Harper’s Index

Chances that the taxes of a low-income working American family will not be reduced by the Bush tax plan: 3 in 5¹

Percentage of federal returns audited last year that were filed by poor Americans seeking Earned Income Tax Credits: 44²

Percentage change between 1999 and 2000 in the number of audits of U.S. corporations: –28³

Federal income taxes paid by PepsiCo in 1999: 0⁴

Amount by which federal taxes paid in states carried by Al Gore in 2000 exceeded federal spending in them, per capita: $685⁵

Amount by which federal taxes paid in states carried by George W. Bush fell short of federal spending in them, per capita: $645⁶

Hours after taking office in 1993 that Bill Clinton ordered a five-year delay on lobbying by ex–White House officials: 1⁷

Days before leaving office that Clinton revoked the order: 23⁸

Number of years ago that new energy secretary Spencer Abraham cosponsored a bill to abolish the Department of Energy: 2⁹

Gallons by which daily U.S. oil consumption would drop if SUVs' average fuel efficiency increased by 3 mpg: 49,000,000¹⁰

Gallons per day that the proposed drilling of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is projected to yield: 42,000,000¹¹

Percentage of U.S. nuclear power plants operating in 1996 that have since broken federal safety regulations: 92¹²

Number of accidents involving U.S. nuclear arms between 1950 and 1980, according to the Pentagon: 32¹³

Minimum number of such accidents, according to a U.S. General Accounting Office report: 233 ¹⁴

Years before a British official was killed in Athens last winter that a CIA bureau chief was killed there with the same gun: 25¹⁵

Average number of people killed in Laos each year since 1973 by U.S. bombs left over from the Vietnam War: 28¹⁶

Number of soldiers discharged from the U.S. military for obesity during the 1990s: 41,799¹⁷

Minimum number of stuffed lions that Pakistan's recently ousted prime minister took with him into exile last year: 2¹⁸

Declared value of the jewelry stolen from rapper Prodigy last December after he left a music-video shoot in Queens: $343,000¹⁹

Pounds of paper used to produce 400 hard copies of New York City's report on the Fresh Kills landfill's closing: 14,800²⁰

Square miles of Quebec City to be enclosed with chain-link fencing during a free-trade meeting there this month: 2²¹

Number of people protesting genetically engineered crops who occupied a Monsanto farm in Brazil on January 26: 1,300²²

Tons of food suitable for human consumption wasted in the United States each year: 48,000,000²³

Tons of antibiotics and antimicrobials given to healthy U.S. farm animals each year: 12,500²⁴

Chance that an American's Streptoccocus pneumoniae infection is resistant to penicillin: 1 in 4²⁵

Percentage of San Francisco Opera employees who claim to have been sickened by theatrical fog or smoke: 39²⁶

Rank of Oasis singer Liam Gallagher among public figures most reviled by Britons: 3²⁷

Rank of Slobodan Milosevic and Adolf Hitler, respectively: 2,1²⁸

Estimated percentage of immigrants to Israel from former Soviet states since 1998 who were not Jewish by birth: 60²⁹

Percentage change since 1980 in church contributions made per member to 29 major Protestant denominations: +40³⁰

Percentage change since then in the average amount per member these churches allocated to charitable work: +10³¹

Price paid on eBay last December for an eight-week internship at Marie Claire: $3,575³²

Chance that a TV character engaging in sexual intercourse during the 1997–98 season was a teenager: 1 in 33³³

Chance last season: 1 in 11³⁴

Percentage of U.S. high school sex-ed teachers who say that abstinence is the only birth-control method they cover: 23³⁵

Percentage of U.S. men who say they have neglected their sex lives because of consumer electronics: 8³⁶

Number of tries it took a blind North Dakota man to pass a shooting test last fall before receiving a gun permit: 2³⁷

Number of fire stations in Columbia, Tennessee, cited for fire-code violations in January: 5³⁸

Blocks separating Kenneth Starr's New York University Law School office from Monica Lewinsky's apartment: 7³⁹

Blocks separating Lewinsky's apartment from Bill Clinton's Harlem office: 135⁴⁰

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