http://select.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/opinion/09krugman.html?th&emc=th
The DeLay Principle By PAUL KRUGMAN NY Times Op-Ed: June 9, 2006 The federal estate tax had its origins in war. As America moved toward involvement in World War I, Congress - facing a loss of tariff revenue, but also believing that the most privileged members of society should help pay for the nation's military effort - passed the Emergency Revenue Act of 1916, which included a tax on large inheritances. But today's Congressional leaders have a very different view about wartime priorities. "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," declared Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, in 2003. Mr. DeLay has since been dethroned, but the DeLay Principle lives on. Consider the priorities on display in Congress this week. On one side, a measure that would have increased scrutiny of containers entering U.S. ports, at a cost of $648 million, has been dropped from a national security package being negotiated in Congress. Now, President Bush says that we're fighting a global war on terrorism. Even if you think that's a bad metaphor, we do face a terrifying terrorist threat, and experts warn that ports make a particularly tempting target. So some people might wonder why, almost five years after 9/11, only about 5 percent of containers entering the U.S. are inspected. But our Congressional leaders, in their wisdom, decided that improving port security was too expensive. On the other side, Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, tried yesterday to push through elimination of the estate tax, which the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates would reduce federal revenue by $355 billion over the next 10 years. He fell three votes short of the 60 needed to end debate, but promised to keep pushing. "Getting rid of the death tax," he said, "is just too important an issue to give up so easily." So there you have it. Some people might wonder whether it makes sense to balk at spending a few hundred million dollars - that's million with an "m" - to secure our ports against a possible terrorist attack, while sacrificing several hundred billion dollars - that's billion with a "b" - in federal revenue to give wealthy heirs a tax break. But nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes. The push for complete repeal of the estate tax has apparently failed, but I'm told that chances are still pretty good for a Senate deal that will go most of the way toward repeal. The Tax Policy Center estimates that two of the possible deals, compromises proposed by Senator Jon Kyl and Senator Olympia Snowe, would cost $293 billion over the next 10 years. An alternative proposed by Senator Max Baucus would cost $240 billion. So even these so-called compromise proposals would cost several hundred times as much as the port security measure that was rejected as too expensive. But that's O.K.: nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes. It's interesting, by the way, that advocates of estate tax repeal apparently aren't interested in a genuine compromise - raising the estate tax exemption from its current value of $2 million to $3.5 million while leaving the tax rate on estate values in excess of $3.5 million unchanged - even though such a compromise would preserve most of the revenue from the estate tax while exempting 99.5 percent of estates from taxation. So a more precise statement of the DeLay Principle would be that nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes for very, very wealthy people, like the tiny minority of Americans who are heirs to really big estates. Americans from an earlier era might have been puzzled by the DeLay Principle. They still believed in the principle enunciated by Theodore Roosevelt, who called for an inheritance tax in 1906: "The man of great wealth," said T.R., "owes a peculiar obligation to the state." But the DeLay Principle isn't really that hard to understand: it's just like the Roosevelt Principle, but the other way around. These days, the state - or rather, the political coalition that controls the state, and depends on campaign contributions to maintain that control - owes a peculiar obligation to men of great wealth. And nothing is more important than cutting these men's taxes, even in the face of a war. *** GOP Takes Aim at PBS Funding House panel backs budget reductions By Rick Klein June 8, 2006 by the Los Angeles Times via commondreams.org http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0608-06.htm WASHINGTON - House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs. On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation's budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending. The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut. A similar move last year by Republican leaders was turned back in a fierce lobbying campaign launched by Public Broadcasting Service stations and Democratic members of Congress, in a debate that was colored by some Republicans' frustration with what they see as a liberal slant in public programming. Still, Republicans say they remain adamant that public broadcasting cannot receive funding at the expense of healthcare and education programs. Republicans are looking for ways to save taxpayers' dollars, amid fiscal conservatives' concerns over the budget deficit. ``We've got to keep our priorities straight," said Representative Ralph Regula , an Ohio Republican who is chairman of the appropriations panel that approved the cut. `` You're going to choose between giving a little more money to handicapped children versus providing appropriations for public broadcasting." Democrats accused Republicans of trying to gut a bastion of children-oriented television to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy that have been backed by the Bush White House. ``Dick Cheney and the Republicans have decided to go hunting for `Big Bird' and `Clifford the Big Red Dog' once again," said Representative Edward J. Markey , a Malden Democrat who led the successful effort to reverse the cuts last year. ``PBS is right at the top of their hit list -- always has been and always will be, until they can destroy it." Most of the savings would come by eliminating subsidies for educational programs and grants for a number of technological upgrades. Jan McNamara , a PBS spokeswoman, said the digital upgrade would have to be funded with money that is now being used for other programs, forcing almost all areas of public broadcasting to feel a pinch. Paula Kerger , PBS's president and chief executive, said in a statement that the cuts would force the network to ``drastically reduce the programming and services public television and public radio can provide to local communities." The literacy television program ``Ready to Learn" would be eliminated, she said, as would the online teachers' resource ``Ready to Teach." The cuts could force smaller public-radio stations in rural areas -- which rely almost exclusively on federal money for operations -- to close altogether, said Kevin Klose , NPR's president. ``The impact of today's decision could resonate in every community in America," Klose said. John Lawson , president of the Association of Public Television Stations, said Republican leaders are contradicting their own goal statements by seeking to cut funding for public broadcasting on the day the House voted to increase fines for indecent television content. ``These cuts are targeted to inflict maximum damage," Lawson said. ``I guess we'll have to start ringing phones on [Capitol] Hill again." The cuts are included in a $142 billion spending bill covering domestic social programs in health, education, and labor. Even with the cuts to public broadcasting, the bill would spend $1 billion more in total than is being spent this year on those programs, and $4 billion more than President Bush had requested for those areas of spending. Student loans and research grants to local hospitals are among the areas that would see funding boosts. The same appropriations subcommittee called last year for an even more drastic cut of $223 million from public broadcasting programs. At the time, Republicans attacked the PBS for programming they said represented out-of-the- mainstream viewpoints, highlighting in particular a ``Postcards From Buster" episode that featured lesbian couples and their children in Vermont. But, in a defeat for House leaders, 87 Republicans joined unanimous Democrats in bucking an attempt to cut funding from the stations. Markey expressed confidence that supporters of public broadcasting would have more than enough votes to stop a cut again this year. Their arguments will carry particular force in an election year in which moderate Republicans fear being portrayed as callous to the demands of their constituents, he said. Regula also seemed resigned to seeing that sequence of events repeat itself, though he maintained that he was right ``on principle." ``They've got a bigger megaphone than I do," he said. ``They'll trot out Elmo and Mickey Mouse and Lord knows who else, and I'll be out there kind of by myself." Copyright 2006 Boston Globe ______________________________________________________ portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left. To subscribe: http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get to your groups with one click. 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