A good society taxes its wealthiest members to invest in infrastructure and services for all. At least that was the consensus fifty years ago, but now the wealthy pay lower taxes than the rest of us.

Chuck Collins from the Institute of Policy Studies talks with the Old Mole's Bill Resnick about what our society needs and how to pay for it. Collins is the author of the pamphlet Reversing the Great Tax Shift: Seven Steps to Finance Our Economic Recovery Fairly, available here.

The U.S. House of Representatives passes the “Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act” on Thursday, bringing Congress a step closer to federal Food and Drug Administration regulation of tobacco products.
 This week, a federal tobacco tax hike of 62-cents per pack went into effect, and Oregon is considering raising its tax another 60-cents.  KBOO’s Hayden Alminiana has more, in collaboration with the Oregon News Service

 Host Theresa Mitchell interviews renowned theorietical physicist Michio Kaku, cofounder of string field theory, best selling author, and national radio and TV host. Kaku explores the boundaries of the real world by asking, "Could the impossibilities of today become the realities of the future?"

Oregonians may soon see their Electricity Bills rising, and it won’t just be because the cost of producing electricity is going up.
 Oregon’s two biggest electricity producers are safeguarding their profits by trying to raise electric bills.
 Pacific Power’s parent company, Pacificorp, has asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission for a nine percent rate increase effective next year.
That increase would help Pacificorp almost double its profit margin.
Portland General Electric is also going to see its profits rise, even as people use less power.
That’s thanks to poorly timed program to promote energy efficiency.
 

Harriet and Marge host another installment of House Holding, or Homemaking Gone Progressive. They see a new way of considering our roles as stewards, not just as it applies in the world at large, but in the concrete management of resources as they flow from the natural world to our homes, kitchens, tables and community. Join them for a discussion of house holding as a form as activism. Today's topic is "Getting Ready For Your Preserving Season."

In 1980 investigative journalist Karl Grossman wrote a book called "COVER UP: What you are not supposed to know about Nuclear Power." That was a year after the meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility in Pennsylvania scared the nation into rethinking its faith in nuclear power as a source of energy too cheap to meter.

After a thirty year hiatus, however, nuclear power is back on the table, this time touted as a carbon emission-free source of electricity. But Karl Grossman is still here to tell us what we're not supposed to know about Nuclear Power.