In September, President Obama released a deficit reduction package for consideration by the congressional Super Committee that included a new tax reform recommendation regarding millionaires. Dubbed the "Buffett Rule," the proposal states, “No household making over $1 million annually should pay a smaller share of its income in taxes than middle-class families pay,” and it would address a long-standing disparity between the taxation of labor income and investment income. Indeed, going beyond the Buffett Rule and taxing capital income on par with labor income would not only bring in much needed revenue, it would help to reduce income inequality, a source of economic inefficiency.
Several recently published studies compare the policy and practice of transparency in the United States and other countries. Such studies provide useful measures of U.S. openness relative to real-world conditions, in addition to highlighting global best practices and alternative approaches. The U.S. ranked in the middle range in the studies, demonstrating how other countries have met the challenges of 21st-century transparency while the U.S. has lagged in some areas.
Nowhere is safety more important than in children's toys and products. A number of regulatory agencies share responsibility for ensuring that children are not exposed to harmful toxins or dangerous products, but legislative gaps and procedural hoops have delayed needed protections. A new report by Clean and Healthy New York concludes that while some crib mattress manufacturers have made products less toxic, a "significant portion of the crib mattresses in the U.S. market contain one or more chemicals of concern" and may still pose risks to babies.
The so-called “Super Committee,” charged with creating a $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan by Thanksgiving, seems to be stalling. If the committee cannot agree to a deal, or if Congress doesn't approve of the plan that the committee produces, the debt ceiling package that passed in August will trigger 
Rhetorical and legislative attacks on the agencies that protect the public from health, safety, and environmental hazards occur almost daily, coming from corporate interests and their political allies on Capitol Hill. Now, some agency heads appear to be publicly fighting back by openly defending the work their agencies do to protect the American people.