In 2006, several consumer groups produced a Compendium of Public Interest Research in response to an FCC request for comment on the importance of media ownership rules. Part of the research found:

The traditional local media -- television and newspapers -- are the dominant sources of local news and...

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina hates bailouts and Twinkies. Concerned that the federal government might authorize funds for his state last month, the Governor wrote to Congress pleading with the House and Senate to keep their money:

We've in essence unloaded truckloads of sugar in a vain...

With auto bailouts, stimulus packages, and presidential transitions to worry about, the nation's cities are often overlooked by our media gods. Sure, every once in a while a crooked mayor like Kwame Kilpatrick makes the national news. Or Obama's Chicago connection reminds people of the Windy City. But for the...

Last week, the nation's governors stormed Capitol Hill seeking federal aid to prevent spending cuts and to stimulate the economy through infrastructure spending. This week, the nation's mayors had their shot, outlining 11,391 "ready-to-go" infrastructure projects costing $73 billion dollars to produce almost 850,000 jobs in 2009 and...

I've written a fair amount lately about being less concerned with growing budget deficits than stimulating the failing economy. Beyond yearning for an austerity regime that allows Americans once again to embrace their penchant for risk-taking, there are in fact less ideological arguments for keeping the budget deficit...

While around 40 governors met with President-elect Obama in Philadelphia to discuss states' growing budget woes, two governors took to the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page to argue against federal aid to states. Governor Rick Perry of Texas (which is not one of the 41 states facing budget...

As President-elect Obama outlines his plans for economic stimulus -- or economic "recovery" as the Times's Carl Hulse noted rather cheekily this morning -- he has been singing paeans to budget hawks concerned that profligate spending in the short term will produce, well, profligate spending in the long term....

The Minnesota Independent picked up on an interesting conversation Minnesota Public Radio had with Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak. The Minneapolis Mayor described how he envisions Obama's proposed White House Office of Urban Policy functioning (and also implied that he was on the short list to head up...

Tucked into one of two possible Senate "vehicles" for the auto industry bailout is a seemingly benign, even sweet, deal: tax relief for new car purchases. Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland, introduced the legislation on Monday and Senator Reid included it in a larger stimulus package offered...

Passage of a financial bailout with flimsy constraints on executive compensation has invigorated the public and policymakers alike to take action to curb excessive executive pay. Just this morning, Senator Chris Dodd warned that Congress might take a step that would send shivers down the spines of every CEO:...

That Barack Obama won the "city vote" - 83% of Philadelphia County, 76% of Chicago's Cook County, 68.5% of Cleveland's Cuyahoga County - is no surprise. The victory was no small affair, either: The Telegraph notes that Obama bested Kerry's 2004 performance in big cities by 11% and in...

Chatting with Rachel Maddow last night (see below), as Matt Yglesias just pointed out, Obama explained the critical role that national governments play in stimulating urban growth in the developing world and wondered why the United States isn't, in this period of economic decline, taking the hint:

This year's presidential campaign has not involved the "urban decline" rhetoric that rallied politicians - and policymakers - to the cause of cities in the mid 1960s and late 1970s. Instead, as Alex MacGillis pointed out in Sunday's WaPo, Senator Obama

"has adopted the framing increasingly favored by...

Not to beat a dead horse, but a the Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday made me reflect briefly on the Bush years. Adam Lerrick, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon and a scholar at AEI, heavily criticized Obama's economic policy and tax plan, providing a macabre...

For some reason -- I must have been bored -- I decided to read William Beach's testimony to Congress on stimulating the economy. Beach, a Heritage Foundation scholar, testified in front of the House Budget Committee on Monday alongside Fed Chief Bernanke and reps from CBPP and...

As final preparations for the last presidential debate are made - water glasses weighed and secret memoranda consulted - both candidates have revamped their economic plans for the economic crisis now gripping the country.

McCain was uncertain, at first, about whether to release a revised plan. But...