"Relief" For Aristocracy

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"Relief" For Aristocracy
By Robert L. Moore
June 26, 2006

If achieving one’s goals is the measure of a successful presidency, then George W. Bush is one of the more successful presidents in history. He has, after all, helped transfer much of the nation’s wealth into the hands of the already wealthy, which has long been a major goal of the Republican right.

Bush’s rewriting the tax code diverted billions away from the nation’s treasury and into the clutches of select multimillionaires — the people he once half-jokingly referred to as "his base." These dollars originally were to be available for things like college scholarships and body armor for American fighting men and women. But this money, once destined for the nation’s coffers, now serves the private purposes of the wealthy few.

By his deeds, Bush has been telling us, "You people in the military and you parents trying to pay for your children’s education will have to get along with less so that some of my rich pals here can get a lot richer."

It’s painful to remember that six years ago, America had accumulated a healthy surplus, one sufficient to ensure the perpetual solvency of Social Security and to strengthen Medicare. Bush’s tax giveaways to the super-rich have not only wiped out the surplus, they’ve created an appalling debt that he is quietly shifting onto the backs of our children. The worst effects of these tax cuts will be postponed until he has left office, so that the blame might be placed on the shoulders of his successor.

The estate tax debate, currently focused in the Senate, offers a classic illustration of the tactics the White House uses to get the legislation it wants. Step one is always to confuse the opposition by using Orwellian language, as in calling the estate tax the "death tax."

Using the phrase "death tax" is a dishonest way of implying that anyone can be hit with this tax — since, after all, we all die. But it’s a tax on multimillion-dollar estates, affecting only 2 percent of American family inheritances.

It’s been my observation that among the wealthy, those who are genuinely decent and responsible do not try to weasel out of their obligations by claiming they need what the White House has been calling "estate tax relief" — as though maintaining a fortune of millions of dollars were an onerous burden.

And why shouldn’t prosperous and patriotic Americans be willing to support the country that has allowed their ancestors to accumulate substantial fortunes? Remember, the great majority of wealthy families — like those of Bush and of Sen. Edward Kennedy, for example — were not accumulated by members of the current generation, but were handed down from forebears long gone. If this unearned, inherited wealth is made exempt from tax, we will be laying the foundation for an entrenched aristocracy — exactly the thing that our democracy was designed to prevent.

It’s no wonder America’s debt to foreign creditors is spiraling so badly out of control. The day will come when they could be knocking on our children’s doors. This may seem like an indication of policy failure to most of us, but it counts as a success if you share the conservative Republican goal of transferring more wealth, by any means necessary, into the hands of the already wealthy.

Robert L. Moore is a professor of anthropology at Rollins College and director of international affairs at the college’s Holt School. E-mail: rlmoore2647@yahoo.com.