Back to the 1970s?
August 3, 2006 | By Nathaniel Ward
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would put the working poor out of their jobs and expand tax loopholes for special interests while enacting modest death tax reform.
The bill’s backers, many self-described conservatives among them, say the new legislation is worth passage because it tempers the return of the death tax. The immoral death tax, which penalizes lifetimes of work and investment, is currently set to fade out of existence in 2010—and then return to full force in 2011, a tremendous tax increase.
Now, as the Senate considers the law, Heritage economist Bill Beach writes that “this legislation could well mark the full-throated return of 1970s-style economic policy.” This “stunningly unprincipled bill,” Beach says, would “breathe new life into largely repudiated left-wing policy prescriptions.”
These are the radical liberal ideas that underlie the legislation:
- The government should artificially inflate the wages of the working poor—even if it has tremendous negative effects like unemployment, slower job growth and reduced schooling.
- Instead of lowering tax rates to allow everyone to prosper, the government should pick and choose winners by reducing taxes for special interests.
- Death is a taxable event.
Granted, modest death tax reform is better than no reform. But, as Beach explains, the proposal reaffirms “that it is moral to tax a lifetime of hard work and savings. It validates the policy of double, perhaps triple taxation, since the economically virtuous activities that resulted in taxable estates already have produced income taxes.” Coupled with liberal policies like counterproductive minimum wage increases and special-interest tax breaks, it makes for one bad piece of legislation.
Heritage on the border
Heritage’s Robert Rector traveled to Southern California this week to testify before a House of Representatives “field hearing” about illegal immigration. He spoke to the Congressmen about the Senate’s proposed immigration reform, which would grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens and allow millions of new immigrants to enter the country—far more than allowed under current law.
“This Senate bill will become the largest expansion of the welfare system in 30 years and it’s the wrong thing to do,” Rector said, according to San Diego’s News 10. The Los Angeles Times cites his estimates that the Senate’s changes would cost taxpayers at least $16 billion a year as the government pays additional benefits to these new immigrants and their children. As reported in inland California’s Press Enterprise, he added that the Senate bill is “a stealth open borders bill” that could bring 60 million new legal immigrants to America over the next 20 years as millions of new legal immigrants bring their families with them.
Instead of opening the door to all comers, Rector proposed that America enact an immigration program that draws the best and the brightest to America. Coupled with other visa reform laws, strengthened border security, and a rededication to patriotic assimilation of new immigrants, such an initiative would mark a substantial improvement over today’s chaotic immigration program.
Is Communism dead?
Conventional wisdom holds that Communism was defeated in 1989, when the Berlin wall came down, or at the very latest in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed. But a panel discussion yesterday at The Heritage Foundation served as a chilling reminder that fully a fifth of the world’s population continues to suffer under the Communist yoke.
Rethinking counterterrorism
Western countries, including the United States, “have to design a new comprehensive antiterror doctrine,” Ariel Cohen writes in today’s Washington Times.
Terrorists are redefining warfare in the 21st century. A picture and a sound-bite are as potent as a bullet or a missile. Bloody imagery and scenes of mourning are exploited to gain the sympathy of the world, manipulate the political environment and gain new recruits. Israel and the West may be more militarily potent, but the terrorists outsmart them, getting media and public opinion on their side. And somehow, the U.S. and Israeli military and government keep missing the point and failing to respond effectively.
In other news
- Iran, apparently trying to further its image as a state sponsor of terrorism, has released Saad bin Laden, son of the al Qaeda mastermind. News reports indicate that the younger terrorist is tasked with building terrorist cells for use against Israel.
- Iran also reintroduced its usual proposal for permanent peace in the Middle East: destroy Israel.
- Las Vegas has prohibited “the providing of food or meals to the indigent” in public parks. Interestingly, the law defines indigence not as extreme poverty (the usual definition) but as the absence of government benefits.
- USA Today reports that the government has promised America’s seniors trillions of dollars in benefits—money it doesn’t have. Congress has rejected the reforms that would get this runaway spending back under control.
- Twenty-five years ago today, President Ronald Reagan announced that striking air traffic controllers would be fired if they did not return to work. “I must tell those who fail to report for duty this morning they are in violation of the law,” President Reagan said, “and if they do not report for work within 48 hours, they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated.” Two days later, he carried out his threat and fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers.
Coming up at Heritage
To attend these or any other Heritage Foundation events, RSVP at Heritage’s events website. Or you can watch these events live online at Heritage.org. All times are Eastern.
- On Thursday, August 17 at noon, Dr. Shmuel Bar, Director of Studies at the Institute for Policy and Strategy, joins Heritage from Israel to discuss the close relationship between religion and politics in Islam.
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.
