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Wednesday, August 11, 1999

The Tax Cut Con

Last week, before Congress fled Washington for the rest of this damn-hot summer, the Republican Party achieved a breakthrough. Its two wings agreed on a tax bill. In a feat of legislative diplomacy, the faction that craves a tax cut heavily tilted to the rich and the faction that desires a tax cut moderately tilted to the rich were able to work out their differences. It was an inspiration to see politicians strive so hard, bridge such a gap, and not lose sight of the big picture: tax cuts that favor the rich.

Under the compromise $792 billion tax cut proposal, the bottom 60 percent of American taxpayers (people who earn less than $38,000 a year) would reap 8.5 percent of the give-back, which translates into an average of $157, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. Those in the top 10 percent (earning $89,000 or more) would pocket 68 percent of the tax cut, an average of $7520. Rather than use the surplus to pay down the debt, shore up Medicare, fully fund the Head Start child education program, or invest in other social priorities, the GOP suggests it be doled out to the wealthiest among us. Moreover, the GOP shoved into the bill numerous corporate tax breaks that specifically benefit timber companies, nuclear power plant owners, poultry manure producers (yes, there is a chicken shit lobby), and the oil and gas industries.

Regardless of how the tax cut is divvied up, it remains a scam. Its Republican advocates base the tax cut on a Congressional Budget Office estimate projecting a $2.9 billion budget surplus over the next ten years. Thus, they say, a $792 billion tax cut would merely be a quarter of the surplus. Sounds quite affordable and reasonable, doesn't it? The math, though, is not that simple. While crafting its surplus estimate, the CBO did not include a $792 billion tax cut in its calculations. If there were to be such a cut, a smaller portion of the surplus would be used to pay down the national debt. That would result, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in $141 billion more in interest payments than the CBO assumed. Consequently, the true cost of this tax cut is $932 billion.

We're not done. Of the projected $2.9 trillion surplus, about $1.9 trillion consists of Social Security payments. These funds will be needed to cover the cost of retiring baby boomers. That leaves a cool $1 trillion to play with -- which means the GOP tax cut would consume practically all of the non-Social Security surplus. Little would be left for, say, Medicare or the national debt.

There's more. The CBO's surplus estimates assume that Congress will abide by the tight spending caps negotiated in the 1997 budget agreement and cut discretionary programs $595 billion below current levels in the next ten years. Hah! Everyone in Washington knows that assumption is bunk. Republican chairmen of appropriations subcommittees have been screaming that they cannot fund their programs and remain within those spending limits. The Republican leadership has resorted to the gimmick of using emergency spending bills -- which are not subject to the caps -- to fund non-emergency programs. This money, however, still has to be counted in the big picture.

The bottom line: the surplus, in reality, is far smaller than Republicans claim, and their $792 billion tax cut would likely consume far more than 100 percent of the non-Social Security surplus. That will bring back deficits. How reassuring to see the Republicans revert to form. Tax cuts for the well to do, tax breaks for the corporations, and deficits or the most draconian budget cuts for everyone else. President Clinton's veto threat is justified. But the Democratic plan for a smaller tax cut of $290 billion poses similar, though smaller, problems. Both Democrats and Republicans are playing tax-cut politics. In this case, gridlock would be a welcomed outcome.
 
 

A Quayle Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

An awful political calamity is about to occur: the Ames, Iowa, straw poll. This Saturday, thousands of Iowan Republicans will flock -- that is, be bussed by the various GOP presidential candidates -- to a convention hall where they will guzzle soda pop, scarf burgers, down barbecue, and Hoover hot dogs supplied free of charge by the White House wannabes. They will wear pins, wave banners and signs, and be interviewed by the hundreds of newspeople who have descended upon this Iowan town. But what is the disaster that will ensue? It is nearly too horrible to contemplate. These stuffed Iowans will then cast ballots for their preferred presidential nominee. And -- gasp! -- their collective act of political expression could well throw the switch on the candidacy of Dan Quayle. Nothing could be more horrendous for those bothering to follow the '00 race this far out.

Quayle provides the comic release; he boosts the entertainment value of the entire show. Remember when he declared he was the best Republican candidate to beat Bill Clinton? Guess he forgot about the 22nd Amendment. Quayle, sadly, is one of those fellows who looks in the mirror and sees something there no one else does: a president. Has anyone ever so widely derided for being a ninny been elected president? A poor showing at Ames will not necessarily send him packing, but it may provide the slap in the face he and his wife Marilyn -- and they call Hillary an enabler? -- need to realize his effort to escape past embarrassments is only confirming the image he seeks to change. There are few politicians who have reached the office of the vice president and then were soundly rejected by their own party, who have hit such a height of loserdom. Even sad-sack Walter Mondale -- who suffered defeat as President Carter's number two -- was able to obtain the Democratic presidential nomination four years after being booted out of office. The list of vice presidents spurned by their party is very short. In the 1976 race, Nelson Rockefeller, a liberal Republican whom President Ford had appointed veep, was forced off the ticket by Ford, who was worried about a primary threat from Ronald Reagan and the conservatives within the GOP. Vice President Alben Barkley, who served under Harry Truman, yearned to be the standard bearer for the Democrats in 1952, but the opposition of organized labor persuaded him to bow out. (Imagine a time when the AFL-CIO had that muscle.) It's unfair to be making predictions -- especially before Quayle fares poorly in a meaningless poll -- but the elite club of vice presidential has-beens might consider preparing a comfy chair for one more.

To Republicans of Iowans, I make this plea: please consider supporting Quayle. At least for the sake of the reporters and pundits. He makes such good copy. Listen to what he said a few nights ago on CNN during an interview with Wolf Blitzer: "Look, the question about me is not my experience, qualification, whether I'm prepared to be president or not. That is a given. The question about me -- and you and others raise it, and it's a fair one. Can I win?"

His experience and qualifications are a given? To whom? Not to the millions who laugh along with Jay Leno.

Quayle appears to be driven by an urge to correct what he believes is a national misimpression of him, one created falsely by his nameless and faceless enemies in the media. "The outrageous treatment that we had [in 1988] still has me in a hole to some extent," he whined to Blitzer. "I'm working my way back out. I'm getting around, meeting people, and they're seeing the real Dan Quayle."

Two points. First, the media treatment in 1988 was not so harsh as to prevent him from becoming Vice President. And, second, Quayle did serve in a high-profile post for four years -- which should be sufficient time for people to see the "real" Quayle. The boy-who-became-Veep cannot stop griping about the press: "In politics, you like to have the opportunity, when you're introduced, to have it on your terms just for a while. And normally, you do that. Normally, the media will go ahead, build you up, and then they, of course, knock you down. But Wolf, I'm still waiting for my buildup from the media." Keep waiting. His complaints about the press are pathetic, and there's some heavy pathos going on. Is Quayle in the race because he never had his moment in the media-sun, his media "buildup" that -- goddarn it -- is owed to him?

Why go on about Quayle, a GOP back-runner? Because we may not have him to kick around much longer. And for those of you who feel my fear, let's share what might be a parting shot. Not too long ago, in a different CNN interview, Quayle, trying so hard to find a nifty sound bite, quipped that Clinton "has done more damage to the White House than anyone since the British burned it in 1812."

Sorry, Mr. Vice President. That was 1814.
 
 

Talk Talk

By the time a commoner was able to get hold of a copy of Talk , the sizzle was off the steak of that made-for-buzz Hillary Clinton interview. What was surprising about the piece was that it contained little worthy of the punditry overkill it provoked. Why all that babble over her psychobabble? Hillary thinks her husband, all things considered, is a good guy and that his positive traits warrant her loyalty. Where's the news in that? So she tried to figure out what in Bill Clinton's past had led to his adult philandering and came up with the thin explanation that early childhood trauma -- she loosely called it "abuse" -- had had an impact on his psychological development. Why were so many commentators flipping out over these few sentences? A more significant remark came when, defending the bombing of Yugoslavia, she said, "What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?" Time for remedial history. NATO was created not to defend "our way of life" but supposedly to defend Europe from the Soviet Union. Whether the bombing of Serbia was wrong or right, what did pummeling Slobodan Milosevic have to do with defending "our way of life"? Such a facile comment about an important public matter was more telling that her musings about Bill and his problem -- whatever it may be.

Nevertheless, National Review's Kate O'Beirne, speaking of Hillary's reflections on her husband, remarked, "I think this one might matter."  O'Beirne was saying that voters in fifteen months would still be contemplating Hillary's talk with Talk.

Wanna bet? All the loose talk about Hillary's supposed revelation prompted consultant/pitchman/professional self-promoter James Carville to announce he would give $100,000 (and you know he has it to spare) to any reporter who could prove that HRC had attributed WJC's sexual misconduct to his less-than-secure childhood. The Cueball had a case. (A day later, after the article's author, Lucinda Franks, asserted that Hillary had not proffered an abuse-excuse, Carville declared his point proven and rescinded the offer.) The media characterization of what Hillary had told Talk went far beyond the words that appeared in print.

But at least one media hot-shot didn't care about journalistic accuracy. "At this point," Cokie Roberts told The Washington Post last Wednesday, "it doesn't much matter whether she said it or not because it's become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about." Hooray for standards.

The Hillary interview spasm (Washington Post front-page headline on Thursday: "No Rest From the Query") was one more reason why those of us suffering from Clinton fatigue wish that Hillary would contract a case of politics fatigue and drop her New York state of mind. She and her mate provide the media a national soap opera that is open to endless commentary. (And they're not as amusing as Quayle.) Wouldn't it be nice if the Clintons left us alone for a while -- or, more accurately, we had cause to leave them alone?

Overall, Talk's premiere issue seemed fine, even if too much of the mag was an irritating exercise in synergy. A Tommy Hilfiger ad promoting the singer Jewel. Francis Ford Coppola selling wine. An editorial feature on what designer (Armani, Helmut Lang, Hugo Boss) was favored by which celebrity at a Las Vegas fight (an ad for Armani preceded the package). Ads for two films from Touchstone Pictures (which is owned by Disney, which owns Miramax, which co-owns Talk). Gwyneth Paltrow photographed as a dominatrix. A full-page pitching Max Factor mascara with a tie-in to Blockbuster Video and (Miramax's) "Shakespeare in Love," which starred the aforementioned domme. In between all this were a few spots of decent journalism (trailer park in northern Virginia, serial killing in a Mexican border town), including the obligatory article on Princess Di. I'd write for Talk. (Hint, hint.)

But the synergy stuff does wear out the reluctant consumer in me. I was not one of the special few who received the special offer to subscribe to Talk. (Why not? I'm on the New Yorker's sub list.) But, still, the corporate octopus behind the magazine reached me in my home. Days before Talk struck, I was in the living room, preparing to watch a rented video of the Touchstone film "Enemy of the State" -- an entertaining flick with an ACLUish message regarding high-tech invasions of privacy -- and in the midst of the previews, Tina Brown appeared. "I think a new century needs a new magazine and a new voice," she said. The words "Get Ready To Talk" flashed on the screen. And then, through a series of quick cuts that showed various parts of Brown's face and presented brief snatches of her talking, the commercial turned Brown into a Suzanne Vega-like rapper. Above a Muzak version of hip-hop -- and as the words as "murder," "chocolate," "religion," "weather," "baseball," "psychology," and (of course) "sex" moved across the screen -- the disjointed voice of Brown quickly bounced: "Investigate, simplify, understand, conversation, discussion, noise, sound, chatter, culture, news, TV, movies, fashion, entertainment, journalism, politics, technology, celebrity, fantasy, reality, how we live today, strains of modern life. Want to talk. Need to talk. Why talk? It's what we do. We talk in the office, on the phone, in restaurants, in airports. Talk is who we are." Then she was gone. It was as if Brown was channeling Allen Ginsberg, or had listened to Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" a hundred times before recording this spot. But she was saying less.

This was all packaging and flash. Very Hollywood. I wouldn't have minded if she had actually taken the time to explain the magazine and how she was going to craft a different and exciting book. Instead, I felt like a captive -- my VCR remote works intermittently -- being programmed. Yeah, pizza, ballet, the elderly, plastic surgery, divorce....yeah, Talk. Let's chat, gossip, converse about it all. Nothing is more important than anything else. Whatever will sell. Then let's talk about Talk. Surely, if there needs to be a national conversation, as Brown suggests, about such subjects as what Madam-to-the-stars Heidi Fleiss would look like as a man (an actual feature in the current issue), then we need to have a conversation about that national conversation. Isn't that what we just went through with the Hillary interview? (Feeling entrepreneurial, I thought about plunking down $120 to reserve the web address www.talktalk.com, but, unfortunately, someone had beaten me to it.) For the moment, Brown has succeeded greatly. Cokie Roberts' beauty parlor was full of Talk-inspired talk. And, according to Cokie, in all this talking we don't have to get our facts straight. After all, it's just talk.

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