"Most Americans don't want more government -- they want a lot less."

Gov. Huckabee is a good speaker. But he doesn't know what Americans want. He only knows what will make RNC delegates clap.

Here's what Americans want:

75% of middle-class Americans want a national health...

Enough with the talk about filling in the foreign affairs gap. This just accepts that we are going to live out yet ANOTHER campaign the way the right wants us to -- on their turf. The most pressing issues to America's middle class are economic, economic, and ECONOMIC, so...

Is all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate up for election in November? In the midst of all of the talk of vice presidential choices, Paris Hilton and who is the real celebrity, and how much was raised this quarter by the DNC and RNC, I...

I'm not surprised that the new head of the American Enterprise Institute is an expert on happiness. They must need a dose.

It is the home, after all, of the discredited John Bolton, the discredited Paul Wolfowitz, the discredited Richard Perle, the fiction writer Lynne Cheney, the fiction perpetrator...

From the Drum Major Institute's 2008 Injustice Index on Paid Sick Leave:

Rank of “stay home when you are sick” on the list of Centers for Disease Control recommendations for preventing the flu: 2

Proportion of employees without paid sick leave who worry that taking time...

Sometimes it seems like change in Washington is something that crawls along, moving onward at a turtle-like pace. Legislation gets stuck in committees, and it can take months or even years to turn into a bill that both chambers of Congress and the president can agree on. Some members of...

If the middle class could give your Congressmember a grade, what would it be? Today, DMI releases grades for every senator and representative, evaluating their votes on key legislation that affects the current and aspiring middle class.

2007 began as a year of great promise. Congress was flooded with...

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy's Rapid Response to the 2008 State of the Union

Click here to read DMI's full analysis of the President's domestic policy prescriptions - complete with statistics and talking points -- online here.

The...

From the Drum Major Institute's 2007 Year In Review. A look back at the numbers that paint a picture of our nation in 2007.

Minimum number of hazardous children's toys recalled by Mattel in August 2007: 9,500,000

Number of employees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission...

From the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy's Year In Review, "a hawk's eye view of what the think tanks on the conservative right are up to." Read the full report on this year in politics and policy on our website.

The Manhattan Institute

The Manhattan...

From The Drum Major Institute's Year In Review (read our full round-up of the year in politics and policy online here)

1. Selling Out Consumer Safety
As headlines about the recall of millions of children's toys coated with highly toxic lead paint dominated the newspapers this summer, many...

Do you have a bit of down-time at the end of the year? Catch up on your reading with the DMI 2007 Year in Review's Reading List. This list features some of the "can't miss" books, studies and reports that you just may have accidentally missed. So here...

From DMI's Year In Review 2007

1. Arbitrary Dispute Resolution
The Seventh Amendment hasn't been repealed. So how did Americans lose the right to trial by jury? In purchasing the modern world's necessities, from a credit card to a cell phone and even nursing home services,...

As you shop for your true love this holiday season, will you be buying two turtle doves, twelve drummers drumming, or eight maids-a-milking? What about that ever elusive partridge in a pear tree? If you're like most Americans, your holiday purchases aren't likely to include any of the items in...

In today's presidential campaign, America is all heartland -- tractor pulls, county fairs, town halls and truck stops. Candidates scramble for photo ops in plaid, stump in wheat fields and scarf down corn dogs. Our country, it seems, is all country.

"The United States is a big ship, and it is hard to turn a big ship," protested House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. He is undoubtedly right. But who tried this year, and who didn't?

With all of this...

Lou Dobbs is at it again. His target this time? Governor Eliot Spitzer and his plan to provide drivers licenses to New Yorkers regardless of their citizenship.

In developing your own opinion on the Governor's proposal consider this: If, like Lou Dobbs, you believe political pandering that exploits...

The following is by Andrea Batista Schlesinger and Ari Melber and was initially published at The Nation.com.

Mainstream media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign so far has been mostly cynical and vacuous. Nine out of ten campaign stories ignore policy and focus instead on...

I was minding my own business, reading The New York Times.
I read it the way you learn to when you grow up in New York City -- with the intricate double-sided fold that lets you read in even in rush hour, one hand...

Early this month the candidates for president announced their first quarter fundraising totals. When most people saw those huge totals, their eyes widened. Mine grew heavy.

Why? Because I'm preparing for hundreds of million of dollars worth of campaign commercials.

According to experts, more than half of the...