It is a cold day in hell when prominent liberals use anti-tax logic to advocate free trade.

But here it is: The leftist Washington Post writes in an editorial opposing steel tariffs enacted by the Bush administration, “Since companies pass tariff costs on to consumers, that simply means the American public is paying a $650 million hidden tax to the U.S. government.”

Most Americans support free trade, but only one (possibly two, we don’t know about Wesley Clark) of the 10 candidates for the Democratic ticket supports it — some go as far as advocating our withdrawal from NAFTA and the World Trade Organization!

This looks like an example of Democrats criticizing Republicans for not being conservative enough and then staking out their own position far to the other side of the argument.

This sham is even more evident on the deficit.

Democrats repeatedly accuse President Bush of running up the deficit with his tax cuts. But on every single appropriations bill, the Democratic leadership proposes to spend billions more than what the appropriations committee recommended. Even on typically Republican-advocated Homeland Security and Defense appropriations, they call for more government spending.

We need to show the Democrats that this hypocrisy and blurring of the issues is not what it takes to win elections: Keep them in the minority in 2004.

Nathan Hertel

Junior

Political Science