As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., wrote in 1904, “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.”

But the wealthiest Americans, who haven’t raked in as much of America’s income and wealth since the 1920s, are today paying a lower tax rate than they have in over thirty years. Even though America faces a mammoth federal budget deficit. 

No longer able to defend themselves on Voter ID and “Kill at Will” legislation they helped popularize—as much as they tried—the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is finally dropping both from their agenda, announcing today that they will focus on free market, anti-regulation policies. In a statement from Indiana state Representative David Frizzell, also ALEC’s national chairman:

Congressional Republicans have targeted the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, for budget cuts, and have attempted to paint it as a program rife with fraud and abuse that is on an unsustainable path. While their argument ignores a host of facts, including that food stamp fraud is at an all-time low, it also ignores the economic benefits that the program brings to millions of low-income families.

If you're one of the millions of people who get emails from MoveOn.org, then you've probably heard of the "99% Spring." Far from another clickable internet petition, it is possibly the largest attempt ever to train people in nonviolent protest techniques. Some Occupy types have criticized the effort as a scheme by Democratic operatives to co-opt their movement. But the reality is probably the opposite: It seems that America's best-known progressive fundraising organization is now taking its cues from Occupy Wall Street.

Florida Congressman Allen West was wrong when he suggested that there were dozens of communists in the current Congress. Misled by crank websites, the out-there Republican from Florida said Tuesday, “I believe there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party… They actually don’t hide it. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

Natural gas development is spreading like wildfire across the country. Energy companies have drilled more than 75,000 wells in the past five years, many of them on farmlands, near public schools, and in people’s backyards. These wells release benzene and other chemicals known to cause cancer. Yet energy companies aren’t obligated to clean up any of the pollution they put into the air we breathe.