Below is an article I wrote as a published columnist for The Bulletin Newspapers regarding the Bush Tax Cut debate of 2001. It brings a certain pleasant repose and a timely affirmation of one's political identity to harken back to a time when our President acted in accordance with the high expectations and ideological perspective of those of us who ardently supported him, and when he was respected nationally for it. Unfortunately, even this glaring success of the President, which is largely responsible for spurring the subsequent economic growth we have enjoyed during challenging times, has to be ultimately viewed as somewhat qualified due to his failure, even with a Republican majority in both Houses of Congress, to make these cuts permanent. Now, this policy mantle of success is highly vulnerable to the new Pelosi/ Reid majority that has risen as a result of the costly failures of the Cheney/Bush Administration's mid-east adventurism.
Please enjoy this brief stroll through the recent past, when our philosophical mandate and its policy manifestations were clear, and the debate proved inevitably that are ideas were morally and practically superior: and to a time when the ideological fissures lied within the Democrat Party, while succesful and popular policymaking and its commensurate popular confidence were so discernably our province.
Class warfare gimmicks
The Bulletin, March 29, 2001
I will begin this column by advocating a radical proposition; that it is both right and economically logical for all Americans to enjoy a tax cut, even those who have attained a higher than average level of income. Yet those brave fighters for the workingman, and antagonists of the wealthy, those liberal Congressional leaders, are obstructing tax relief for all Americans again. Democrat politicians are desperate to keep as much of the savings and earnings of America’s workers under Washington’s control, just as they are desperate to deny the new President a political victory. Perhaps they are even more scandalized by the audacity of George W. Bush. He was after all the first serious, viable (sorry Bob Dole) G.O.P. nominee to resurrect the fundamental American principle of low taxes since Ronald Reagan; he then responded to media and Democratic demands for specificity by presenting a comprehensive plan early in the campaign. Now he actually kept his word to the American people by introducing that plan to Congress for passage, resisting his opponents, who have used their standard class warfare gimmick, and a new rather humorous, Hooveresque debt reduction angle to intimidate him into violating that pledge.
The fact that The Bush plan significantly increases debt retirement, and provides the highest percentage of relief to more modest income taxpayers, are mere inconveniences that can’t be allowed to interfere with Liberal pedantic angst. Also, a message to those susceptible to the Democratic debt arguments; America’s national debt is derived predominantly from an addiction to excessive spending, not from the insatiable desire of Washington politicians to cut your taxes. The Bush plan as originally sent to Congress would alter the current tax rate structure of 15%, 28%, 31%, 33%, 36% and 39.6%, to a simplified and reduced structure of 4 categories of 10%, 15%, 25% and 33% in 6 years. After eight years of Clintonian deceit, the American people will finally receive a real ‘middle class tax cut’. Promising significant tax relief was merely a venal sin compared to legislating such a policy; that’s an outright provocation to those who have been defending and explaining Presidential mendacity for eight years, and believe in an ever expanding government role in (and take from) the private economy. The focus of this tax debt should not be on opposing a new President for partisan purposes, but rather it should be on the best interest of the American taxpayer and our nation’s economy.
We must bring proper scrutiny upon those who assail the size of the income tax cut. As currently constructed, the Bush proposal on marginal rate reductions represents much less than a third of merely the surplus. Further, the estimated 10 year $1.6 trillion tax reduction sum is ironically less than the spending increases on a per year average over the last four years of the Clinton Administration, and even less in dollars than the 4% per annum rate of spending growth projected under the Bush budget. An honest appraisal renders one to conclude that it is the claims that the plan is too big, and not the plan itself that is truly irresponsible. As to the fundamental pillar of the opponents, whether it’s the “rich” that benefit from the Bush proposal, the above enumeration of the rate reductions, the lowest category receives a full 1/3 benefit, by the far the greatest percentage decrease of all taxpayers. Further, both the Administration and Congressional Republicans have shown a willingness to consider judicious compromise with more reasoned critics, and have all ready passed a new iteration of the Plan from the House that accelerates the reduction for the lowest bracket.
Yet predictably undeterred by facts, liberal potentates Gephardt and Daschle brought out a Lexus and a more inexpensive car in a typically simplistic attempt to evoke envy of the “wealthy”, because the Republican President’s proposal will save all Americans money. The predicate being that if someone who has achieved a modicum of financial success i.e. Lexus owner, will benefit from the tax policy, then that policy is inherently unfair to all others. Paradoxically, it was these very same Democrats that supported Bill Clinton’s campaign pledge reversal by levying a gas tax increase that has cost the owners of used Fords as much as the owners of a new Mercedes. They also have warned of a return to the eighties deficits as if completely unaffected by the objective facts of a recent history, which unambiguously demonstrate that federal government revenues actually doubled due to the growth and prosperity spurred by Reagan’s deep tax cuts on income and capital formation, from which we have been the beneficiaries of since. As aforementioned, deficits were a symptom of a refusal of Democrat majorities to constrain government spending. As the need for substantial tax cutting is becoming even more evident in the midst of faltering economic indicators, some Senate Democrats are literally suggesting the President abandon his proposal for sustained tax reductions and just send everyone a one-time check of $500. Only a contemporary liberal Democrat could confuse a plan to allow Americans to continually pay less of their personal/family income to the government into a government welfare program!
The Left has been emboldened by the impressive success Bill Clinton enjoyed as a message manipulator. Their inveterate hostility even to this very modest tax cut proposal is quite revealing, and hence is a clarion call for vigilance on the part of the average citizen. Senate Democrats (and most assuredely their successors for some years to come) are currently vested in the hope that they can convince us that a tax reduction is actually a government expenditure; and that it is more important to deny our neighbor than to reward ourselves. President Bush and the GOP are vested in the evident and sublimely American principle that the more money Americans keep, the better it is for us as individuals and as a nation. The numbers matter, but the more important battle is which of these conflicting ideals will prevail and be the governing fiscal ethos of our future. The American people must win this battle in order to ultimately win the war.
