Latest Stories By Louis Jacobson

A decade ago, the Great Recession broadly undermined state and local government finances, which economists say dragged out the recovery for several years.  The coronavirus pandemic, by contrast, has had a more uneven impact, cratering state and local revenues in some places, while barely touching others.  Still, Democrats aren’t taking any chances. They say they […]

Reconciliation — even by the standards of legislative procedures, its name is almost comically dry. But the budget reconciliation process is poised to provide President Joe Biden with his best shot of passing something approximating his $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, a proposal to contain the coronavirus crisis and the resulting economic downturn.  But what […]

In their opening brief against Donald Trump, House impeachment managers argued that the former president spent months fueling misinformation about the 2020 election, culminating in a Jan. 6 rally that whipped a crowd of supporters into a “frenzy” and “aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue.” The Democrats’ 80-page memo further argued that […]

Right now, vaccine rollout is a numbers game. The nation has a pretty good idea of how many doses have gone to each state and county. The government’s COVID-19 vaccination dashboard shows how many people have received their second shot — over 5.9 million as of the time we wrote this.  Getting shots in arms […]

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice took a victory lap on national cable networks on Feb. 1, explaining how West Virginia succeeded in vaccinating a greater share of its residents than any other state. In appearances on both CNN and MSNBC, Justice said that his state had actually injected more than 100% of the vaccine doses […]

On Jan. 6, we published an article about the storming of the U.S. Capitol and the baseless accusations about the presidential election results that led up to it. In the article, we asked whether it was accurate to call it a coup. But because the details of that day’s events were still emerging, we did […]

Two days after he was sworn in, President Joe Biden painted a grim picture of the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic. “We remain in a once-in-a-century public health crisis that’s led to the most unequal job and economic crisis in modern history,” Biden said. “And the crisis is only deepening. It’s not getting better. It’s […]

As the Senate approaches the start of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on Feb. 9, one name keeps popping up — a once-obscure secretary of war from the 1870s, William W. Belknap. Belknap’s impeachment and trial offers the clearest precedent for holding a Senate trial for a political figure who is already out […]

Joe Biden has only been president for a couple of days, but already his critics on social media are saying the country has fallen apart during his tenure. A reader pointed us to a Facebook post dated Jan. 24 that promised to “take a look at the Biden/Harris administration” and what it had done in […]

Within hours of taking office, President Joe Biden issued a burst of executive orders and actions to begin dismantling Donald Trump’s legacy. Biden’s moves included reversing of immigration policies, rejoining key international entities, and efforts aimed at enhancing the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. “We will press forward with speed and urgency, for we […]

Seeking to move past the divisions of Donald Trump’s presidency, Joe Biden is promoting unity — and his economic agenda reflects that, weaving together elements of pro-labor populism, investment in business, policies to promote public infrastructure and human capital, and targeted increases in economic regulation. Biden has emphasized that he wants support from both parties […]

Shortly before his term was due to end on Jan. 20, President Donald Trump spoke at a departure ceremony at Joint Base Andrews before flying home to Florida. The event broke with the tradition of outgoing presidents attending their successor’s inauguration, instead allowing Trump to hold a mini-rally attended by supporters. In those remarks before […]