Capitol Ideas/Doing the Right Thing
Bethell, Tom
Doing the Right Thing by Tom Bethel! After a couple of weeks in England, I returned to find conservatives divided, the entire Opinion Cartel in an uproar because, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku...
...Bush should have dropped everything in the fall of 1989 and gone after Mitchell with everything he had—including his unrivaled access to television...
...In a footnote acknowledging the contribution of Norman Ture and the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation in Washington, the study adds that the real tax burden in the U.S...
...is understated, because of the double taxation of dividends...
...Britain, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, and Italy...
...They concede the underlying principle, merely retaining the right to quibble over the timetable and the-dollar amounts...
...Of late he and Vice President Quayle have taken to berating George Mitchell for singlehandedly blocking the reduction...
...want, leftists such as Sens...
...The high burden of taxation on capital gains (40 percent at the margin in Britain) is the suspected culprit...
...HUD Secretary Jack Kemp is surely correct in insisting that a tax cut is badly needed...
...Bob Dole might call it quits in '92...
...Right Honorable Chumps sang "For he's a jolly good fellow" half way through the night...
...Will Bush do the right thing...
...Once in office, however, gentleman pols are expected to do the right thing, as it were, in the spirit of jury duty...
...The Democrats hold the compass and they end up telling the Grand Old People what the "right" direction is...
...A political party has been set aside and carefully preserved for them—the Grand Old Party, which is run by (and for) Grand Old People...
...Bush accepts this, but doesn't know how to fight for what he wants...
...171 24 The American Spectator January 1992...
...The GOP today has ten fewer senators, 25 fewer House members, two fewer governors and majorities in 13 fewer legislative chambers, than it could boast on the day Ronald Reagan swept into the White House, almost eleven years ago...
...But he didn't...
...First (it was said) he played politics with Willie Horton...
...The study was conducted to determine the level of capital gains tax on investors at different income levels in the different countries...
...It is no easy matter to see the world through their eyes...
...Furthermore, because of the totally unjust taxation of nominal gains (no adjustment permitted for inflation in the U.S...
...S hould we mind...
...Unlike Michel, Dole hates being on the losing team...
...If they had been included in the calculations, the effective tax-rate for wealthy investors in the U.S...
...Then, a few months later, he fecklessly signed on to the budget deal, which marginally increased the capital gains tax...
...Elections are necessary evils, but once out of the way the gentleman pol feels a glow of virtue (he knows he's not in it for the money) as he settles in for a stint of good government...
...Once again, Michel had fooled the young Turks into thinking he would quit, thereby discouraging opposition...
...Those born to wealth are frequently accused of being insensitive to the "pain" of others...
...Charter, repelling aggression, supporting the centralization of power, being high-minded, managing things prudently, balancing the budget, keeping good books, heeding advice from the captains of industry, losing gracefully, and always being mindful that racism and bigotry can no longer be tolerated—no, not for an instant...
...The GOP leadership is only too happy to oblige...
...Jack Kemp understands all this...
...All the same, there was a tremendous party the other night at the grand old pols' clubhouse, Chumps and Charleys, when House Minority Leader Bob Michel announced he will seek a nineteenth term in Congress...
...But with people like George Bush and his good friend treasury secretary Nicholas Brady, I have the kind of difficulty that one might have with a team that eagerly suits up, has every opportunity to win game after game, but keeps throwing the match because winning would be unsporting...
...Gentleman pols like George Bush have no political compass...
...You bet...
...Bush continues to entrust the economy, and his own future, to budget director Dick Darman and treasury secretary Brady, neither of whom understands the problem...
...As with the best clubs, every effort has been made to exclude undesirables from its ranks (without violating the anti-discrimination laws, of course...
...Then he played politics with unemployment benefits (until he did the right thing and went along with the Democrats...
...burden is represented by a towering skyscraper...
...But there were also glum faces at the rumor that Sen...
...The Grand Old Party isn't doing so well, either...
...The problem is that gentle-pols of Bush's generation only have a very hazy idea of what their own principles are...
...The entire Bush cabinet is said to be trying to shut Kemp up...
...As it happens, this department recently completed a detailed study of capital gains tax– rates in the G7 countries (the U.S...
...Again I find myself asking: What is it about George Bush and the people he surrounds himself with...
...But what about Bush, Darman, and Brady...
...Their burden of guilt prevents them from understanding how wealth is created and so delivers them into the hands of those who would prefer that wealth not be created at all—liberals, in a word...
...So does Pat Buchanan (although his protectionism is cause for concern...
...If the administration continues to misread the economic situation, doing nothing until February, Pat Buchanan could do well against Bush in New Hampshire...
...He already conceded the principle on taxation a year ago by agreeing to the infamous budget deal—tax increases in exchange for spending increases (called spending "cuts" by his budget director...
...There has been concern at the stock exchange about the trends of share ownership in Britain...
...George Mitchell's office, with supporting obligato from Kevin Phillips and a few score journalists: "George Bush just wants to help his rich friends...
...It appears that no detailed study along these lines has been done before...
...It is particularly surprising," the study mildly concludes, "that the USA, as the country which has most consistently adopted the capitalist ethic, currently treats its equity investors so harshly...
...For this reason, they are indeed unqualified to hold high office, although not for the reasons alleged by the left...
...I wish I could show you the "bar graphs" for the different countries, published in the Stock Exchange Quarterly...
...Policy-makers of inherited wealth nervously assume the protective coloration of income-redistributors when they hear that familiar jeering from Sen...
...States have enacted tax increases of $16.2 billion for the fiscal year 1992, the biggest dollar amount on record," according to the New York Times...
...As the establishment columnist David Broder pointed out recently: "The Republicans lost ground in the '80s...
...London in England, I visited the London Stock Exchange...
...good for the people, good for the Democrats (thought of as fiendishly good at politics but unaccountably weak at governing), and good for the country as a whole...
...After a couple of weeks in England, I returned to find conservatives divided, the entire Opinion Cartel in an uproar because, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was running for governor of Louisiana, the columnist Patrick I. Buchanan apparently running for President (as I write he has not made an official announcement), the economy stagnant, and President Bush badly mired in the politics of propitiation...
...This ensures that they end up looking both unprincipled and tight-fisted...
...After Harris Wofford's win in Pennsylvania, Bush will be expected to do the right thing and support national health care...
...For the average earner ("Sid Citizen") the U.S...
...He needn't have bothered, because they recognize an ally when they see one and so treat him with never-ending respect, eating out of his hand...
...Bush would like to see the capital gains tax reduced, but he has made the mistake of not concentrating his mind and office on this goal...
...the Japanese burden by a tiny bungalow...
...The shocking finding was that the capital gains tax burden is highest in the United States, and lowest (by far) in Japan...
...would have risen to 73 percent...
...Such as it is, the gentleman's political code was haphazardly learned in the 1940s and vaguely has to do with embracing the U.N...
...Trying to do the right thing irrespective 22 The American Spectator January 1992 of "politics" is of course admirable in its way, expressing a desire to put principle ahead of "pragmatism...
...I think the key to understanding the gentleman politicians of the GOP, of whom Bush is the outstanding example, is that they have been well trained since adolescence to regard "politics" with a certain distaste...
...My brother, a latter-day supplyskier, works there in a research department called the Quality of Markets unit...
...They always make him nervous and he will do whatever is required to shake them off...
...The defense issue is no longer important, Bush has already sold out conservatives on taxes and quotas, and markets will in any event curb the redistributionist zeal of any Democrat in office...
...The heart of the puzzle is that these are people who enter politics for a living, but are essentially apolitical...
...Translation: Democrats are eager to racialize politics by establishing legal privileges for blacks, without having to worry about a political counterattack from the Republicans...
...What is particularly needed is a cut in the capital gains tax...
...In practice, this means that Republicans are expected to stamp every new Democratic initiative with the label: "Enjoys bipartisan support...
...And the pressure is on him not, ever again, to "play the race card...
...You see the problem...
...Howard Metzenbaum, Tom Harkin, and Ted Kennedy are much easier to understand...
...Nonetheless, it's not only acceptable for them to enter the political arena, a certain number of them are expected to do so—as a matter of noblesse oblige...
...Now he's in trouble...
...He was too gentlemanly...
...Unlike Kemp and Buchanan, these are men of inherited wealth, immensely susceptible to the appeals to envy that Democrats launch so effectively whenever tax cuts threaten...
...It's not difficult to imagine the world as they see it...
...The truth is that they are excessively sensitive to their own pain—the pain of suspecting that they are merely the lucky beneficiaries of a system unjust enough to permit people to possess great wealth without working for it...
...In their milieu, governing is conceived of as something best insulated from politics...
...Much will depend on the economic news over the next three months, but Bush (as I write) looks as though he could be in real political trouble...
...Both should have gracefully quit long ago...
...Then he played politics with the budget (until he did the right thing, broke his campaign promise and raised taxes...
...While the percentage of shareholders has increased from 7 percent of adults at the end of the 1970s to 25 percent today, thanks mainly to privatization, "the proportion of shares owned by individuals as opposed to institutions has continued to fall throughout the decade...
...Darman inherited so much money that he went to some lengths to disguise the details from his journalist friends...
...Apart from using public office for "private gain," the worst accusation that can be leveled against the gentleman pol is that of playing politics with the issues...
...Disagree with them all you Tom Bethell is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...This in a recession...
...That was two years ago, however, and it's a bit late to start complaining about it now...
...For this reason I agree with Lew Lehrman that there's a case for limiting the amount any individual can inherit, leaving unrestricted the total amount that can be bequeathed...
...While I was in England he gave up the fight on one more issue—the important one of quotas and civil disabilities for whites (called "civil rights...
...Notice that Bush is immensely susceptible to such accusations, no matter how unjust they may be...
...Gentlemen live by unwritten rules, after all, and codifying political principles smacks too much of ideology...
...Then he played politics with civil rights (until he did the right thing and surrendered the presumption of innocence...
...the tax burden for assets held for a long enough period here can often rise above 100 percent in real terms...
Vol. 25 • January 1992 • No. 1
