GEN. CLARK'S CLASS WAR
By NICOLE GELINAS
NEW YORK POST
January 18, 2004 -- RETIRED Gen. Wesley Clark will soon find out: Are middle-class American voters enterprising and hopeful, or mercenary and cynical?
Clark's pitch to a wide swath of Americans is: Vote for me for president, and you won't have to pay income tax! Couched in the requisite Dem language of "fairness," his proposal would broaden a politically created class divide.
Each Democratic candidate has concocted a tax scheme to counter President Bush's tax cuts. The plans, taken together, are no more than polite suggestions to the Republican-controlled Congress. But the differences among the proposals are instructive.
Howard Dean wants to repeal Bush's cuts. He thinks workers want to give the money back, to pay for universal health care. Joe Lieberman wants to advance Bush-style cuts for some - and he hopes that higher earners won't notice or care that he'd hike them to punitive rates.
Gen. Clark cuts to the chase. He told a New Hampshire audience this month that "all Americans must pay their fair share in the burden of preserving our country" - and that for many, that share should be zero. "Under my plan, families of four making under $50,000 will not have to pay a single penny in federal income tax," Clark promised. "If it all adds up to $50,000 or less . . . then you should put away your checkbook."
Clark runs through a litany of near-universal woes to boost his pitch, noting that tuition and healthcare are expensive.
Nobody wants families to struggle - but most aren't groaning under an outsized federal tax burden. Clark tells us that the average family of four now pays $1,500 in taxes. But he never mentions that, thanks to Bush, this family had its federal tax burden cut from $2,700 under President Bill Clinton.
Clark's plan isn't just for the poor. He wants to take 54 percent of families with children off the federal tax rolls.
Clark's typical $50,000 family is headed by a police officer married to a part-time worker - hardly paupers. He told his audience that his cut would mean "five months of groceries" for them. (The Dems' strength is local issues - and you can't get more local than that.)
So, Democratic strategy has come to this: waiving a civic duty in the name of "fairness." Police officers, teachers, office managers: None should contribute a small percentage of income toward homeland security and supporting American troops.
Clark's plan would result in the expansion of an artificial underclass that is fiscally disengaged from the government. Would a $48,000-a-year accountant in New Hampshire (married with two children, of course) support a politician who pledges to cut discretionary federal spending, if that voter pays "not a penny" in income taxes?
Clark campaign policy director Jason Furman expressed to me the belief that Americans who don't pay taxes will still "vote for the candidate who has the best ideas for the country" (presumably Clark).
But nationwide, voters are revolting against state politicians who raised their taxes to pay for double-digit annual spending growth. Arnold Schwarzenegger is governor of California because voters finally scrutinized government bloat - when their own wallets were threatened.
And "fairness" is tricky. Clark's $50,000 family would pay no income tax - but a family making $85,000 would pay $6,500 (after a $1,000 cut). Yes, we have a progressive tax code. But this is a bit much: a fiscal civil war with the disputed boundary right down the middle of the middle class.
Clark presented a New Hampshire family to his audience: a husband making $42,000 a year, and a wife working part-time to make $3,500. Clark tells them "they won't pay a dime of income tax. Instead, they'll receive a check from the U.S. government." No such luck for the couple working overtime in a costlier state - since those making over $100,000 won't get a tax cut at all.
Clark's policy director disputes the class-warfare accusation. Furman argues that the general's plan isn't revolutionary, but just expands and consolidates existing earned income and dependent tax credits.
It's true that millions of Americans already pay no tax - and Clark's adding 3 million more. But why stop there? Why should two Manhattan doctors work hard to buy an apartment, when Bill Gates has plenty to spare?
That's the absurd direction of all this "fairness." (More absurdity: Clark confided to his New Hampshire audience that Republicans always accuse Democrats of pitting the rich against the poor - then cast his lot with the "bottom 90 percent.")
How will Clark pay for this? He'll tax the Dem-despised rich. He wants to add a new millionaire bracket and close the proverbial corporate loopholes - oh, and he'd repeal the Bush cut for families making over $200,000.
But top earners already pay more than their fair share. The top 1 percent pay one-quarter of federal taxes - so they must benefit from fair, broad-based cuts.
Clark's plan is as narrow as it gets. It assumes that people don't have a stake in moving out of their bracket, and would rather steal from other brackets.
The plan would benefit some pocketbooks - but Clark can't call that progress.
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