The National Taxpayers Union recruited 257 economists, including two winners of the Nobel prize, to sign a letter to all members of Congress that opposes a tax on windfall oil profits. The proposal has been attracting key Republican support with Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, joining Democrats in pressing the new tax.
The letter's signatories are headed by the two Nobel laureates: Milton Friedman of the Hoover Institution and Edward C. Prescott of Arizona State University.
The letter pointed out that the 1980 windfall profits tax entailed large compliance costs but yielded almost no revenue before it was repealed by Congress in 1988. Reenactment of the tax, said the letter, "can be predicted to result in a diminution of domestic energy production, an increase in American dependence on foreign oil and a reduction in the overall supplies available to consumers."
MURDERING RESEARCHERS
Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, at an Oct. 26 hearing drew from an animal rights activist an admission that he advocated murder of medical researchers who performed experiments on animals.
Dr. Jerry Vlasak of North American Animal Liberation was quoted as saying at an animal rights convention: "I don't think you'd have to kill, assassinate too many. I think for five lives, 10 lives, 15 human lives, we could save a million, 2 million, or 10 million non-human lives."
Questioned by Inhofe whether he was "advocating the murder of individuals," Vlasak replied: "I made that statement, and I stand by that statement."