Gop Falling Flat On Its Taxes
Rob DeWitt, a young lawyer from Atlanta, is no fan of Bill Clinton’s or Democrats in general. He’s one of those Southern white guys, the robust embodiment of the “Bubba vote” that leans these days toward the GOP.
But last weekend, after long hours of listening to Republican presidential candidates and to Vice President Al Gore, he came away feeling that the GOP was out to lunch and that the Clinton team has found a message that resonates with average Americans.
“I was real disappointed in the Republicans,” sighed DeWitt.
He was a delegate to the first-ever National Issues Convention, attended by a representative national sample of 459 Americans. “I voted for George Bush in ‘92, but this was almost enough to make you want to leave the party. They’ve gotten too conservative. I mean, there needs to be some role for the government.
“I can see Clinton and Gore riding the budget stalemate all the way to the election, saying to people, ‘I want to balance the books, but we’ve also got to save these social programs.’ You say that, and I’m not sure you can lose.”
If delegates to the Austin gathering did represent a cross section of U.S. opinion, the GOP had a bad weekend. The candidates didn’t seem to click with this crowd, many of whom were uneasy with the notion that unshackled free enterprise can cure all ills.
The event’s creator, University of Texas Professor Jim Fishkin, designed his convention to be a virtual mirror of the American mood. One of every four delegates was a political independent, and most of the rest were split evenly between Democrats and Republicans.
The delegates were identified by a national polling firm and flown here for three days of talk on the issues. The whole point was to deliberate at length, in small groups, and reach “considered judgments,” without the distraction of TV sound bites and political ads.
Convention organizers invited all of the presidential candidates to a forum, structured to encourage erudite dialogue. But a few problems cropped up.
Sen. Bob Dole, the GOP front-runner, opted to skip the event and talk instead to MTV in New Hampshire. Lamar Alexander, Steve Forbes and Phil Gramm agreed to test wits, but only via satellite. Only Sen. Richard G. Lugar came in person. On the Democratic side, Clinton sent Gore.
The four Republicans who did appear were hit repeatedly with the same tough question - a core concern of these citizens: What should be done about the widening gap between rich and poor, the growing wage disparity, the seemingly inexorable shrinking of the middle class?
Gramm’s response was echoed by his rivals: “I’m not going to have the government in the business of trying to say, ‘We’re going to influence the outcome of the competition.’ I’m not concerned about the fact that some people are making a lot of money.” The only solution, he said, is to shrink the federal budget, and free up more money to create jobs.
Forbes, the millionaire publisher and Dole’s leading challenger, touted his budget-shrinking flat tax, under which all Americans making at least $36,000 would pay the same 17 percent levy on income. He stuck to his flat-tax message regardless of the question, a strategy that finally sparked laughter among the citizens.
When Dorothy Chandler, a Californian, asked what he would do to stop big business from “making excessive profits on the backs of American workers,” he said that his flat tax would cure the problem in the long run, by freeing up enough private wealth to create new jobs.
But she persisted: “Americans are losing their jobs by the thousands. It doesn’t seem fair. … There’s got to be a way to stop the (market) from doing this.” Forbes replied: “Well, there’s no way you can create businesses, and not have those kinds of activities.”
When Gore’s turn came, he dismissed the flat tax: “Fifty-seven percent of Americans now pay an effective tax rate of 15 percent. That means a majority, right off the bat, would have a huge increase under the (Forbes) system. And the richest people, who are now paying up to 39 percent of their income in taxes, who are better able to carry the budget, would get a huge tax cut.
“So if you say, ‘Are you in favor of a huge tax cut for those who are most able to pay?’ most people aren’t really for that.”
Gore rejected the idea of soaking the rich. But he also argued that a safety net was still necessary: “Those who invest (private) money should play a key role in a growing economy. However, if you let them have a disproportionate influence (in Washington), then you can have a Congress that refuses to raise the minimum wage, that wants to cut way back on income supports for the working poor. And then we get into trouble.”
Pat Jacobson, a 60-year-old innkeeper from Vermont, a swing voter who once worked for GOP candidates, remarked: “I almost wanted to go up and say to him (Gore), ‘Damn, you’re good!’ He is very thorough. The Republicans looked like they felt threatened by the questions.”
Gore repeatedly asked people what “they” thought. Gigi Armbrecht, from Mobile, Ala., said later: “That was so different … The Republican candidates kept telling us about ‘what the American people want.’ Well, who did they think we were?”
More will be known about these people later this week. Sunday, they took part in America’s first “deliberative poll,” and their views on the issues will be released by Friday.
“This here was my first time on a plane,” said Mary Dobbs, who left her Alabama farm only because her husband got somebody to help him milk the cows. “And I’ve never voted before, not even once. But now, someday, I just might.”