A debt-ceiling breach would cost states in terms of revenue, pension investment losses and increased borrowing costs. Even a fix at this point will likely lead to cuts in federal grants.
Population loss creates a challenging fiscal environment for local governments. But there’s no good reason for places to be struggling while tens of millions of people want to move to the U.S.
Thousands of local officials arrived in Washington last week for the National League of Cities’ annual Congressional City Conference, including a lone city councilman from South Dakota.
The state's lawmakers adopted a broad-based package of housing reforms in a fast-moving legislative session. But a provision that bans local rent control has angered tenant advocates.
State and local leaders will face implementation challenges of scale, complexity and accountability. To mitigate those and maximize the benefits of new federal programs, they need to have the right strategies in place.
A tale of two trains: When something bad happens, local and state officials increasingly are shouldered aside. The people and the pundits now expect all solutions to come from Washington.
The idea of secession did not originate with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It has been tried before. The question we need to ask is whether we are really ready to see what a Red and Blue America would look and act like.
Nearly a dozen counties in Oregon have voted to leave Salem behind and join Idaho. Local secession movements have sprung up in multiple states due to the urban-rural political divide.
Holding a state’s executive branch accountable has a lot more impact on the day-to-day lives of Americans than congressional efforts to embarrass political opponents. We need to expect better of state lawmakers.
Proposed reforms to several states’ antitrust laws would give workers, small businesses and entrepreneurs a fighting chance against abusive monopolistic practices and workplace dominance.
For hard-liners in both parties, aggressive action from Washington at the expense of state and local autonomy is more popular than ever. With both parties’ centrists also in the mix, the presidential election looks to be a four-way battle.
When he addresses the nation, the president will talk about top-down solutions from Washington. But the real progress on the problems we face is coming from 50 state capitols.
If a congressional debt ceiling deadlock persists and capital markets seize up, states and localities will still have to pay their bills. Public financiers need to be ready to adjust their portfolios to establish a liquid cash buffer.
Elected prosecutors have a critical role to play in responding to policies that can erode trust and endanger public safety.
The idea that the Justice Department and FBI are “deep state” forces aiming to undermine the MAGA movement conflicts with history. Too many state and local officials were complicit in the feds’ efforts to fight the civil rights movement.
It’s hailed as the next wave of transformative technology, but artificial intelligence’s market growth and rapid deployment raise a host of issues, from safety to privacy to equity.
