Straight Dope.

• Author: Lynch, Michael W.
• Position: Gov. Gary Johnson

In which our man in Washington hears blunt talk on taxes, education, and drugs

Date: Tues, Sept 14, 1999 7:06:03 AM

From: mlynch@reasondc.org

Subj: Tax Relief

Congress is back from vacation, D.C. is again in perpetual motion, and I'm on the circuit. I spent the morning at the American Enterprise Institute absorbing a panel discussion on "America's Disconnected Youth," roughly defined as those 16-to-23-year-olds who have the good sense to be neither employed nor in school nor married for at least a six-month span. I would return to AEI at 5:30 p.m. to catch a lecture from Jean Bethke Elshtain on "The Clinton Scandal and Civic Discourse."

For the time being, I was happy to be sitting in the basement of the Hunan on Capitol Hill restaurant, working on a plate of fried rice, General Tsao's chicken, and beef with black bean sauce. My host was "The Monday Club," a mostly conservative group that meets on random Mondays to hear speakers and enjoy lively conversation. Late Friday I had received a personalized e-mail message with the subject line, "Free Lunch." Today's speaker was J. D. Foster, executive director of the Tax Foundation, who told us that the $792 billion tax cut the president vetoed was mostly a scam - we wouldn't have pocketed the money anyway.

I'm not sure if Foster, one of the few people who has actually read the tax bill, was trying to cheer us up, or depress us, as he laid out the facts. In the bill's first three years, Americans' taxes would have dropped by a measly $47 billion, less than 6 percent of the advertised loot. In the first five years, the cut would have amounted to a mere $155 billion. Reagan's 1981 tax cut hacked taxes by 3.4 percent of GDP, while this pathetic bill, even if fully implemented, would have reduced taxes by only 0.3 percent of GDP, according to Foster. By my calculation, that makes Reagan more than 11 times the man of any of the congressional Republicans.

"Where's the outrage?" Foster asked, as John Gizzi of Human Events nodded off at his front-row table. Another man was sleeping at the bar. Foster then answered his own question. The increased taxes are coming from increased earnings. Even though people may have to give Uncle Sam $310 of the next $1,000 they earn, instead of $280, they are still $680 better off.

"Prosperity has become the enemy of liberty," said Foster. "Marx had it wrong. Religion isn't the opiate of the masses - prosperity is."

Date: Mon, Oct 4, 1999

5:27:47 PM

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