Wednesday, August 1, 2007

The Daily Digest


Did Rush Limbaugh plagiarize Matt Lewis?

One of my pet peeves is the importance of tax reform. Dave Weigel points to heartening news in this regard: six of the 11 GOP presidential candidates—Fred Thompson, John McCain, Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Duncan Hunter and Mike Huckabee—favor the Fair Tax (a 23 percent sales tax), and a seventh (Ron Paul) wants to abolish the IRS.

Are average attacks per day up or down in Iraq? What about coalition fatalities? Or oil production? Or electricity? Using a slew of snazzy charts, the recently overhauled Victory Caucus Web site has the answers.

In 1930, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act became law. The protectionist measure was vigorously opposed by 1,028 of the nation’s top economists, who rightly predicted that the tariffs would devastate the economy. Now, some in Congress are considering ways to enact similar policies, this time against China. Once again, 1,028 of America’s top economists, from all 50 states and top universities, have signed a petition in opposition.

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