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. Measured by design; it defends the publication's baseline rather than arguing past it.
We'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 rolled out a new migration dashboard on Friday that proves the point—and may explain why this taxpayer departure is clearing the way for a more…
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 decision in Trump v. Slaughter supplied the legal veneer; the operation is the raw seizure of a referee. The complacency is ahead of the threat.…
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 2021, the Chicago suburb has pledged up to $25,000 to Black residents who lived in Evanston between 1919 and 1969, or to their children and…
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 "significantly misleading." The measure would have lowered the state's income tax rate, and the business coalition pushing it didn't appreciate…
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 READColorado's primary results Tuesday show that populist reformers are seizing the Democratic Party's mantle, and not merely in coastal cities. Consider Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old socialist who defeated Denver's complacent 15-term…
2026-06-30 · 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 READ
This 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 READ
