Balance Sheet.

AuthorTaylor, Jeff A.
PositionBrief Article

ASSETS

* Das Cut. Germany's Social Democratic government reverses course and backs budget and tax cuts. The corporate tax rate would be cut to 38 percent and capital gains taxes would be slashed. German businesses react by canceling plans to pack up and leave the country.

* Wine Crime. Wine lovers get a champion against state laws prohibiting the direct shipment of wine by out-of-state wineries. The Institute for Justice challenges New York's anti-wine law--and by extension those of 29 other states--in federal court, citing a little document called the Constitution that bars interstate trade wars.

* Comp Time. The Clinton administration takes steps to ease the export of both encryption software and super-fast computers. The new trade regs still need lawyers to navigate, but at least recognize the futility of trying to rope off innovation from global markets.

* Dressed Down. Three-quarters of 4,519 locals surveyed by the Littleton, Colorado, school district reject a strict new dress code suggested in the wake of the Columbine shootings. The code would ban hats, camouflage, shorts, skirts more than three inches above the knee, and pants with a waist size more than two inches greater than student's waist.

* Reich Stuff. Former Clinton secretary of labor Robert Reich blasts the trend to use federal lawsuits to make policy. Reich argues that attacks on guns and tobacco may succeed in the short term, but the strategy makes "our frail democracy even weaker."

LIABILITIES

* Mayberry FreeTV. The Senate Agriculture Committee is the locus of a plan to underwrite $1 billion worth of loans to bring satellite broadcasting to rural communities...

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