Correspondence
Correspondence Flat Tax Rescues Middle Class Fred Barnes ("Squeeze Play," Oct. 2) suggests that conservatives have ignored the slow wage growth that is squeezing middle-class living standards, and...
...Hence a large museum seems justified...
...George Bush lost in 1992 not because of Perot's candidacy, but because Bush had no agenda...
...9) suggests...
...However, one should not deduce from this loss a general antipathy to Western studies...
...At competing institutions, freshmen would not even hope to meet tenured professors...
...Patrick G. O'Malley Arlington, VA Just Kidding, Howie No one else who read my piece on racial friction at the Washington Post got the impression that I was angling for a dinner invitation from Kay Graham, as your Scrapbook (Oct...
...I had fun and learned some things...
...Just consider guaranteed health care and retirement, a total ban on lobbying expenditures, campaign-fundraising reform, a balanced budget amendment (still not a Republican reality), and term limits (still not a Republican reality...
...Treasury rewrote my proposal and analyzed its own misrepresentation...
...Finally, Barnes mentioned Bell's and Mueller's alternative proposal...
...9) come as no surprise...
...Bud Van Den Broeder Hollywood, FL Excluding Poor Whites Elena Neuman's conclusions concerning Harvard's admissions policies ("Harvard's Sins of Admission," Oct...
...Ridiculing the Perot agenda is very weak indeed...
...For example, Treasury assumes, inexplicably, that my proposal wouldn't tax financial services like banking and insurance, an assumption that artificially shrinks the tax base and skews its distribution analysis...
...In fact, my criticisms of my own newspaper as "home to both white and black staffers who believe their opportunities for advancement are limited" was quoted by the New York Times...
...Third, trivialize and ridicule the opponent's agenda...
...In my view, there is nothing Congress could do that would be more effective in raising the wages and living standards of middle-class Americans than to pass the flat tax...
...Because the flat tax removes the current bias against saving and investment, it would lead to an investment boom and dramatically higher wages...
...In fact, my concern about stagnant family wages-more than any other reason-led me to embrace the flat tax...
...What happens if Colin Powell is their candidate...
...2) suggests that conservatives have ignored the slow wage growth that is squeezing middle-class living standards, and that my flat-tax proposal would exacerbate this problem by raising taxes on the middle class...
...Your magazine is off to a good start...
...As I see it, Bass's goals are being realized...
...Barnes complains that rock "isn't very important" musically...
...He used favorite liberal tactics in his editorial...
...Tell assumes that a Perot third-party candidate will ensure Clinton's re-election...
...reasonable and modest, voters...
...Crisis...
...I haven't heard even the most fervent income redistributors in the Democratic party suggest denying a deduction for the cost of plant and equipment...
...Mark Adams Washington, DC...
...Last spring, Clinton proclaimed Loyalty Day by saying, in part: "Our country's rich diversity of peoples and cultures has been called 'the noble experiment.'" Has anyone but Bill Clinton called our melting pot by a term otherwise universally used to describe Prohibition...
...Neuman's article hit the nail right on the head...
...Partisanship portrayed as good, healthy competition of ideas must be brought to the attention of the public...
...Collins should get his facts straight...
...Among the more appropriate: feckless and obnoxious...
...Treasury also assumes the bill is revenue-neutral, when in fact it provides a $40 billion tax cut financed with spending cuts...
...Building on middle-class American loathing of confrontation, liberal wolves in moderate sheep guises are attempting to impede the tide of conservative sentiment...
...In any case, these distribution tables are static, highly misleading, and arbitrary, which is why supply-siders have typically put little stock in such zero-sum analysis...
...While I agree with your analysis of Perot's thinking and the foolishness of his plan, I think you are overreacting...
...Having shamefully permitted this miserable candidate to be elected, people who care about the well-being of the country have a most serious obligation to throw him out of office...
...The pathetic grasp of American history displayed by Clinton and his "communicators" reminds me of a chestnut from philosopher George Santayana: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it...
...Just remember how Perot helped focus on the right issues in 1992...
...Allan Bikk Jersey City, NJ Elis Still Study the West As a recent and happy product of both the freshman humanities program (Directed Studies) and the upper-class humanities major at Yale, I must protest the implication of Pat Collins's article ("God and Civ at Yale," Oct...
...As for Lee Bass's gift, it is regrettable, not "incalculable," to lose $20 million during a $1.5 billion campaign, and President Richard Levin surely deserves some blame...
...Barnes cites Jeff Bell and John Mueller as saying that a flat tax would raise the burden on the middle class...
...He says the museum is "too grand for what's being celebrated inside...
...James O'Neill Washington, DC Keep on Rockin' Having recently visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, I found Fred Barnes's swipe hard to understand ("Hot Wax Museum," Oct...
...2), but he left out one of my favorites...
...Howard Kurtz Washington, DC Throw Bill Out It is hard to choose among possible characterizations of Byron York's article, "Reelecting Clinton: A Conservative Case" (Oct...
...To complain that not all seminars will be taught by tenured faculty is to acknowledge Yale's higher standards of instruction...
...At Yale, study with them is common...
...Yet rock has lasted longer and produced more distinct sounds-50s rockabilly, early 60s orchestral, mid-60s Motown-than most forms of popular music...
...As for the politics of such an idea, there are few proposals that would generate more united and determined opposition from the small businessmen and women of America...
...Irv Schnittman Agoura Hills, CA More Pathetic Lies Ienjoyed Carl Cannon's "Bill's Pathetic Lies" (Oct...
...But even if one could believe that somehow President Clinton's well-established flaws could be exploited for the benefit of the country, there would still be a duty to take authority away from such an obviously wrong president...
...The key issue involved in the debate concerning affirmative action remains the exclusion of poor whites from the universities' equation of opportunity...
...It is strange how we celebrate these events, yet have failed to learn that the ideas emanating from great oratorical battles are the building blocks of our freedom...
...The problem is, Treasury didn't analyze my bill...
...2), your journal will be assured of success for a long time to come...
...The Bass program, like my major, would have been aimed at only a few students, and would have provided, as the Bass writing program already does, a wonderful but costly opportunity...
...If the Republican nominee gives voters something to vote for, then neither Perot nor his patsy will be a factor in the election...
...First, the expansion of Directed Studies to 120 freshmen (a tenth of the class) is a good action which recognizes and satisfies the desire of more freshmen to survey the Western tradition in an integrated manner...
...And Treasury assumes the tax rate is 23 percent, when my bill calls for a 20 percent rate during the first two years...
...Additionally, Perot had to start organizing a third party now due to state restrictions...
...First, declare a crisis and panic...
...It's axiomatic in economics that wages increase only when workers become more productive...
...I'm sorry Barnes didn't...
...9), my response is: RELAX...
...The single most important factor in making workers productive is equipping them with better machines, so that their output improves and their wages rise...
...Dick Armey Member of Congress Washington, DC Keep Partisanship Alive If you continue to publish articles like David Brooks's "The Land Beyond" (Oct...
...While other institutions, such as Stanford, enforce a core curriculum that has been politicized into a multicultural mess, Yale students can, and do, study Western culture undiluted...
...Consistently-regardless of merit, skill, or aptitude-poor non-minorities are denied access to many of this country's finer educational institutions...
...Perot is not able to "blow up" the Republican party's presidential campaign...
...As for the notion that conservatives have ignored the problem of stagnant wages, I want to make clear that I haven't...
...To your lead editorial ("Stop Perot...
...You should be wary of cheapening it with casual cheap shots...
...The flat tax I have introduced would not only lower the tax burden on Americans- including the middle class-it would reverse the slump in wage growth...
...Demonizing is readily apparent from terms like "ragtag United We Stand army," "megalomania," "His selfishness is undisciplined...
...Brooks was masterful in his expos...
...This is a mistake that the Republican nominee in 1996 will not make, especially given the electoral success of the "Contract with America...
...True, the museum is big, but it is simple in style...
...One could say the same thing about big band or ragtime music, both of which are simple (compared to, say, a Bach fugue) and appealed to earlier generations of youth...
...Brooks did a magnificent job of unmasking a perfidious charade being conducted in the mass media...
...Michael J. Ahearn Arlington, MA If I didn't know the political credentials of The Weekly Standard, I would have to assume that David Tell is a solid liberal...
...Lawrence O'Neill New York, NY Go, Ross, Go...
...This would completely eliminate any writeoff for purchases of plant and equipment, and thereby dramatically reduce the level of investment, and suppress wages...
...America has a long tradition of partisan politics, perhaps best exemplified by the Lincoln-Douglas debates...
...The the study of Western Culture at Yale is excellent...
...Second, demonize the opposition...
...I'm still waiting for Kay to call...
...It is, or ought to be, unnecessary to explain to reasonable people the possibilities for things to go wrong in reelecting the worst president in memory with the expectation that doing so will benefit conservative, i.e...
...All of the vaunted philosophical underpinnings that support such policies unravel when the issue of poor non-minorities is introduced...
...Bell and Mueller are relying on a Clinton Treasury Department analysis which purports to show a tax increase on the middle class under my proposal...
Vol. 1 • October 1995 • No. 6
