Main Street merchants, still reeling from the economic devastation of the Great Recession, are one step closer to fair and equal treatment in the collection of sales taxes, thanks to the Senate’s recent passage of the Marketplace Fairness Act. The law, which passed with bipartisan ease, is long overdue and aims to rectify a distorted marketplace that gives online retailers an unfair edge over their brick-and-mortar competitors.

However, it faces a steep uphill battle in the U.S. House of Representatives, and has already been tarnished by grossly inaccurate characterizations by the lobbyists for the online retailers whose ability to avoid paying any sales tax has put an untold number of small businesses, with no Internet presence, out of business. The legislation is neither a new tax nor a tax increase. Rather, at its core, the bill is about making competition between all merchants — whether online or over the counter — fair and equitable.

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Over the past decade, the United States has spent upwards of $100 billion on K-12 classroom technology to no discernible effect. The reason is clear: most education technology in use in K-12 classrooms is not integrated into core instruction, and thus offers limited educational value.

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The nomination of Thomas E. Wheeler, longtime president and CEO of the Cellular Telecom and Internet Association, to head the Federal Communications Commission has produced predictable bursts of praise and criticism. Both sides make some valid points, but the simple truth is that we don’t know where Wheeler stands on some of the most critical issues the FCC will face in the coming years — issues that will have a huge impact on consumers.

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We already knew that the CIA gave unusual access to the creative team behind the movie “Zero Dark Thirty.” Now we know at least some of what the agency got in return. A memo obtained earlier this week by Gawker shows that the screenwriter, Mark Boal, altered two scenes at the CIA’s request.
 
In the end, though, this revelation doesn’t tell us much, if anything, about the film’s accuracy, or lack thereof. “Zero Dark Thirty” is and always was fiction, a product of its creators’ artistic and political choices. One of their choices was to depict torture as effective, disturbing but necessary, and something that American heroes do.
 
As a former interrogator, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that all of us — including those at the CIA — are interested in gaining actionable intelligence to disrupt terrorist plots. But as someone who interrogated members of al Qaeda, I know that torture is ineffective, disturbing and unnecessary.

On April 12, the Office of Special Counsel announced it was investigating allegations that B. Todd Jones, nominee to lead the DOJ’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), had retaliated against whistle-blowers at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, where he concurrently served as U.S. Attorney.  But the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, the DOJ, and concerns about whistle-blower protection are not just appetizers for corruption in Washington – they make up a main course that is about to become the meal ticket for a Cabinet appointee.

The upcoming congressional debate over comprehensive immigration reform presents a rare opportunity for immigrants living in this country to have a real chance at pursuing the American dream. As reform legislation is drafted and debated, we must consider the essential role immigration courts play in ensuring that everyone has a fair day in court when presenting their case to remain in the United States. Congress must revisit the courts’ current resources and structuring, and better equip and empower our benches to secure due process for all.

Over the last few days, politically driven critics have called on the president to abandon his support for changing the way the government indexes provisions in the budget to inflation by switching to “chained CPI.” Looking beyond politics, we’re here to say that these critics’ arguments are wrong on their merits.

As economists from opposite ends of the political spectrum, we would strongly urge the president and leaders in Congress to continue to support moving to chained CPI, which represents the most accurate available measure of inflation and cost-of-living increases. Switching to this more accurate measure of inflation represents the right technical, fiscal and retirement policy — and policymakers should not delay any further in making this improvement.

After trying private negotiations, bipartisan commissions, informal “gangs” and a supercommittee, the search for a long-term federal fiscal plan has come full circle back to where it started — regular order under the budget process in Congress.

Amid all the controversies gripping Congress, certainly we should all be able to agree that the full faith and credit of the United States — the very trust the public has when it loans money to the government — should not hang in the balance every time there’s a fiscal debate in Washington.