[sixmil]

Rumsfeld and Powell ought to explain to Evans and Rove how Bush's reelection-driven trade policies too often jeopardize U.S. national security. To satisfy parochial domestic interests, Bush's neo-protectionism creates headaches for American soldiers and diplomats abroad. This counterproductive shortsightedness cannot stop soon enough.

If Bush is a protectionist, then we'll have to invent a new superlative for the founding fathers.

[.cnI redruM]

One thing that drove the protectionism of The Founding Fathers was the structural inability to collect the income tax. Our first few presidents couldn't accurately take a census or find where people lived with enough precision to know how much revenue an income tax would generate. They had to devise a tax structure they could reliably work under. Tariffs and sales taxes were that structure.

Also, lower income tax payers were disenfranchised until Andrew Jackson was President. This is important to point out because tariffs and sales taxes have the end result of raising prices on end items. This means these taxes are regressive, hitting the poor much harder than they hit the rich. That works a lot better for a political career if the poor can't vote to throw you out for doing that sort of thing.