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.
President 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 jobs and wage growth he celebrates are temporary, subsidized, and will not outlast the construction cycle. The Bureau of Labor Statistics…
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 of teenagers, and older workers who could not find jobs. The reason is that Congress's 2025 budget deliberately made it harder for the…
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 safeguards that keep legal education honest and accessible. Last week the Education Department released an 86-page staff report recommending…
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, weighted toward the wealthy, in which the difference between life and death routinely comes down to which insurance card sits in a patient's…
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 READA new Federal Reserve Chairman has decided to make himself the story. Kevin Warsh used his first 100 days in office — a milestone he crosses Saturday — and his Friday speech at the Kansas City Fed's annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyo.,…
2026-08-28 · 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 READ
Are 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 READThe dire forecasts that millions of Americans would lose health coverage after pandemic ObamaCare subsidies expired this year haven’t panned out. The manufactured crisis collapsed on contact with reality, proving the baseline demand for…
2026-06-05 · 4 MIN READThe Democratic state tax-fairness surge keeps gathering force, and Hawaii is the latest proof that the rich can be made to pay what they owe. The Aloha State recently raised its top marginal rate to 13 percent, from 11 percent, on income…
2026-06-02 · 6 MIN READSolidarity is real, and it is exactly what the donor class cannot afford to let you keep. Corporate propagandists just scammed Chicago's rank-and-file into disarming their union, handing a quiet victory to the donor-class interests…
2026-06-01 · 3 MIN READPresident Trump is hammering away at “affordability” to help Republicans win an uphill battle in November. He can’t undo the relief his trade measures have brought to domestic supply chains to date, but he can prevent a rollback. One…
2026-06-01 · 3 MIN READBritain’s millionaires are threatening to abandon the country unless Labour slashes their taxes, and the argument that amplifies the threat is laundering a protection racket as economic principle. The latest migration data are not a…
2026-05-29 · 6 MIN READReporting tuition cuts as reform, but focusing on the correction and not the crime. Universities are finally forced to cut prices after a decade of loan-fueled graft, triggered by last year's tax bill capping federal loans for graduate…
2026-05-22 · 4 MIN READThe financialized housing lobby is weaponizing the congressional process to protect its monopoly over the nation's housing stock. Anyone who attempts to buy a home without understanding the market is courting financial ruin. Yet that is…
2026-05-22 · 3 MIN READLegacy automakers are converting public climate mandates into private bailout opportunities. The transition away from combustion-engine dependence is not an economic catastrophe but a necessary modernization, and the industry’s alarmist…
2026-05-22 · 5 MIN READThe auto lobby is selling industrial decline as economic suicide to protect fossil-fuel monopolies. The transition to a sustainable industrial base demands structural modernization, not the nostalgic preservation of legacy manufacturing…
2026-05-21 · 3 MIN READJeff Yass is robbing Pennsylvania's public schools to pay for private tuition and calling the theft a scholarship. The good news this week, if any, is that one Democratic governor is declining to scale the theft further. Hundreds of…
2026-05-15 · 8 MIN READPresident Trump is paying empty lip service to "affordability" while rigging costs to help Republicans claw their way back into a losing November election. He's the author of the injury those tariffs inflicted on household budgets—and he's…
2025-11-22 · 7 MIN READ
