The politics of taxes

Earlier this month, the Bush administration released an ambitious budget and tax plan for fiscal year (FY) 2004, which restructures social programs so drastically that it would wipe out the federal government’s safety net for the poor. Not surprisingly, the president proposed the $2.23 trillion package on February 3 with little public fanfare. But don’t let the calm fool you.

If approved by Congress, Bush’s economic plan would unleash a firestorm throughout the federal government. It represents nothing less than a dramatic overhaul of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs — from Medicaid and Medicare to welfare — that help the poor, aged, and vulnerable. The reforms seek to hand over control of services to the states, reduce funding, and establish more requirements (read: barriers) for low-income people to receive public assistance. One proposed change calls for states to have more power in administering the $300 billion Medicaid program, the joint state-federal effort that provides health care for the poor and disabled. Another change would force elderly Medicare recipients who want prescription-drug coverage to leave the traditional, publicly funded system for private insurers — a move critics see as a first step toward the total privatization of Medicare. All these policies are, in a sense, ideological heirs to previous conservative attempts to limit the federal role in social welfare. Taken together, however, they would spell devastation for core social services. In effect, they’d transform the federal government’s relationship with our neediest citizens from one of some responsibility to none at all.

At the same time, Bush is pushing a tax cut of historic proportions — one that would cost the US Treasury nearly $1.5 trillion over 10 years. The latest round of Bush tax cuts, like the previous round in 2001, mainly provides benefits to the very, very well off, while squeezing social spending for years to come. The Bush administration touts its 2004 budget-and-tax package as a much-needed economic booster, but not everyone believes the hype. Last week, for instance, 10 Nobel laureates in economics blasted the plan, saying that its "purpose is a permanent change in the tax structure and not the creation of jobs and growth in the near term." These critics predict massive, chronic federal-budget deficits that will limit the ability of future administrations to "finance Social Security and Medicare benefits, as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research." The Nobel laureates were among as many as 450 economists to sign a statement objecting to the Bush plan.

According to Wade Henderson, director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, in DC, the Bush economic package has little to do with responsible tax and budget policymaking. On the contrary, it’s meant to starve the federal government of the fiscal resources needed to fund such vital programs as Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security. "This is actually the worst of Reagan revisited," explains Henderson, whose group helped launch the Fair Taxes for All Coalition last week in response to the Bush proposal. He adds, "What we’re seeing is an aggressive campaign to transform the role of the federal government."

Bush likes to present himself as a "compassionate conservative." But his critics have taken to calling him the "Great Pretender," what with his penchant for shamelessly misrepresenting the content of his own tax policies. This time, at least, the Bush administration has a track record, and it’s not a very encouraging one. In the year and a half since the 2001 tax cut, which was touted as the perfect economic stimulus, the economy has lost 1.4 million jobs. Meanwhile, billions of dollars in budget surpluses have turned into billions of dollars in budget deficits.

Numbers like these speak for themselves. Which is why, says Henderson, "We cannot be blind to the changes that this administration is moving aggressively to implement."

Federalizing capital punishment

Since taking over Washington in 2001, the Bushies — headed, once again, by our nation’s top cop — have wasted no time gearing up the federal death penalty. Just six months into Bush’s tenure, two federal prisoners were put to death for the first time in 38 years. Then, under Ashcroft’s leadership, US attorneys in states where legislators had banned capital punishment began seeking federal death sentences with fervor. In Massachusetts, for instance, federal prosecutors are going after the ultimate punishment in the pending case of Gary Lee Sampson, who’s accused of murdering three people in two states in July 2001.

But the attorney general isn’t just encouraging his staff to seek executions. Instead, he’s throwing out the recommendations of federal prosecutors seeking alternative sentences and forcing them to go for the maximum. Across the country, Ashcroft has ordered US attorneys to choose the death penalty for defendants in 28 cases in which they did not seek or even recommend capital punishment. The move is known as an "override." Almost half of the 28 overrides come from New York and Connecticut. Those cases include one in Brooklyn against a murder suspect who’d agreed to plead guilty and testify against others in a drug ring in exchange for life in prison. Another involves a New York defendant who’s mentally retarded and thus ineligible for the death penalty.

Ashcroft has justified his decision by claiming that a rise in death-penalty cases in the Northeast would help even out the numbers nationwide. But as with his campaign against medical marijuana, his drive to increase the use of capital punishment contradicts the Bush administration’s touted commitment to give states control. Capital punishment is an intensely local issue that plays differently in different regions. The overrides, according to David Elliot, of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP), "show the Republicans talk a great game about local control. But the talk rings hollow when it comes to ideological issues that are dear to their hearts."

Besides, what’s most troubling about the death penalty isn’t its uneven application across the country. Rather, it’s that minorities are disproportionately sentenced to death. In the final years of the Clinton administration, a Justice Department study found that capital charges in federal cases are overwhelmingly sought against people of color: as much as 80 percent of defendants who face capital charges are members of minority groups. Former attorney general Janet Reno called for an in-depth study of these racial disparities right before the end of her term.

And then, of course, Ashcroft moved in. In June 2001, he released his own report stating that there is "no evidence of racial bias" in federal capital-punishment cases. Today, however, it seems his overrides are only perpetuating the problem. Of the 28 cases in which he’s pressuring prosecutors to seek executions, 19 of the defendants are black, five are Latino, one is Native American, and one is Asian. Only two defendants are white.

The number of cases in which capital punishment is administered unfairly — and those in which DNA evidence has exonerated death-row inmates — led one formerly pro-death-penalty Republican to a recent change of heart. On January 13, Illinois governor George Ryan left office after capturing worldwide attention with his blanket commutation of the death sentences of 163 men and four women to prison terms. It was a watershed moment in the debate over capital punishment. Today, people know how the system can make mistakes that involve prosecutorial misconduct, coerced confessions, and erroneous eyewitness testimony. They know how innocent people can die at the hands of the state.

Given all this, Ashcroft’s directive seems out of whack with the mainstream. Even those who support the death penalty are concerned about innocence and fairness. Apparently, Ashcroft doesn’t care about either. Says Diann Rust-Tierney, of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, "This is a gross abdication of the attorney general’s responsibility to assure that the most serious punishment is meted out fairly and without mistakes." Once again, Ashcroft’s actions represent, as Rust-Tierney puts it, "an example of just how he’s pursuing this as a political tool," rather than as sound public policy.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com