u s congress

Robert Reich says it's not the size of the government that's the problem but its heavy tilt toward corporate interests.

Gov.-elect Larry Hogan named a former Democratic lawmaker from Southern Maryland as state health secretary Tuesday as he continued to fill key posts in his administration.

Everybody loves cheap gas ... except environmentalists, the oil industry and Tesla.

End the embargo

In a Republican field that up to now has been unable to generate much fervor, the prospect of a Clinton-Bush family rematch in 2016 might be irresistible.

Because liberals lack philosophical diversity on the role of government, all they have left to disagree about is tactics

Lisa Foust was in for a doozy of a Christmas Eve: a full day's work, then piling presents in the car and making a more than five-hour drive home to North Carolina. Then President Barack Obama gave federal workers an extra day off Dec. 26.

It's one thing to view Cuba in geopolitical terms. It's quite another to watch barefoot children playing baseball on a dirt field with homemade bats and balls.

George D. Hubbard, a retired Semmes, Bowen & Semmes attorney who was known for his irreverent sense of humor and love of Gilbert & Sullivan operas, died Dec. 11 at Copper Ridge, an assisted-living facility in Sykesville, of Alzheimer's disease. He was 88.

The head of Amtrak questioned whether an ongoing study of replacement options for the troubled, 140-year-old Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel is a "waste of time," given what he sees as a massive failure on the part of national leaders to commit adequate funding for major projects along one of the nation's busiest passenger rail system.

"Picturing Mary" includes Old Masters but no contemporary artworks

Congress must reverse itself on sweeping powers given pension trustees to cut benefits

The U.S. must condemn Mexicos violence and corruption in no uncertain terms, and follow those words with action.

Bipartisan cheer for the release of a man with Maryland ties who was held in Cuba for more than five years quickly gave way to political rancor Wednesday as lawmakers presaged coming battles over the dramatic new relationship President Barack Obama outlined with Havana.

Help for suicidal veterans, insurance against terrorist attacks and 2015 tax policy the last casualties of a dysfunctional Congress

Now that the elections are over and Congress is back in Washington, manufacturers across the nation are hoping our lawmakers will work with us to help get our economy back on track. A great place to start would be passing a package of on-again/off-again tax provisions known as "tax extenders."

Blame Democrats for not reining in the "most flagrant of all giveaways to the super rich."

The U.S. Postal Service, beset by financial woes and cuts in service, still gets high marks from customers. Participants in a Gallup survey recently rated the Postal Service best among 13 major federal agencies.

While the $1.2 trillion compromise spending plan contains plenty of unwanted add-ons, the Senate made the right call in voting for it

Why has The Sun neglected the Jonathan Gruber scandal?

The Senate was speeding toward final approval of a $1 trillion spending bill late Saturday after muscling past opposition from conservative Republicans — an effort that would end any possibility of a government shutdown until next fall.

Maryland charities Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland and U.S. Naval Academy all report offshore investment accounts

Local residents and visitors to Harford County are invited to take part in the Susquehanna Museum at the Lock House's 42nd annual Candlelight Tour of Havre de Grace, which is scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 13.

Regulators must protect consumers from seafood fraud and help put an end to illegal fishing overseas

Release of the CIA "torture report" is likely to rekindle the domestic debate over the use of such techniques.

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers narrowly averted a government shutdown late Thursday night and approved a $1 trillion spending package after a dramatic day on Capitol Hill in which House members in both parties raised objections to portions of the massive spending measure.

WASHINGTON -- After years of advocating for an overhaul of the nation's tax code, Sen. Ben Cardin took a tentative first step toward that goal on Thursday by introducing legislation to replace much of the current income tax with what he calls a "progressive consumption tax."

, I hadn't known that Lions Clubs internationally provide programs that are estimated to have saved the sight of nearly 3 million children, and that they've vaccinated 41 million children in Africa against measles — a leading cause of childhood blindness and even death.

Business leaders, perhaps more than stock market analysts, expect government to function and to make the public policy decisions necessary to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. business and therefore our overall economy. Continuing political gridlock can only stand in the way of such progress.

As U.S. Supreme Court justices wrestle with whether or not Amtrak, as a quasi private corporation, should have the right to set performance standards that would also affect the freight services with which it shares lines, the rail system is facing gridlock. America's outmoded railroad policy leading to this situation was created in a crisis atmosphere 50 years ago. It is counter-productive today and, if not revised, potentially disastrous for the future. A look at the past can better inform the

While Larry Hogan triumphed in the Maryland governor's race, his fellow Republicans won legislative and the county council seats in Dundalk for the first time in decades, completing a dramatic partisan shift in one of the state's once reliably Democratic Party strongholds. The realignment culminated after years of disaffection and may create a lasting transformation.

Maryland will see hundreds of millions in federal cash to build the Red Line, dredge the Port of Baltimore and to clear a backlog of rape kits, among other provisions in a massive budget deal reached by congressional negotiators on Tuesday.

The abuses committed by agency interrogators against terrorist suspects after 9/11 must never be allowed to happen again

David "Mudcat" Saunders, the self-appointed guru of Democratic Bubba-dom, told me to "kiss his Rebel" backside. Former Democratic National Committee chair Donnie Fowler poked me in the chest with his finger at the party's 2007 winter meetings and called me by the term commonly used to describe a more specific anatomical feature of one's derriere.

GOP plan to thwart EPA rules foolishly ignores the grave threat posed by air pollution and climate change to American health and economy

Ever since George W. Bush in 2002 began driving up public frenzy for his invasion of Iraq on trumped-up justifications a year later, Congress' constitutional role to declare war has continued to be cold-shouldered.

In the past few weeks there has been a lot of discussion about President Obama's response to the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases. The question we need to be asking is, what will Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives John Boehner do?

Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler, encouraged by whopping awards and settlements in other states, could join what one analyst calls a "nationwide cascade" of litigation against the oil industry for its use years ago of a gasoline additive that has contaminated ground water across the state.