS

Representative democracy is based on a simple premise. It’s that ordinary citizens can make satisfactory judgments on complex public policy and political issues — or at least grasp them well enough to decide who should be dealing with them.   But the significance of that premise isn’t simple at all. It means that our country’s future depends

With an estimated 10,000 baby boomers turning age 65 each day and approaching retirement, there is a growing need to find qualified individuals to fill jobs across many employment sectors.  One tool that is helping businesses fill these skilled-labor gaps are apprenticeship programs. The recent National Apprenticeship Week helped draw attention to these important state-managed

Suppose you learned that one in three young people is convinced the earth is flat. And that many believe the Moon landing was faked in a NASA studio. Imagine you read that a third of young folks will tell you the Holocaust never happened. Would this news disturb you? If it did, would you think

In New York, convicted felons are not allowed to vote until they have served their sentence. Voting rights are automatically restored after the sentence is completed. Whether the conviction is for homicide, rape, assault, or grand larceny, the conventional thought is that because the criminal broke the social contract that all citizens have with their

One of the not-so-small gifts of living in a representative democracy is that you can’t accomplish things alone. Whether you’re trying to get a stop sign put up on a dangerous corner or to change U.S. policy on greenhouse-gas emissions, you have to reach out to others. And learning how to persuade, motivate, and involve them

On Nov. 11, our country celebrates Veterans Day. This day provides our nation the opportunity to honor all those who served and sacrificed for our country. It also offers a chance to acknowledge some of the practical difficulties’ veterans encounter in transitioning from military life back to civilian.  One of the biggest concerns returning veterans

Medicaid is a federal and state program established in 1965 to provide health care for people with limited wealth. It is often confused with Medicare, which is a federal program that provides health coverage to people, regardless of wealth, who are age 65 and over and to people who are under 65 and who have a