Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters has an op-ed in today's Wall Street Journal calling for more private investment, not gas taxes, to fix the nation's growing transportation dilemmas.  Congress has created two commissions to study the problems of traffic and congestion - and three years later one of their primary recommendations is to raise the gas tax by as much as 40 cents per gallon at a time when the national average gas price is $3.07 per gallon.  Instead of increased taxes, Secretary Peters calls for more private investment and innovation to ease the burdern on both traffic and the taxpayer's wallets.

Even if Congress loses its taste for pork, raising gas taxes and spending more on highways still won't improve the quality of Americans' commutes, though it would likely make them more expensive. We tried this already and it simply doesn't work.

Over the past 25 years, the federal government has increased transportation spending by 100%, yet traffic has grown by over 300%. Not surprisingly, recent studies, including one last summer by the Government Accountability Office, have found that higher gas taxes do nothing to improve traffic congestion.

We believe that this country can do much better than simply charging drivers more to sit in never-ending traffic jams. Thanks to technology, an innovative private sector, pioneering state and local officials, and a sustained effort by our administration to encourage reform, a clear alternative has emerged.

This past year, over 20 major cities in the U.S. have submitted proposals to the Department of Transportation to implement some form of electronic tolling that will both reduce congestion and generate needed revenue for transportation projects. Thanks to new open-road technology, these pricing programs can be put in place without forcing a single driver to slow down to pay a toll or have their transponder "read."

Unlike much of the rest of the world -- including China, India and Europe -- as a nation we've barely taken advantage of the billions of private-sector dollars currently available for investment in new road, bridge and other transportation projects. With the kind of encouragement we're recommending, many more states could soon be able to pay for new transportation projects without having to increase taxes, sell new bonds or go further into debt.

Also in today's Wall Street Journal, Brady Mullins discusses big labor's resurgence of influence leading into the 2008 elections.  In the 2004 and 2006 elections, labor spent $561 million dollars - mostly to help elect Democrats.  This investment may be paying off.  In 2006 workers at AFL-CIO affiliated unions supported candidates endorsed by union leadership 74% of the time, up from 68% in 2002.

Many thought campaign-finance reforms enacted in 2002 would diminish the clout of labor along with that of business. The law was meant to stem the influence of big money in politics by barring individuals, corporations, unions and other interest groups from making large donations to the parties.

But unlike companies, unions have adapted by shifting their spending to an often-overlooked part of campaigns: getting out the vote, or what pros call the "ground game." Unions have continued to ramp up their political spending and targeted it to get out the vote for candidates that labor leaders endorse.

Nowhere has labor's renewed electoral strength been more on display than in the run-up to tomorrow's caucuses here in heavily unionized Nevada. The 60,000-member Culinary Union endorsed Sen. Barack Obama last week, while a group of smaller unions has been working for Sen. Hillary Clinton since the summer.

Labor officials began to re-emphasize campaign operations about a decade ago, as their shrinking membership was hindering their influence. They redoubled their efforts after the campaign-finance law took effect. Businesses still spend far more but haven't adjusted as well: Their political spending has leveled off since 2002.

Labor's rising influence was a little-noticed factor in Sen. Clinton's surprise win in the New Hampshire primary last week. She beat Sen. Obama by 7,500 votes out of 290,000 cast -- and with the help of three of the state's largest unions, beat him by 4,000 votes among union workers alone, exit polls suggested.

One of those unions, the American Federation of State, Country and Municipal Employees, deployed 100 paid staffers and volunteers to the state to get its 4,000 members there to back Mrs. Clinton. On Election Day, the union team knocked on doors for the Clinton campaign. "I find that people are much more receptive to me than to the campaigns," said Ken Fanjoy, a 53-year-old who plows streets along the state's seacoast. "The first thing I say is, 'I'm with your union.'"

An editorial in the Washington Post discuss the new de-Baathfication law, and argues that despite some weaknesses with this legislation, there has been real and measured progress in Iraq over the last year.  The Post argues that important regional progress is being made, and that national unity will follow in time - as long as the security situation is maintained.

“Limited and over-promoted as it was, the vote on the Baath Party legislation also provided a contrast to developments in Iraq a year ago, when a full-scale civil war between Sunnis and Shiites appeared to be unstoppable. To a large extent, the sectarian violence has subsided; most of the killings occurring now stem from the attempt of a reeling al-Qaeda to reassert itself. The worst mistake the United States could make would be to allow its frustration with Iraqi political leaders to cause it to abandon the military strategy that has delivered that progress. As long as Baghdad neighborhoods are continuing to recover, refugees are trickling home, and Sunni and Shiite militias are helping to keep the peace rather than hunting each other, the U.S. mission in Iraq will be serving a vital purpose.”

USA Today is reporting that Baghdad is now 75% secure, while last year at this time the city was only 8% secure. 

U.S. commanders caution that the gains are still fragile, but at the moment U.S. and Iraqi forces "basically own the streets," said Col. Ricky Gibbs, a brigade commander in southern Baghdad.

The fight to control Baghdad is the centerpiece of the counterinsurgency strategy launched a year ago by Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq. The plan, popularly known as the "surge," seeks to reduce sectarian and other violence by moving troops off large bases and into dangerous neighborhoods to protect civilians.

The 310 neighborhoods in the "control" category are secure, but depend on U.S. and Iraqi military forces to maintain the peace. The 46 areas in the "retain" category have reached a level where Iraqi police and security forces can maintain order, a more permanent fix. The remaining areas have fewer security forces based there, though they are not necessarily violent.

In February 2007, when additional U.S. forces began arriving, only 37 Baghdad neighborhoods were in the "control" and "retain" categories.

The drop in violence in Baghdad and elsewhere helped avert a religious civil war, said Thomas Hammes, a retired Marine colonel and author.