Outside the Beltway

The Washington Independent goes dark in December, failing to find profitability in three years.

Here’s my plan for creating a budget surplus of $126 billion by 2015 and $592 billion by 2030.

The NFL’s “especially mercenary” push to extract new stadia from cities–even where the stadium’s practically brand-new.

Thanks to an interactive web tool from The New York Times we can all try to make the hard political choices needed to fix the budget mess.

The U.S. Postal Service is warning Congress that it could run out of cash next year without a government bailout. Meaning that this is the perfect opportunity to reform an organization that has been out-of-date for a decade now.

Okahoma’s James Inhofe has a message for the Tea Party movement — don’t be fooled by the “War On Earmarks.”

The immediate reactions from left and right to the proposals from the Chairmen of the Debt Commission are about what you’d expect.

Yesterday’s outrage of the day involved an odd book written by a creep, and it has lessons galore for everyone.

The Chairmen of the National Debt Commission have released a draft report for consideration. It’s got some very good ideas, but it’s most likely Dead On Arrival.

NYT columnist Nick Kristoff says America’s income inequality makes us a banana republic.

While health experts warn Americans to cut the amount of fat in their diet, the Federal Government helps businesses like Domino’s and Taco Bell promote high-fat products to the public.

US News & World Report is going to stop printing magazines, except for a handful of niche issues like the annual college and graduate school ranking guides.

While Social Security has radically lowered the elderly poverty rate, it hasn’t eliminated it. Should we do more?

There’s some good news in the October jobs report.

The Federal Reserve is injecting $ 600,000,000,000 into the economy, primarily in the hope that it will boost stock prices and, in turn, the economy. It might work, but if it doesn’t the consequences could be severe.

After three months, Rupert Murdoch’s strategy of walling off the Times websites isn’t looking so smart.

Neither Law Schools nor law students are admitting the fact that the legal market has changed significantly.

Once again, Angela Merkel has held her ground and forced the other EU leaders to accommodate Germany’s policy concerns. This time, it’s a set of amendments to the Lisbon Treaty to deal with sovereign debt emergencies.

Another round of GDP growth figures are out, and they show that the U.S. economy continues to grow far slower than necessary to sustain job growth. Is this a temporary problem, or something we can expect to live with for the foreseeable future?

Has Uncle Sam got a deal for you: Lend the Treasury money for five years and it will only cost you negative 0.55 percent!

New multifunction credit cards will soon change the way Americans handle simple transactions.

The biggest outside spender in 2010 isn’t the Chamber of Commerce but the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

While the displacement of poor blacks from their neighborhoods by affluent whites may be lamentable, it’s better than the alternatives.

The blogosphere spends more time dissecting the lyrics of a classic Beatles song than John Lennon did in writing them.

High earners are going to have to pay more than our fair share of the costs of government to make things work. But how we frame the debate matters.

Lots of jobs that existed in recent memory — secretaries, travel agents, gas station attendants, cashiers — have been replaced by technology. The middle class may be disappearing with them.

Banks are faced with a huge number of foreclosures and that resources they’ve allocated towards handling them was woefully inadequate.

Greg Mankiw notes a curious revisionism in Barney Frank’s pronouncements on Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac.

Greg Mankiw argues that, the more of his money the government takes, the less incentive he has to earn more. That’s debatable.

If job growth continues at the anemic pace that it has been on in 2010, it could be quite some time before we return to the “Good Old Days” of 5% unemployment.

The IRS wants to license tax preparers but exempt lawyers and CPAs from the requirement.

Dow closes above 11,000 for first time since May after a decline in jobs boosts hopes of stimulus measures from the Fed.

Another month, another bad jobs report.

MSNBC.com is contemplating a name change to distinguish their brand from that of a left-leaning cable news channel.

If Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t invented Facebook someone else would have. Probably within a month or two of his invention.

It’s worth reminding ourselves, in a country where so many are trying to figure out the best way to keep excess fat off our bodies, how recently abject poverty was widespread here

A third of the Forbes 50 were born billionaires. Does that mean the game is fixed?

The numbers tell us we’re not in a recession, but the public thinks otherwise.

Just because somebody pay you money don’t mean they’ll make you do whatever they want or whatever.

Thanks to the Internet, there are a lot more Willy Lomans out there.

Facebook’s 26-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is one of the wealthiest men in America. Most of his work force is unpaid.

Blockbuster is trying to reorganize itself, but it’s probably too late.

The earnings gap between those with and without a college education continues to grow. But this masks other realities.

The UFCW of Nevada pays temporary workers minimum wage to demand fair treatment and wages from Wal-Mart.