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Computer scientists benefit from vox-pop research too. In 1994, four encryption experts enlisted 600 Internet volunteers to crack a secret code protected by a software "key" 129 digits long. Its creators had estimated that it would take 40 quadrillion years to solve the puzzle; the online team did it in eight months and in the process gave software designers new insights into building better security systems. Hackers have become so adept at finding security holes in the Internet that Netscape, maker of the leading Web browser, pays a bounty for any chinks in the program's encryption armor that...
Nothing is simple in Washington, least of all simplicity. Eleven years ago, the House and Senate replaced the intricate U.S. tax code with a less convoluted system that aimed, with some success, to tax equal incomes more or less equally. That turned out to be an imperfect victory. Subsequent Congresses put enough complexity back, through juggling of rates, deductions, credits and so forth, so that the tax code is again almost as baroque as it was before the 1986 reform. Today it fills some 7,000 pages. Just trying to comply with it costs Americans $75 billion a year--minimum...
...reform." Not only is the bill that's shaping up likely to make life more confusing for taxpayers, it's also unlikely to make good on promises to encourage investment and savings or to put more kids into college. When it comes to changing people's behavior, the tax code has never been an effective instrument...
Complexity aside, there is a strong argument that using the tax code is an inefficient and expensive way to accomplish economic or social goals. Most economists will tell you that multiplying IRAs is unlikely to prompt the additional savings the U.S. economy needs; investors may only shift money out of less favored forms of savings. As for college-tuition tax breaks, Richard Murnane, an education professor at Harvard, fears they will turn into "subsidies for middle-class parents sending kids to college. Most middle-class parents do that already, so there's not much gain." Then there...
These arguments are being overpowered by pure (if that is the word) politics. In a political climate that has made increased government spending taboo, the tax code is the best remaining means to hand out rewards to constituents. This is why even Republicans who were whooping it up for a flat tax last year (for instance, House majority leader Dick Armey) are now advocating a change as complex as indexing capital gains for inflation (Armey again). That's also why the new tax bill is being stuffed with special breaks for everyone from whaling captains to sky divers...