Category: Pete du Pont

I love the democratic outrage over Bush administration radio ads touting his tax plan.

Edison schools took over a failing public elementary school in San Francisco in 1998. It turned the school around.

The title of a new NCPA Brief Analysis says it all: "If You Like Complicated Hidden Taxes, You'll Love Phase-outs."

There is no doubt that Sen. McCain believes he is on a noble quest. But the reality is, he's just chasing windmills – and constitutionally protected ones at that.

I'm on record as the Internet's number one fan. I think we ought to take all thoughts of taxing it, tie them to a cinder block, and drop them in the ocean. I love its freewheeling, anything goes attitude.

If you're wondering why a hefty percentage of the American people think Bill Gates is the devil incarnate it may be because the judge in the Microsoft trial – Thomas Penfield Jackson — unfairly painted Microsoft as a villian.

How much would you get from a Bush tax cut plan? Don't bother checking the distribution table from the treasury to find out.

Big-spending liberals got their clocks cleaned by the Reagan tax cuts 20 years ago and never got over it.

We recently marked the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's address to the congress setting out his economic policy.

Washington is trigger-happy this week, and it has nothing to do with guns. It has to do with putting fiscal policy on autopilot, tying the implementation of stimulative tax cuts next year to the spending habits of Congress this year. Sound strange? It is.

Some democrats want to cut the social security payroll tax in lieu of income tax rate reduction.

The Bush tax cut is center stage, so this week let's look at it from some different perspectives.

One of the anti-gun forces favorite straw men is gun shows. Handgun control, Inc. claims 70 percent of the guns used in crimes come from gun shows. But as the NCPA's Sterling Burnett demonstrates, that's nonsense.

One of the less truthful gimmicks tax cut opponents like to pull is to deride them as gifts to "the rich." Setting aside the fact that the rich pay most of the taxes, and that a cut is economically and morally sound, who exactly are "the rich"?

There is growing consensus that the federal government should offer some sort of tax credit for the purchase of health insurance – an idea that could go along way towards reducing the number of uninsured from its current high of over 44 million. In other words: health reform is tax reform.

If you're listening, you like radio. And if you like radio, have I got a read for you. It's called Two O'clock Eastern War Time, a novel by John Dunning about the excitement of wartime radio set at a station on the coast of New Jersey in 1942.

Big-spending liberals got their clocks cleaned by the Reagan tax cuts of 1981, and they're still incensed. So they are at it again, spurring on the dead horse of tax-cut opposition.

I had a few days in the sun last week and a chance to catch up on some of my reading. Today, Reagan in his own hand; Tomorrow Two O'clock Eastern War Time.

Liberals had a bad two days last week.

The law of unintended consequences is ready for work.

On Tuesday evening, President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress in what amounts to his first State of the Union address.  The most noteworthy point, however, came when President Bush discussed another one of his central campaign issues, one that may go further in defining his legacy than any other – Social Security reform.

We normally think of the regulatory burden as something imposed by Washington. But a new study by the Reason Public Policy Foundation, the NCPA and others shows big cities are perfectly capable of putting up regulatory barriers – and hurting the people who need help most: Minorities, new immigrants and single parents.

There's a very clever book out now about the 2000 Presidential Campaign by Washington Post reporter Dana Millbank, who covered the campaign for two years for the new republic. It's called Smashmouth: Notes From the 2000 Campaign Trail, and as you might guess from the title, Millbank doesn't always go for the serious stuff.

Last week marked the 20th anniversary of Ronald Reagan's address to Congress setting forth the tax-reduction program that changed the course of contemporary American economic history. Just last evening President Bush presented his economic agenda. If his tax cuts and reduction in spending growth come to pass, the Bush program will continue the Reagan legacy of economic growth and individual opportunity.

In the post war years, Europeans called us "the ugly americans". For some of them, we still are, though for different reasons.