What a difference a year makes.

When we began 2003, we had yet to charge off to war in Iraq; California had a regularly elected governor; and, fewer Americans could count themselves among the impoverished, imprisoned, unemployed, and uninsured.

Since January, the President has gone to Congress requesting everything from $330 billion in tax cuts to help get America on the road to economic recovery to $87 billion to help get Iraq on the road to reconstruction. He has raised more than $90 million on his own road to re-election, as more cuts and modifications have been made to overtime pay, Social Security, Medicare, federal subsidized school lunches, TANF, welfare, and Headstart. And now, more of the American poor and middle class are bracing for a journey down the road to economic insecurity.

But, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.” This year, the Supreme Court recognized the ongoing necessity for affirmative action in public universities. New York advocates, who spent years in the courts to prove that all children were entitled to a meaningful education, were finally victorious. And we saw policy makers challenge this administration to match its zeal for “nation building” abroad with passion for “job building” at home.

Please join us as we take a look back at 2004.

Here’s what you’ll find in the DMI 2003 Year In Review:

The Best and Worst of Public Policy: From the American Parity Act’s call for equal resources spent to rebuild Iraq and America to the 2003 tax cut, a look at the year’s best and worst policy.

The DMI 2003 Injustice Index: The real state of the union in 2003, by the numbers.

Your 2003 Reading List: Tools to refute the antiquated arguments of your in-laws.

The State of the States: What happened in Alabama, Alaska, California, New York, and Texas?

Best of the ProgBlog: The year’s news, predigested for the busy progressive.