Labor Day was first celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882 by the members of the Central Labor Union in New York. During the following decade, several states and cities made Labor Day an official holiday. Meanwhile. the Pullman Co. of Chicago built a company town to produce its railroad cars. Its residents all worked for Pullman,…

All told, the federal government provides $65 billion a year in food stamps to almost 46 million Americans. While that sounds like a lot of money — maybe it’s something Republicans in Congress would like to cut out — it comes down to $118 a month for each recipient. And it pales next to the…

Can we all breathe a sigh of relief now that Congress has passed and the president has signed a bill increasing the debt ceiling and cutting the budget by $1 trillion? After all, it seems like sanity prevailed. That would have been the case if Congress has simply passed an increase in the debt ceiling.…

We have a big private-sector economy, which is floundering in stagnation. Chief among the victims are middle class Americans, some on the verge of losing their houses, others with their jobs exported out of the country, and others trying to figure out how to pay the accelerating costs of their kids’ education and their health…

Two weeks ago, Gov. Chris Gregoire convened a press conference with corporate leaders from Microsoft and Boeing. They were celebrating a breakthrough in higher education. It was a breakthrough, all right — like 60,000 high school graduates walking out onto thin ice and breaking through. The troika offered a life ring for 1,000, through “Opportunity…

My son Owen and I just drove across half the country. He has a summer job in St. Paul, Minn., and we are giving him our 10-year-old car. Hence, a road trip! Driving along I-90 and I-94 for 1,800 miles gives you time to reflect on our nation’s transportation system. Did it just spring up,…

You’d be hard pressed to find a better example of “kick-’em when they’re down” politics this year than the workers’ compensation legislation rushed through Olympia on Monday. By the governor’s own estimate, the bill will take about $1 billion that injured workers would have received over the next five years and give it to their…

The era of 9/11 may have been brought to a close last week with the killing of Osama bin Laden. President Obama spoke of bringing to justice bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He praised the sacrifice of the firefighters and police who lost their lives on that fateful day. Perhaps we can…

Last November, Steve Ballmer, the 33rd wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $33 billion, sold off $2 billion in stock to “diversify his holdings and to help with tax planning.” So much for job creation. This month Paul Allen, with $14 billion in wealth, bought a refurbished Russian MIG fighter jet.…