I'm Pete du Pont with the National Center for Policy Analysis. I came across a statistic that shows the world has finally changed. As of last year, more than half of U.S. households had at least one computer. Not that there was any suspense about it, but computers are now officially no big deal. In fact, they're just part of the furniture. Life has officially changed.
The more telling stat, however, is that 65 percent of children between three and 17 had access to a computer and 30 percent logged onto the Internet. That means we'll shortly have a generation who won't remember a world without computers or the Internet, a generation for whom life on line will be business as usual.
I always thought the new economy gurus jumped the gun, despite its initial splashy impact. But give it fifteen years, when people coming into the adult world — and the job market — find computers and the online world no more remarkable than color television or power steering, and the world will truly have been changed.
Those are my ideas, and at the NCPA we know ideas can change the world. I'm Pete du Pont. Next time, why taxes kill savings.