BUTTER AND BUTTER

I’m amazed at Newsweek’s poll showing 67 percent favoring Bush’s tax cut. It confirms my long-held view that people rarely tell pollsters that they want tax cuts before an election, but vote for them anyway. We feel guilty because we’ve been lectured for years that spending our own money – rather than handing it over to politicians – is somehow mean-spirited or selfish. (Of course, it can be mean-spirited or selfish if all you do is buy yourself a new Blackberry.) But I also like David Broder’s idea for rolling tax cuts consonant with a gradual reduction in the national debt. I don’t think it’s in the country’s interest – or the Republicans’ interest, for that matter – to associate economic freedom with national insolvency; and if supply-siders really believe that this is a non-issue, isn’t this the best and most secure way of proving it? I think Bush should stick to his long term goal – no broken tax promises – but after two years, he should peg continued tax cuts to continued debt reduction. I can’t think of a better way to prove he’s a new kind of conservative. Or a better way to get a true bipartisan tax plan out of Washington.