Tax-cutting Republicans and their Canterville Ghost

We recently watched a re-run of the 1986 TV movie, The Canterville Ghost. You remember the plot, perhaps: Simon de Canterville, the Earl of Canterville, was responsible for the deaths of his wife and their daughter. His wife cursed him as she died. (Warning to the well-read and to movie fans: the cause of death differs in the original Oscar Wilde story and in the 1944 movie starring Charles Laughton.) For three hundred years thereafter he led the existence of the damned, doomed to rattle his chains and frighten off the Canterville heirs from Canterville Castle. A stained carpet even marks the spot of Lady Canterville's death.

I thought he'd viciously stabbed his wife, or perhaps whacked off her head with an axe. But no: here is his awful sin. Charged with the repair of the highways, the Earl chose to enrich himself and to let the roads and bridges fall into disrepair. His daughter died when a bridge collapsed under her. (I think his wife collapsed in shock at the news, and died from a fall down the stairs.)

So his sin was enriching himself instead of repairing the highways. How is that different from cutting taxes for the rich, while the nation's infrastructure – roads, bridges, overpasses, elevated highways – rots? And that is what is happening in this nation.

According to a report issued in March of 2005 by the American Society of Civil Engineers, and summarized in a Reuters report by Alan Elsner on 3/9/05, U.S. roads, bridges, sewers and dams are crumbling. They need a $1.6 trillion overhaul but prospects for improvement are grim. "The group's first report since 2001 looked at 15 categories of public infrastructure, assigning each a letter grade. Overall, the nation's infrastructure received a D, down from a D+ four years ago." According to the report, since 1998, the number of unsafe dams in the country rose by 33 percent to more than 3,500, and as of 2003, 27 percent of the nation's bridges were structurally deficient or obsolete. Donald Plusquellic, Democratic mayor of Akron, Ohio, and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, blamed a lack of political will over many years compounded by the policy of tax cuts pursued by President Bush.

"I don't know of a single tax cut that's replaced a bridge. When that bridge fails killing people, nobody's going to care whether those people were Republicans or Democrats," he said.

A tax cheat is someone who owes taxes but cheats his way out of paying them. But what is the name of a tax wimp: someone who chooses to enrich himself by favoring tax cuts, at the cost of the nation's safety and security? Perhaps we could call them Canterville Republicans. And Canterville Democrats too, of course: no party has a monopoly on these free riders.

At a dinner party two years ago, as a hot-tempered debate was cooling down, a conservative friend agreed to read a book setting out some of my liberal thinking if I agreed to read a book from him setting out some of his conservative ideals. I agreed, without realizing what I'd gotten myself in for. He was faster on the draw than I, delivering to my office the next day a book by Frederic Bastiat, called The Law, first published in 1850. An innocent enough title for a lawyer to read, you'd think, but not so much: the book is anything but innocent. The book essentially argues that taxes are solely for the common defense, and that taxation for anything else is plunder.

From the Republicans in Congress, I hear a lot of talk about how we are overtaxed, and we need to cut taxes. Republicans even now are trying (once again) to eliminate or dramatically reduce the Estate Tax. (See my article dated 8/31/05 – "Finally, the Return of the Duke of Earl.") But the taxes getting cut are those for the rich. (For example, President Bush would personally save up to $6 million; Vice President Cheney would save up to $60.7 million. See House Committee on Democratic Reform Fact Sheet: Estimated Tax Savings of Bush Cabinet if the Repeal of the Estate Tax Is Made Permanent, Updated May 2006.) While the rich would benefit from the tax cut, the programs getting cut are those for the middle class and the poor. All the while, the nation's infrastructure decays.

Inspired by the never-ending mantra of the Republican party asserting governmental waste justifies tax cuts, we're becoming a nation of free riders. We're coasting on the taxes paid by our forebears for infrastructure improvements. Meanwhile, we're letting the infrastructure they paid for crumble, even as we are electing lying politicians that promise us they'll cut our taxes even more, pain-free. And in a sense, these politicians are right. The tax cuts indeed are pain-free – for now – since we are passing on the costs (together with a massive federal debt) to our children. (See the U.S. National Debt Clock at http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/ , which is at $8,402,933,819,208 as I write this article.)

Some warn me to expect a storm of criticism for opposing tax cuts – and for advocating higher taxes if needed. I stand by my beliefs: a society that pays together stays together. So let us undo the ill-conceived Bush tax cuts (which benefited mainly the rich), resist the temptation to eliminate or cut estate taxes for the 2% of the nation that pays them (which would benefit only the rich), and then see where we are. The question isn't how much we want to pay. None of us want to pay any taxes. Rather, the question is how much does the nation need?

Unfortunately, when people die because we are unwilling to pay our share to maintain the infrastructure that our forefathers built, we won't have any drafty Canterville Castle for the free riders to haunt. Rather, it is we who will be haunted, by the consequences of the tax policies pushed by Canterville voters and the politicians they elect.

Want to express your opinion about cutting estate taxes for the rich? Call Senator Cantwell (202-224-3441). A vote is expected in the Senate within the next week or so.

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