Capitol Ideas
Bethell, Tom
Inflation has pushed more and more people into higher and higher tax brackets, and has resulted in onerous taxation of purely illusory profits--capital gaihs and_interest earnings. In the...
...Money spent on domestic gas and oil is not lost to the economy...
...To be a Rockefeller in the last quarter of the 20th century...
...Russell Baker noted recently that to a Rip Van Winkle awakening after a 20-year sleep, "perhaps the most shocking change....would be the universal display of undressed girls on magazine covers at the newsstand where he b.uys his morning paper...
...But he is, I fear, terribly open-minded about all matters (to the point of gullibility), and when the Washington folk get to him with such items as: Jimmy, you shouldn't build that dam because some minnows will be hurt by it...
...Let me cite just one example, used several times to describe the business community at this meeting: T/se enemy...
...Undoubtedly the reduction of women to sex objects--the disconnection between sex and childbirth and the Tom Bethell is the Washington editor for Harper's and a contributing editor to the Washington Monthly...
...It takes time, and a lot of hard work, to demolish the U,S...
...Governors shouldn't be allowed to run," one member of the Washington Comintern told me last spring...
...What a gloomy compilation the Washington Post is: an assemblage of memoranda to Congressmen and supermarket ads...
...I have to tell you that there is something refreshing about the Reems case," wrote Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen...
...They still are today...
...The tax reforms of 1969 and 1976, combined with taxation of inflated income, have raised this punitive taxation on capital even further--thus stifling the main source of growth...
...Yeah, yeah, " the Vice President perked up...
...How hollow the ideals of Camelot, that they could be so easily laid aside for four more years, in the hope of a Restoration of the Monarchy in 1980...
...Nevertheless, for the time being it must be said that Jimmy Carter has performed one signal service: he finally ended the Kennedy Dynasty...
...Democracy in action...
...Such words and phrases as justice, resources, action, public interest, consumer, democratic, friends of, access to, better, concerned., rights, advocacy, protective, are used as though they are completely straightforward and uncontroversial concepts to which other people or organizations outside the Nadet umbrella do not have a just claim...
...Joan Braden--creature of our egalitarian age--made a manful play for it...
...It is a kind of theater-in-the-round where one may see and be seen by the famous people of the moment...
...and the complaint by women that they are treated as sex objects...
...The other day 1 encountered a Very Prominent Washington Journalist, who was discussing the great resentment on the part of the remaining Kennedys (notably Ethel) toward the arriviste Carters...
...The board room clearly was passE...
...Kill off unwanted, unborn infants who have done no harm to anyone, but keep alive convicted murderers...
...My feeling about Carter is that he managed to capture the Presidency because he maintained, at least to some extent, the simple and uncomplicated point of view of a Georgia warehouseman...
...In 1966, two Brookings economists estimate, the average overall tax rate on income from capital was almost twice as high as the tax on income from labor...
...onanistic gazing at objects of sexual fantasy_i s the most serious evil dislocating our society today...
...As I am sure did many other Washingtonians...
...Well, now he is here, and good luck to him...
...The Kennedy people all voted for Ford, you know," the VIP Journalist said...
...He somehow managed to imply at the same time that it was no good expecting him to adapt...
...What is that about Darwin you tell me...
...So his instinct to stay in touch with his roots is right, but I'm afraid he is just too agog and eager and willing to learn to lap up the kind of rubbish that Washington's 12th-floor problem-solvers will feed him...
...A sigh of happiness is heard in the city...
...we were still there...
...The austere Nader was present throughout, speaking like a computer as only he can...
...Stimulating demand when supply is restricted is a way to get people to rush out and buy what isn't there...
...Now we have a full-page ad in the Post and the New York Times "sponsored by Americans for a Free Press" proclaiming Larry Flynt to be "AMERICAN DISSIDENT (like Solzhenitsyn...
...It is important to particularize the nature of the advocacy in two general areas," he remarked in a ptenat 3' address, "the first being the procedural fairness of the institutions that affect our lives, and access thereto...
...Meanwhile...
...There are so may pastel shades here," she said...
...The newspapers here are the " t r a d e s . " More or less everyone in Washington has a professional obligation to read them...
...I decided to attend...
...A beautiful perception, I think...
...When he finally got around to reading his paper, our Van Winkle would soon enough encoun(er the tremendous propaganda campaign currently underway to depict women as an abused "minority...
...Stop that dam...
...Like a lone surviving dinosaur after the beginning of the Age of Mammals...
...But this is unlikely to be perceived as anything other than an eccentric view, at least for some time...
...will end up helping to finance Castro's brand of totalitarianism, lending a thin veneer of viability to Marxism...
...If people pay more for one thing, they have less to spend on others, and there is no lasting inflationary effect...
...The Vice President perked up...
...Jimmy will say, Lawdy, I would never have thought of t/sat in Georgia...
...She turned to Nelson, drowsing peacefully after his meal...
...a clearly inflationary idea...
...Whither Public Interest...
...The consensus at the International House, where Nader's minions met, was that Carter would do no such thing...
...You might just as well say that because people spent more on batteries and snow tires, the economy is faced with deflationary pressures...
...By three p.m...
...It is signed by predictable spirits of the age, among them Ramsey Clark, Pete H~imill, Daniel Ellsberg, Hugh Hefner, John Leonard, Gore Vidal...
...These elitists already felt that there was far too much "input" into D.C...
...A "good guy" in the White House reduces the need for selfappointed good guys in Washington's Government-in-Exile (mostly centered on Dupont Circle...
...There you have the liberal agenda for the 1970s...
...He slipped a gilt-edged wallet out of his breast pocket and paid the check, after a small struggle...
...And why not...
...sl~e asked...
...We tax the stuffing out of income from investments and are surprised when nobody wants to save and invest...
...A president from "Giawgia" would be the last straw...
...She thought for a minute and said: " I t ' s the newsprint...
...He looked for all the world like an elderly businessman lunching at the New York Racquet Club--resembled, in fact, pictures one had seen of his remarkable grandfather...
...16 The Alternative: An American Spectator April 197...
...To survive you gotta adapt," he said...
...A Newsweek correspondent next to me looked over the list of 37 signatories, and recalling similar recent petitions, often with the same names, remarked, "That makes three Charlie Yosts to five Reverend Hesburghs...
...And abortion: a million unborn children murdered every year in this country...
...Shortly after he came to Washington Carter announced his desire to stay in touch with the "common, ordinary people...
...Everyon e is saying that higher natural gas bills will reduce purchasing power and increase inflation--a maglfificent contradiction...
...Normally I find the well-known cynicism of reporwrs tedious, but on this occasion it was quite refreshing...
...I only hope he steers clear of the minnow-folk...
...Of course...
...This would have seemed absurd to him in 1957...
...A son might turn out to be an athlete...
...A symbol of the capitalist era after the arrival of the New Class...
...Joan Braden and Happy Rockefeller were exhorting Rockefeller "not to be afraid to speak out--really tell the people what's on your mind," implying that as former Vice President he would have the necessary platform and people would listen...
...It is now very " i n " in Washington to fly to Cuba for a week, preferably in the party of a senator or The Alternative: An American Spectator April 1977 15 two, lounge on the beach, drink rum, go ga-ga over Fidel the Liberator, and return with a suntan and a box of Partagas Habanas...
...Rockefeller had four days to go as Vice President...
...It was not that he was afraidto speak out, it was simply that he knew it was...hopeless...
...The prosecutions of Larry Flynt of Hustler and Harry Reems of "Deep Throat" have brought the Washington liberals out to the predictable fund-raisers...
...One thinks of Hollywood in color--technicolor...
...In the final days of the Ford Administration I went to the Sans Souci, having heard that this was an authentic Washington experience...
...Birth control pills make "sex objects" out of women...
...Yeah, yeah," he said, not really interested...
...Simultaneously one eats lunch...
...P.S...
...One sympathized with the old fellow...
...It is not encouraging to learn that Ralph Nader now has Jimmy Carter's "telephone number," and presumably, ear...
...But this will surely result in tourism being opened up to all, thus making it less exclusive, less " i n . " On the other hand the advantage is that if such relations are restored, the U.S...
...Which is fine...
...To a large extent this has been achieved through a clever terminological appropriation...
...The burning question was: Would Jimmy Carter co-opt the Public Interest Movement...
...Surely Malcolm Muggeridge was right...
...Moreover, an increase in the price of, say, citrus fruits and vegetables--which is only about 3 % of the consumer price index - - i s not inflationary...
...After the last two tax reductions, the average federal tax rate on a family of four earning $10,000 to $15;000 rose from 6.5 to 10.3...
...Then Happy said to us: "My husband quotes Darwin to me all the time...
...It is a depressing exercise...
...He was leaning back in his chair, occasionally forking spinach into his mouth, with the back of his left hand held under his chin to prevent spillage...
...the new order was assembling for a two-day conference...
...Take Soviet expressions of goodwill at face value...
...What did we do...
...Who were we...
...Most of these specially admitted tourists urge a normalization of relations with Cuba on their return...
...Why is Washington so grey...
...Like the tax cuts of 1971 and 1975, the Carter tax cut will be heavily tilted toward those with low incomes...
...Then Happy Rockefeller turned to speak to my fi'iend and me...
...They don't know who's who or how the government runs...
...PersecufiQn once again...
...But the new Administration has made a good start at it...
...At last...
...at the other end of town...
...I watched Rockefeller when they thus encouraged him...
...The Kennedys must have prayed for the defeat of Carter--the upstart from Georgia...
...I t is such a blatant example of governmental excess that when you couple it with the return of capital punishment, it gives liberals like me something to live for...
...Lunch dragged on...
...Somehow, these two features of the contemporary landscape are never linked up, as they should be: prominently displayed pornography, depicting women as sex objects...
...For months I found it hard to understand why Washington is s o grey to the mind's eye...
...If he can steer clear of that, he might be a good President...
...After a while I became totally bemused by the whole thing and concluded that someone should undertake a rhetorical analysis ot the Public Interest movement, so called...
...This, of course, is the goal of Washington's fellow travelers...
...Groups forming the component parts of this "movement" proceed primarily by staking out righteousness, claiming that they own it exclusively...
...The idea of adjusting fiscal policy to the weather is fine tuning carried to a ridiculous extreme...
...I hope he succeeds...
...A Rockefeller of the Track...
...The weather tends to be sunny, the atmosphere clear, the surrounding countryside beautiful...
...by 1974, nearly a third of all tax returns were in those brackets...
...Back in the days of Batista, the winter months were the season for travel to Havana...
...1 7 6 t~176176176176 Tom Bethell Capitol Ideas "My husband quotes Darwin to me all the time," said Happy...
...Women hail the Pill as "liberating...
...For two days the hotel was a veritable hub of raised consciousness, people orientation, resource pooling, cross pollination, audience participation, interfacing, and discussions of the government process, the political process, the budget process, the selection process, and the lobbying process...
...Quite so...
...I called an old Washingtonian who now lives in Hollywood and is invol(,ed in the movie business...
...economy...
...No great pressing business for him, apparently...
...If these increases in the progressivity of the tax rates were done explicitly and honestly, Middle America would throw .the rascals out...
...In the early 1960s only about 3% ofatl tax returns were subject to marginal tax rates over 30...
...The behavior of our contemporary "liberal" can be explained only in terms of a death wish: Dismantle the Pentagon, the funds to be diverted to education--no doubt innovative...
...Technology links them...
...from the states (read: sticks)--except in the form of tax dollars, of course...
...With tax cuts like these, who needs increases...
...Similarly, it is high time that Nader's anti-business rhetoric be analyzed in detail...
...Only the sponsor .has changed, from Batista to Fidel...
...So was the Rockefeller party...
...Police State Repression and all that...
...At the Senate Armed Services Committee's hearing dealing with Paul Warnke's nomination to head the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, a petition was circulated among the journalists present, tt was put together by Townsend Hoopes, and it was entitled "Warnke Warmly Supported by Broad Spectrum...
...To survive you gotta adapt...
...I asked her...
...How marvelous, if true, as I suspect it is...
...By remarkable good fortune my companion and I were seated right next to Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, who was lunching with his wife, Happy, and a local hostess named Joan Braden, who gets her name in the papers from time to time...
...And liberals champion pornographers as free spirits exploring the boundaries of selfexpression...
...Nader and His Pals...
...The latest to make the trip have been Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn of the Washington Post...
...She spoke of the young--her children...
...Actually, the short-term outlook is quite good...
Vol. 10 • April 1977 • No. 7
