Category: Pete du Pont

I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis — with a report of hypocrisy in action.

As the excuses for not giving school vouchers a chance get flimsier by the day, a study from the Heartland Institute pokes a hole in another one: that they'll drain money from public education.

Some people collect stamps. I collect reasons why the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty would be a disaster, and I recently acquired a wonderful new addition to my collection.

Feeling old? You will after this.

Overshadowed by sexier decisions at the end of the supreme court session last month was a really bad one.

Bush and gore both have plans for voluntary personal savings accounts for retirement. One's sensible. One's just politics.

Al Gore says Texas is the most polluted state in the country. The League of Conservation Voters says George W. Bush's tenure has led to worsening air quality that if duplicated nationally would set us back 30 years.

Having lost the use of "it won't work," opponents of a Missile Defense System are now trotting out, "We don't need it any more." Really?

Is presidential politics really reduceable to "it's the economy, stupid?" Conventional wisdom says yes, and that a good economy helps Al Gore while a bad one hurts him.

A lot of people are afraid of bioengineered food. Why?

The government's spending a lot of time and effort to break up Microsoft, but is the law of unintended consequences lurking in the weeds? Alan Reynolds of the Hudson Institute thinks so. He asks why splitting Microsoft in two won't just create two monopolies.

Here's a quiz for you: who knows a lot about racial, ethnic and sexual politics, but very little about literary history, Shakespeare and the classic authors of the Western philosophy? Answer: more and more college English graduates.

The senate has passed a so-called hate crimes law. I know those who voted for it had their hearts in the right place. But i could never have joined them.

The fourth of July is the time for Americans to feel good about their country, and I won't detract from that festive mood. The economy's great, the cold war's receding to a passage in the history books, technological advancements continue apace….what's not to like?

Al Gore got a potentially nasty bit of news recently when Ralph Nader accepted the green party nomination for president. In the past, the greens have come in below other third parties, but grumblings on the left, a rise of no-nothingism in such areas as free trade, and a big-name candidate like Nader could put the greens on the map. He's attacking the hustings this time with vigor, and it's paying off: he's polling six percent nationally and ten percent in some states.

It's time for an installment from my summer reading list, a book about sailing, though not one just for sailors.

I lauded the Welfare Reform Act of 1996 as long overdue. But I found myself on the same side as some liberal critics of welfare reform. And I still do, because we've only gone halfway in reforming welfare.

Al gore, after calling George W. Bush's Social Security Partial Privatization Plan "risky" — the same thing he calls all bush proposals — has offered his own plan.

If it's summer, you know television is going to start dumbing down, and this year the dumbest is "Survivor." you know the drill: a bunch of losers get dumped on an island; they bicker, whine, eat rodents and the sole survivor wins a lot of money.

President Clinton's proposed "Patients' Bill Of Rights" is strangely named. According to a study by the Pacific Research Institute, it's really a lawyers' bill of rights — because of all the federal regulations that will be dumped on health care companies.

A central purpose of the Constitution of the United States of America was to "provide for the common defense" and American taxpayers annually cough up $300 billion in pursuit of such security. And what protection do these outlays provide against the most destructive weapon of all, the long-range ballistic missile? None.

At last! Eighty-five percent of those polled have revolted against the high level of taxation, and conservative politicians have rallied behind a flat rate tax plan!

When the Welfare Reform Bill was passed, opponents predicted the end of the world? Well, the world's still here. And for lots of people in it, life's better.

I had to laugh about big labor's snippy reaction to some House Democrats' vote for free trade with China.

The conventional wisdom is that a good economy helps Al Gore and a bad economy hurts him. Certainly Mr. Gore thinks so. Lately, he has been doing all he can to make it seem as if he had something to do with the strong growth, low inflation and unemployment we are experiencing.