There's an idea floating around about what to do with Iraq's oil -- set up a trust fund similar to Alaska's, and distribute the income to each Iraqi citizen every year.

I like the idea. What I'm trying to figure out is who came up with it first. Michael Barone argues for it in his April 14 column, but according to this post from Instapundit, Barone says he got the idea from Lou Dolinar at Newsday. Josh Marshall wrote of the idea in this April 9 post, but he credits the idea to the New America Foundation's Steven Clemons, who put the idea forward in a NY Times op-ed this week. Then there is Michael Feroli, who argued for a similar plan in a Feb. 12 article on TechCentralStation.

Anyway, it's a good idea, and it's unsurprising that lots of people might come up with it independently.

UPDATE: Today, Sunday April 13, an economics professor named Scott Pardee has an op-ed in the Washington Post arguing for -- you guessed it -- the Alaska model of distributing oil money.