In about a month, the nation’s Highway Trust Fund, the principal source of funding for repairing and rebuilding our country’s highways, will run dry. Paving projects across the country will grind to a halt, and construction workers, currently making good money, will join nearly 10 million of their fellow unemployed Americans.

There's been lots of debate and discussion lately about how to shore up Social Security for future generations. But already there are dramatic changes underway that threaten to end Social Security as we know it -- yet almost no one has even heard of it.

In 2012, the nation’s estate tax collected just $8.5 billion – a fraction of one percent of the $1.2 trillion of accumulated wealth that passed to heirs. A dozen years earlier, in 2000, the estate tax recycled nearly five times more money back into society ($40 billion – after adjusting for inflation).  

June 14 is Flag Day. It marks an important day in the nation’s history: the Continental Congress passed a resolution that established the nation’s first flag on June 14, 1777. This used to be a national secular holiday, when most households showed their patriotism and loyalty to the United States by flying its flag. But the nation doesn’t seem to be in a celebratory mood these days, and Flag Day may not offer a lift to our national pride.