Voice
The publication's institutional voice. Where the other columnists write from declared personal perspectives, the Editorial Board speaks for Main Street Independent itself — on the standards the newsroom holds, the corrections it issues, the methods behind its reporting, and the independence it works under. Its unsigned cartoons apply the public Political Meme Generator to high-salience news and opinion. Measured by design; it defends the publication's baseline rather than arguing past it.
Monday's oral arguments at the Supreme Court in Suncor v. Boulder County gave fossil fuel companies a chance to argue that the Constitution bars states and localities from holding them accountable for the climate damage their products cause. The argument was built on a single, revealing premise: that the most consequential industry in human history should be immune from the…
2026-10-08 · 5 MIN READNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration filed an 80-page RICO lawsuit on Sunday against Asher & Associates, and the complaint reads like a confession. For nearly a decade this personal-injury shop has run an assembly line: scrape a knee in a parking lot, swear it was a city pothole, file a million-dollar claim against the public fisc, settle, repeat. The city has…
2026-10-07 · 6 MIN READGovernor Maura Healey of Massachusetts has done the thing serious public officials are supposed to do when the facts on the ground outrun the slogans of four years ago: she has changed her mind. Last week she wrote Energy Secretary Chris…
2026-10-07 · 4 MIN READFriday's September jobs report is a warning dressed up as good news, and it comes from a Labor Department statistical apparatus straining to put a brave face on a labor market that has lost its footing. The establishment survey limped to a…
2026-10-06 · 3 MIN READThe Trump Administration has eliminated a critical Medicare Part D subsidy, and the modest premium numbers being celebrated by its apologists cannot conceal the damage already inflicted on the program and on the seniors who depend on it.…
2026-10-04 · 4 MIN READThe Supreme Court kicks off a new term Monday with a case the fossil fuel industry wants framed as a narrow procedural fight, but whose stakes are the largest in years. The real issue in Suncor Energy v. Boulder County is whether fossil fuel companies can be held accountable in American courts for the documented consequences of their products — or whether they enjoy a special…
2026-10-03 · 5 MIN READThe American labor movement is being reborn, and the UAW under Shawn Fain is the only national union in the country with a credible claim to be leading it. The verdict from the old guard is that Fain has squandered worker dues. Read the actual numbers and a different picture emerges: an organizing machine winning where the labor movement has lost for half a century. Fain won…
2026-10-02 · 6 MIN READDon't be fooled by the headline numbers. The Commerce Department just revised GDP upward again, and the same voices that missed every forecast for two years are now declaring the pessimists humiliated. Read the print and ask what is…
2026-09-30 · 4 MIN READVoters are rightly angry about the cost of living. Republicans want that anger aimed at Democrats, on the theory that Democratic policies drove up prices and Democratic proposals will only make them worse. No. Look at the record. Start…
2026-09-29 · 4 MIN READWashington’s loudest cause this year is “shadow regulation.” The Senate’s GOOD Act would force every executive agency to publish its guidance letters, advisories, online FAQs and interpretive memos to a single, searchable portal. It has…
2026-09-24 · 4 MIN READIt isn’t often we condemn California Gov. Gavin Newsom from this page. But when a man reveals his true loyalties, voters should pay attention. On Sunday the Democratic Governor vetoed legislation that working families had spent years…
2026-09-21 · 5 MIN READOnce upon a time, in a less polarized Washington, protecting health-care access for vulnerable Americans was bipartisan. No more. The Trump Administration’s announcement this week that it has removed roughly 760,000 enrollees from the…
2026-09-23 · 3 MIN READ
Republicans called their new federal tax credit for school choice a generational win. It is a $1,700-per-donor subsidy to households with federal tax liability, routed through state-approved scholarship organizations that overwhelmingly…
2026-09-22 · 4 MIN READGov. J.B. Pritzker has not opted Illinois into the new federal tax-credit scholarship program, and that refusal is the only adult move in the room. An Indianapolis outfit has parked a roadside billboard near the state line to poach…
2026-09-20 · 4 MIN READAmericans choking at the pump in Phoenix and Fargo should be thanking California, not blaming it. The state’s diesel hit $8.35 a gallon this week, a $1.95 premium over the national average of $6.40. That premium tells a story the…
2026-09-17 · 3 MIN READEconomists keep warning politicians that incentives matter — and the latest cautionary tale concerns taxation and innovation. New research exposes exactly how catastrophically sensitive start-up investors become when the tax code rewards…
2026-09-15 · 4 MIN READA House bill introduced this month would remove the $2,500 income requirement for collecting the child tax credit. Sponsors include Democrat Chris Pappas of New Hampshire and Republican Carol Miller of West Virginia, among others. That is…
2026-09-14 · 3 MIN READWorkers have a right to collectively bargain, and once they exercise it, they have a right to protection from corporate-funded operations designed to strip them of their union. These days the donor class relies less on argument and more on…
2026-09-09 · 5 MIN READCongressional Republicans, with nothing to show for their session, can still at least deliver one more gift to the polluters who fund their campaigns by tearing up the climate protections that keep California's children breathing.…
2026-09-09 · 3 MIN READThe Securities and Exchange Commission has at last begun doing its core job of policing corruption in public markets, after years of standing down while Wall Street captured the agencies that were supposed to police it. Shame on Chairman…
2026-09-08 · 6 MIN READThe Teamsters have a long and proud history of standing up to corporate power, and their campaign to organize Amazon workers produced a long-overdue confrontation last week in Riverside, Calif., after the company refused to recognize the…
2026-09-06 · 3 MIN READThe legal question is not whether parents care about their children. The legal question is whether FERPA and PPRA give parents a constitutional veto over a school district's professional nondisclosure determinations concerning a student's…
2026-09-05 · 3 MIN READThe future of the Supreme Court is on the ballot in November, as Republicans keep showing, over and over. On Wednesday the House voted on a proposal to amend the Constitution to fix the Court at nine Justices, its size since 1869 — a…
2026-09-05 · 6 MIN READPresident Trump drew attention for warning that communities that block data centers will end up "backwards and poor" — when the communities that welcome them will end up poorer once the operators leave. His remark was self-serving, and the…
2026-09-03 · 4 MIN READIt is a national disgrace that in the richest country in the history of the world, food-stamp enrollment dropped by 5.7 million people in a single year — driven by deliberate Republican policy aimed at veterans, homeless Americans, parents…
2026-09-02 · 5 MIN READA 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court late Monday cleared the way for President Trump’s demolition of the White House East Wing and his beloved ballroom. The much bigger win here is for the rule of law on the crucial but esoteric matter of…
2026-09-02 · 6 MIN READYields on long-dated government bonds are rising across the developed world, and the financial press is greeting the news with a chorus of self-congratulation: at last, the era of "repression" is over, and spendthrifts are being forced to…
2026-09-01 · 4 MIN READSeattle students deserve to start school on Sept. 2, but not if it means their teachers must accept another round of austerity imposed by a district that has drained its reserves and demanded sacrifice from the people closest to the…
2026-08-31 · 9 MIN READThe Trump Administration is dismantling the accreditation system that has protected American legal education for nearly a century. Its pressure on the American Bar Association, dressed up as reform, is a political assault on institutional…
2026-08-29 · 4 MIN READA devastating new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Surgery exposes what defenders of the status quo have spent years trying to deny: the American healthcare system is not the envy of the world. It is a lottery,…
2026-08-28 · 4 MIN READThe number arrived with a brass band this week: American life expectancy at birth, 79. Up from 78.4 in 2023. Nearly back to the 78.9 the country cleared a decade ago, before the pandemic erased a decade's worth of stagnation in eighteen…
2026-08-27 · 6 MIN READJames Talarico was right. Last year the Texas state legislator warned that "vouchers are welfare for the wealthy," and the data now in from the state's own Comptroller confirms exactly that. Texas Republicans passed a $1 billion…
2026-08-27 · 7 MIN READMeta's $18 billion settlement with 48 state Attorneys General was sold this week as a meaningful reckoning. It is not. It is discount-priced mercy for an industry that spent two decades harvesting adolescent minds, and the contingent…
2026-08-27 · 5 MIN READMaryland did what legislatures are supposed to do: it found a way to make the wealthiest corporations in human history contribute to the public infrastructure on which their profits depend. On Aug. 14, the Maryland Tax Court handed those…
2026-08-26 · 3 MIN READAre government unions right to fight to keep public service degrees affordable? So they argue in a revealing and overdue lawsuit against the graduate-loan caps that would slam the door on the working-class students who staff our schools,…
2026-08-22 · 4 MIN READSilicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna stood up to his billionaire donors last December when he endorsed a ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of state residents with more than $1 billion in wealth. "It's a matter…
2026-08-20 · 3 MIN READModerna got its payday Wednesday after reporting that its personalized melanoma vaccine succeeded, in a large late-stage trial, at preventing cancer from coming back in high-risk patients. The science that made the shot possible was built…
2026-08-19 · 5 MIN READA bond market that prices out working families is a crisis, not a return to normal. Apparently "rout" is the new word for the donor class collecting at historical norms. That's one impression from the hand-wringing now attending a…
2026-08-18 · 5 MIN READRepublicans may have only one more chance to pass major legislation this year, and one question is whether they will use it to deliver another tax cut to the wealthy. One idea on the table would be to index the capital-gains tax to…
2026-08-17 · 5 MIN READPresident Trump's judicial appointments have been a sustained campaign to stack the federal courts for the donor class, and his announcement that he will elevate Arkansas federal Judge Lee Rudofsky to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals…
2026-08-16 · 5 MIN READStates and the families of children Meta's products hook are using the same consumer-protection laws that held Big Tobacco accountable to hold Big Tech accountable. This week a trial begins in federal court in Oakland, where four states —…
2026-08-16 · 4 MIN READNew Jersey Republicans are trying to make political hay with the recent news that former Gov. Phil Murphy's official portrait has a $135,000 price tag. That's "the most expensive in state history," some of the reports explain. And to think…
2026-08-13 · 5 MIN READSooner or later in today's America, if your business model depends on dodging labor protections, you will be told to pay what you owe. It doesn't matter how many packages you ship or how fast you ship them. Ask Amazon. On Monday New York…
2026-08-12 · 3 MIN READHere's one reason other than vacations for American workers to envy August in Europe: it is the first full month in which the average worker on the continent has stopped funding the schools, hospitals, and pensions that hold their…
2026-08-11 · 6 MIN READShame on Glenn Youngkin for picking a fight for the school-privatization lobby. The former Virginia Governor is behind Empowering America's Parents, a group planning to advertise directly to voters in the 19 states that have refused to…
2026-08-11 · 3 MIN READEveryone knows President Trump plays the role of political populist, and this week the role happened to be true — the truth his campaign rhetoric usually buries. Take his lashing Monday of American oil companies for "making too much…
2026-08-05 · 5 MIN READWill Democrats do it right again Tuesday? The party’s primaries this year have nominated House candidates in New York and Colorado aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America’s working-class, common-sense agenda, plus a likely DSA…
2026-08-03 · 4 MIN READThe Federal Communications Commission is caving to the broadcast lobby, and on Thursday moved to scrap its essential nationwide broadcast ownership cap. This deregulatory giveaway will help a handful of media giants swallow broadcast TV.…
2026-08-03 · 5 MIN READThe Senate next week intends to confirm its fifth batch of President Trump’s nominees through the en bloc process that Sen. John Thune inaugurated last year for non-major posts. The latest list of 74 names includes future ambassadors to…
2026-08-02 · 6 MIN READThe Food and Drug Administration bureaucracy can be as principled and stubborn as any in Washington. This week the agency is trying to stop unproven therapies for late‑stage melanoma and Duchenne muscular dystrophy from sailing through on…
2026-08-02 · 5 MIN READA Food and Drug Administration advisory committee of outside scientists and doctors on Thursday voted 10-3 to recommend approval of Replimune's melanoma immunotherapy, overriding the agency's own scientific staff, who raised serious…
2026-07-31 · 4 MIN READMemo to Kevin Warsh — and to the Wall Street firms giving him a free pass: Quit the silent treatment. The American people are paying the Federal Reserve to make judgments about risks and returns in real time, and it's embarrassing that a…
2026-07-31 · 6 MIN READThe race to gut public services is accelerating, and it is a suicidal competition for the rich. The next state on the track may be Missouri, where voters will decide on Aug. 4 whether to phase out the revenue source that funds their…
2026-07-30 · 4 MIN READThe migration from well-funded to austerity-stricken locations continues, and more states are trying to reduce or abandon their income tax to accelerate the race to the bottom. The next may be Missouri, where voters will consider a ballot…
2026-07-30 · 5 MIN READWashington, D.C., will have a Democratic Socialist mayor after November's election, and Congress is moving to obstruct her before she takes office. The House oversight committee last week advanced legislation to block the most popular of…
2026-07-27 · 6 MIN READDemocrats are making the right case that the Trump Administration is gutting food safety, and the outbreak proves it. To the contrary, the crisis underscores what happens when a government deliberately stripped of resources is asked to…
2026-07-22 · 3 MIN READA federal judge on Monday paused Paramount Skydance's acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery while she considers antitrust claims by Democratic Attorneys General — a rare instance of a court actually doing its job. The judge looks past the…
2026-07-21 · 4 MIN READPublic confidence in scientific institutions has declined — not because they've become political, but because a decades-long campaign to delegitimize any expertise that threatens fossil-fuel profits has done its intended work. The National…
2026-07-19 · 3 MIN READWe've been watching for years as the wealthy flee their fair share of New York's public obligations, so it's refreshing to get confirming evidence from the New York State Comptroller's office of all places. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli…
2026-07-16 · 4 MIN READPresident Trump on Thursday purged the entire bipartisan leadership of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission — the small, unglamorous body that exists, by statute, to keep the federal hand off the voting machine. The Supreme Court's…
2026-07-13 · 6 MIN READMore than 63,000 pounds. That's how much illicit marijuana California law enforcement officials have seized over the past three months, carrying a market value of $104 million—a measure of how hard the regulated market is pushing the…
2026-07-09 · 3 MIN READOne of the most shameful acts of the second Trump Administration is its effort to undo the honest reckoning America's national cultural institutions have finally begun — a reactionary political purge aimed at independent museum curation. A…
2026-07-09 · 5 MIN READNew Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill has wasted no time confronting Trenton's corporate-welfare culture. See the record $60.8 billion budget she signed last week that includes a new fair-share assessment on businesses that employ Medicaid…
2026-07-07 · 3 MIN READSome American cities are finally trying to fix what they broke. Evanston, Ill., has a program that provides cash to Black residents as recompense for housing discrimination. The Trump Justice Department wants to shut it down. Since March…
2026-07-06 · 3 MIN READWhen the donor class tries to slip a tax cut past voters, the courts should demand clarity. That's what the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court did in June, striking down a ballot measure on grounds the Attorney General's summary was…
2026-07-04 · 4 MIN READThe Trump administration is creating a health-insurance crisis for working Americans, and its own data prove it. A white paper released in late June by the Department of Health and Human Services shows that 19.2 million Americans were…
2026-07-02 · 4 MIN READCalifornia Gov. Gavin Newsom failed to persuade his labor backers to drop their wealth tax from the November ballot, so now we'll find out if he'll spend political capital to defend the billionaires or instead try to surf the populist wave…
2026-06-28 · 4 MIN READHistorians sometimes play the counterfactual game of wondering what would have happened if a major event had turned out differently. We thought about this recently as we read the manufactured panic about Social Security's looming financial…
2026-06-25 · 4 MIN READNew York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani last month issued a housing plan that calls for building more—what else?—public housing. So it’s heartening to hear even some progressive elected officials demand the city finally address the appalling…
2026-06-23 · 3 MIN READThis week came more ominous signs that the removal of independent oversight at the Food and Drug Administration is producing predictable effects for investors and the companies they fund — and devastating ones for the patients those same…
2026-06-19 · 5 MIN READKevin Warsh made his first outing as Federal Reserve Chairman on Wednesday, and one can only hope this is not how he means to go on. The public saw initial evidence of the donor class's agenda, and a carefully stage-managed process to…
2026-06-16 · 5 MIN READThe U.S. House is still run by Republicans, and for once it shows. The welcome turn came last week when the House passed the Faster Labor Contracts Act, which guarantees binding arbitration when companies refuse to reach a…
2026-06-15 · 8 MIN READRhode Island Gov. Dan McKee’s five-year record of governing for working families has left him vulnerable to a primary challenge from the donor class. Now he’s strengthening his state by signing a millionaire’s tax that asks the wealthy to…
2026-06-15 · 5 MIN READThe nation's capital is in the middle of a mayoral election, and rejoice. The apparent front-runner in Washington, D.C.'s June 16 Democratic primary is Janeese Lewis George, proudly affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America —…
2026-06-14 · 6 MIN READJalen Brunson is the toast of New York after the 6-foot-2 point guard personally willed the New York Knicks to the NBA title on Saturday with a 45-point performance. The rest of his team scored 49. But there is one reason for New Yorkers…
2026-06-14 · 5 MIN READIn 2023, Randi Weingarten told the New York Times Magazine that "all of us were wrong when we said, 'Oh, no, there's no learning loss.'" That is what accountability looks like — a union leader naming what went wrong while the donor class…
2026-06-14 · 7 MIN READThe real political strength of unions lies in workers standing together, and New York Democrats want to stop right-wing groups that deceive workers into abandoning their collective power. A bill that passed the state Assembly on The…
2026-06-08 · 3 MIN READ
