My state of Texas seems to have an inordinate share of nincompoops in public office. But it's only fair that officeholders from other place be considered before deciding which state is the nincompoopiest of all.Give credit to Pennsylvania, for example, whose GOP governor, Tom Corbett, recently scored big nincompoop points by explaining why his state ranks 49th in job creation."Many employers," the guv grumbled during a radio interview, "say, 'We're looking for people, but we can't find anybody that has passed a drug test.'" Yes, the old my-constituents-are-a-bunch-of-drug-addicts dodge! That's world-class nincompoopery. Did I mention that Tom's voter approval rating is down to 38 percent?But compare Corbett to one of the Lone Star State's congress-critters, Steve Stockman. Steve's re-election campaign has put out a bumper sticker with this uplifting thought: "If babies had guns, they wouldn't be aborted." Wow — that's two nincompoopisms in only eight words!Still, even Steve can't hold a candle to Rep. Louie Gohmert, the mouth that never shuts. Vice chair of a House homeland security subcommittee, Gohmert recently revealed an astonishing piece of intelligence on the terrorist threat to the U.S. of A. Al-Qaida, he informed the whole world, has set up radical Islamist camps on the "other side" of the Texas-Mexico border.Really? No. But the Islamist alarmist proceeded to tell us that Mexican drug gangs are teaching al-Qaida infidels how to cross the border into Texas and to help them fit in. Gohmert says the drug cartels are teaching Islamists how to "act like Hispanics."Hmmm, wondered many Latinos on "this side," how does Louie think one would "act" Hispanic? Sing "La Cucaracha," drive a low-rider, dress up as landscapers? But "think" is not part of Gohmert's shtick — his mouth operates on its own without any connection to a brain or reality.

 Ten years ago this month, Congress enacted the third major tax cut of the George W. Bush administration. Its centerpiece was a huge cut in the tax rate on dividends. Historically, they had been taxed as ordinary income, but the Bush plan, enacted by a Republican Congress, cut that rate to 15 percent. The tax rate on ordinary income went as high as 35 percent.This initiative originated with the economist R. Glenn Hubbard, who had been chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers when the proposal was sent to Congress. Mr. Hubbard was a strong believer that the double taxation of corporate profits – first at the corporate level and again when paid out as dividends – was a major economic problem.During the George H. W. Bush administration, Mr. Hubbard had been deputy assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy and wrote a Treasury report advocating full integration of the corporate and individual income taxes.Mr. Hubbard had also spearheaded enactment of big tax cuts in 2001 and 2002 that he said would jump-start the American economy. In an op-ed article in The Washington Post on Nov. 16, 2001, he predicted that the soon-to-be-enacted 2002 tax cut, which President Bush signed on March 9, 2002, would “quickly deliver a boost to move the economy back toward its long-run growth path.”Mr. Hubbard predicted that it would create 300,000 additional jobs in 2002 and add half a percentage point to the real gross domestic product growth rate.There is no evidence that the tax cut had any such effect. The unemployment rate remained above 5.7 percent all year, rising to 5.9 percent in November and 6 percent in December. The real GDP growth rate fell each quarter of 2002, and by the fourth quarter growth was at a standstill. Hence the need for yet another big tax cut.