Wednesday, January 23, 2002

A response, and back to familiar territory

By DAVE HAMRICK
Editor-at-large

Just a couple more words about my last two columns, and then it's on to something else.

I raised Maj. Martin Poffenberger's hackles two weeks ago with a column that posed the question: How do we justify crossing an ocean and killing other people's children?

The major's response was very thoughtful and lengthy and I don't intend to respond to all of it, and in fact I agree with almost all of it. That's the point, actually. Sometimes by simply raising a sensitive question you get accused of saying all kinds of things you never said.

Maybe I touched a nerve.

The only point I'll respond to is Maj. Poffenberger's indignant response to something he feels I "seemed to imply," that being that "the United States has somehow made a policy of killing children."

All I ask is that you actually read the words in the column and I think you'll see that not only did I not say that, but it isn't even remotely implied. Of course we don't have a "policy" of killing children. I just said we're doing it, a fact that can't be denied.

Nor can it be denied that, when we decide to wage such a bombing campaign, the loss of innocent life is inevitable. Therefore, we've made a conscious decision to do it, regardless of the well-documented fact that we go out of our way to prevent it as much as possible.

As for whether some claims of thousands of innocent deaths can be substantiated, that's way beside the point. How many is too many? Reports in the hundreds are definitely substantiated. When I raised the question of whether this decision is justified, it was in hopes of making people stop and think. I'm comfortable that we've made the right decision, and I hope the good major will forgive me for stirring up his well-stated though somewhat defensive response.

Now for a subject 180 degrees removed from the above.

My favorite taxes.

Those who read this space all the time can probably ignore this. It's for those who may not pay attention, all that closely, to the ends and outs of politics, but who hear the sound bytes and sometimes wonder what in the heck the politicians are talking about.

So you hear a Ted Kennedy or a Tom Daschle explaining in a very fatherly tone that the reason they have to oppose the president's tax cut package is that most of it is "targeted" to "the richest among us," or "the super-wealthy," or some such phrase. I think one liberal used the term "slathering money on the wealthy."

Then you'll hear the president or House Speaker Dennis Hastert respond, doing their best to also sound fatherly, that their tax cut is designed to create jobs, put people back to work.

And you're thinking that Republican cuts are only going to wealthy people in hopes that they'll buy a lot of stuff and that will open up some jobs.

That's the problem with sound bytes, and with the Republicans who come up with party strategy for using sound bytes to get their points across.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Now, if you're one of those average folks with the remote, surfacing past CNN and stopping long enough to pick up on some of this, pay attention.

Under the Republican tax cuts, you get a bigger tax cut than the folks with the yachts and private jets. That's right. If the president sticks by his guns, they might get a cut of 1 percentage point, whereas you're likely to see a larger cut than that.

Aha! Now you have me. You know good and well that 1 percent of a million is a lot more than 10 percent of 50,000.

And I'm glad you got that point. Those in the highest tax brackets would be paying multiple times more in taxes than you do, even if we all paid the same percentage. You see, that logic works both ways.

Now think. If a tax cut is fair, who will get the biggest dollar cuts? That's right, you're getting it THE ONES WHO ALREADY PAY THE MAJORITY OF THE TAXES!

Now this one is a little harder. If the Republicans get away with "slathering money on the wealthy," whose money is it that the wealthy are being slathered with? Who earned it? Who came up with the ideas and took the risks that created that wealth?

Yes, I'll refrain from shouting this time. Quietly ... it's their money.

And one other point. It's not the idea that they'll buy more expensive clothes and yachts and therefore create jobs if they get to keep more of THEIR money that causes Republicans to talk about job creation. It's the idea that they will invest that wealth in the businesses and the ideas that created it in the first place.

And THAT, dear folks, will create more jobs and put people back to work.

Meanwhile, you and I can do our part to help the economy by spending, saving or investing the additional money that will be in our paychecks as well. The only people who won't get tax cuts will be ... you guessed it ... the people who don't pay any taxes.

Now why, you may ask, would Democrats insist on trying to get you to be jealous of someone else's larger (in dollars) tax cut and turn your head away from the obvious moral point that you don't deserve more if you're not contributing more?

Why, indeed, would they push for programs that won't create jobs but will simply keep people dependent on the government?

Well, I'm not going to do all the thinking for you. Figure it out by asking yourself this question: what do they have to gain by keeping you dependent on them?

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