I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. Well, the proof is in: the new economy is a job-creating, profit-generating monster. According to a University of Texas study, the Internet industry added 650,000 jobs last year and increased its revenues by 62 percent. Companies or parts of companies that generate revenue from Internet activities accounted for two and a half million jobs and $524 billion in revenue last year.
Of course, both are small compared to overall national totals, but the increases are startling, given that this is an industry that barely existed a few years ago.
The news also reminds us it's time, once and for all, to agree that taxing Internet commerce is a bad idea, and that the whole notion of the sales tax may be something the new technology is rendering as obsolete as the horse and buggy. It would be perverse to slap a tax on the very engine that's sparking economic growth and redefining the economy.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, concealed carry in the mainstream.