You think Dick Cheney is scared of Bianca Jagger? The silly point of Tom Friedman’s column today is that because enviro-celebrities in England are protesting and boycotting Esso, a major oil company, over global warming, Texas oilmen will soon be putting pressure on W to go soft on Kyoto. Yeah, right. The interesting part of Friedman’s piece is a quote from a European environmentalist. “”As long as Kyoto was there, everyone could avoid real accountability and pretend that something was happening,” says Paul Gilding, the former head of Greenpeace and now chairman of Ecos, one of Australia’s leading environmental consulting firms. “But now George Bush, by trashing Kyoto, has blown everyone’s cover. If you care about the environment you can’t pretend anymore. Emissions are increasing, the climate is changing and people can now see for themselves that the world is fiddling while Rome burns.”” Can he actually mean that Bush’s impatience with lofty enviro-B.S. has actually helped focus activists on a more realistic approach to global warming than the phony Kyoto posturing? When, I wonder, will the greens acknowledge the source of their new inspiration?
BEGALA AWARD NOMINEE: “I would love to personally escort Lay to an 8-by-10 cell that he could share with a tattooed dude who says, ‘Hi my name is Spike, honey,'” – California attorney-general Bill Lockyer saying he hopes that the head of Enron Corporation is subjected to forcible male rape because of high energy prices in California. According to the Los Angeles Times, “neither Lockyer’s office nor any investigative panel has filed charges against Enron or other companies”.
LOYALTIES: A reflection on the contrasting careers of Jim Jeffords and the late Joe Moakley. See my new TRB opposite.
E.J. GOES O.T.T.: If the tax cut is law, that means it happens, right? Uh, no, according to E.J. Dionne in the Washington Post today. If it turns out that the tax cut makes it impossible to spend gazillions on prescription drugs for seniors or more, Dionne figures that the Congress can simply retroactively rescind the tax cut to pay for it. Does that mean actually asking for it back – or upping tax rates for one year? Or what? It seems to me that a budget plan of this magnitude has to hold – and, indeed, Bush will be held accountable for its results. But the notion that these laws can simply be rescinded at will, retroactively, or whenever the Democrats or Republicans want to spend more tax-payers’ money, seems loopy to me. E.J., face it. On the most important fiscal decision of the next decade, you lost. Deal with it or blame the president or urge more votes for Democrats to keep more of the people’s money. But don’t claim it hasn’t happened, or can be legislated away at will.
THE GROWING GAP: Unsurprising but still important stats from the CBO on income inequality in the U.S. Yeah, it’s growing. Because the dates of the study are 1979 to 1997, they’re a little misleading. 1997 was the recent low-point for inequality. The subsequent years saw real gains for those at the bottom of the scale. But what’s striking to me is the fact that the yawning inequality gap is independent of taxation. The gulf cited by the CBO is based on pre-tax income. Even the most punitive tax regime could do little about changing a growth in income for the very rich of 142 percent in 18 years, or a tiny decline in the very poor of around 3 percent. In fact, taxes have increasingly squeezed the rich in this period. In 1997, the wealthiest fifth paid 65 percent of all taxes – up from 57 percent in 1979. The poorest fifth’s contribution to taxes was halved in the same period. So lets forget about the notion, as Mickey Kaus argued in the 1980s and 1990s, that redistributive taxation can do anything but spit in the wind of the global economy. And let’s tackle what can really help the poor: better education, workfare, lower crime, and an open, dynamic economy.
The Dish 