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A SUMMER road trip is an enduring American tradition. Despite today’s high gas prices, it remains an inexpensive way to travel and experience the country beyond the narrow confines of one’s own city. The changes in scenery that unfolded during my 3,000-mile drive from Seattle to Washington, D.C., were wondrous. Even before I left Washington state, I passed through several Read More ›

For more background information on the Dover trial click here. “While Discovery Institute opposes efforts to mandate the teaching of intelligent design in public schools, it even more strongly objects to the ACLU’s Orwellian efforts to shut down classroom discussions of intelligent design through government-imposed censorship,” said Dr. John West, Associate Director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, the Read More ›

San Francisco, CA — A California parent, Jeanne Caldwell, is filing a federal lawsuit today against officials of the National Science Foundation and the University of California at Berkeley for spending more than $500,000 of federal money on a website that encourages teachers to use religion to promote evolution in violation of the First Amendment. “In this stunning example of Read More ›

Assume you were a regular blood donor but had an accident in which you lost a considerable amount of blood. Do you think you should increase or decrease the size and frequency of your blood donations until you recover?

Though most politicians are smart enough to answer, “decrease the blood donations,” many seem not smart enough to understand that, when you take an economic hit, you don’t want to unnecessarily add burdens to the economy. I refer to the call from some politicians to increase taxes or not extend President Bush’s tax cuts to “pay” for New Orleans. (Note: Not making the tax cuts permanent is the same as a tax increase because tax rates therefore would be higher than now.)

The tax increase proponents seemingly cannot grasp that taxes reduce our economic vitality. When taxes rise, the economy slows. When taxes are reduced, job creation and economic growth accelerate. Those who do not understand the role of incentives are always surprised when tax revenues increase, as they did after the Reagan and recent Bush tax cuts, and fall or stagnate when tax rates increase. (For instance, the capital gains tax now — at a maximum 15 percent — produces many times the tax revenue it did when the rate was 40 percent, even after adjusting for inflation and the economy’s size.)

Raising tax rates can increase government revenue over the long run, if the rate is low enough to only have a minimal effect on incentives to work, save and invest. Unfortunately, almost all major U.S. taxes are at rates where the disincentive effects of any rate increase eventually swamp any short-term revenue gains. Almost any tax rate increase can augment revenues in the very short run (the next week or month), before people and businesses have time to adjust their behavior, which most often result in lower long-term tax revenue.

From the time of the Thatcher reforms in the early 1980s, Britain has been the star economic performer among the major European nations. The British went from having the lowest per capita income of the European big four (Germany, France, Italy and Britain) to having the highest one, but now there are signs the economic sickness in “old Europe” is beginning to infect the British.

The British economy had been growing an average of almost 3 percent yearly for the last two decades, which is quite respectable, given that French and German economies have grown much more slowly. Over the same period, the U.S. grew at an average rate of almost 4 percent, far higher than any of the major European economies.

Abortion continues to dominate discussion about John Roberts’s nomination and will certainly dominate commentary surrounding President Bush’s second nominee. Beyond the posturing and polemics, however, the core issue is not in play. Even if President Bush is successful in appointing two anti-abortion justices, five votes will remain on the Court to uphold Roe’s essential holding protecting a woman’s right to Read More ›

Original Article Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire’s statewide emergency drought declaration in March 2005 energized a growing public information campaign for water conservation in central Puget Sound. But with the many rains that soon followed came an important realization: The real water challenge in Western Washington is not scarcity. It is future population and economic growth. A 2001 Central Puget Sound Read More ›

This article, published by The Guardian, contains an interview with Discovery Institute Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Michael Behe: John Sutherland: For Intelligent Design proponents such as yourself, isn’t Darwinism just another theory? Michael Behe: Well, yeah, sure. But the question is: exactly how did life get here? Was it by natural selection and random mutation or was Read More ›

This article, published by the Chronicle of Higher Education, mentions Discovery Institute: The Discovery Institute supports many leaders in the intelligent-design movement and has been working to promote the teaching of the theory in secondary schools and colleges. The rest of the article can be found here.