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Tuesday, March 20, 2001
President George W. Bush's plan to give rich people the lion's share of his tax cuts has set off much class-conscious grumbling.
It must be a terrible thing to be rich -- what with all the petty back-biting that one has to endure from the Man in the Street, who, if he had any gumption, would get out of the street and do something useful for once in his life.
What ignorant fellows like him don't understand is the good that rich people do in our society. For example, the tuxedo industry would go the way of the horse-buggy industry without the rich. Skilled tuxedo craftsmen, thrown out of their livelihoods, would be forced to sit at busy intersections with pathetic signs that read: "Will fix bow ties for food." Their cries of "cummerbunds, cummerbunds for sale, cheap" would ring in our ears like an indictment.
And where would the Seen column be without rich people holding their soirees? Why, if it weren't for them, the Seen column would be full of journalists and other shabby characters -- a horrible prospect.
Rich people set the standards and the tone because they can afford to be honest. But if the rich were to become infected with the same vices as the poor -- i.e., idleness and whining -- where would we be?
I write today to warn rich people that they stand in danger of forfeiting their moral leadership. They may have to be saved from themselves.
In this context, it is instructive to consider welfare reform. It had to be passed to save poor people from themselves. A culture of dependency -- that's what everybody called it -- had sprung up across the land. Everybody knew the people on welfare were living high on the hog -- hog being understood here to mean the sundry collection of mystery meat put into hot dog casings.
It shocked the nation that from generation unto generation, a whole class of idlers had grown accustomed to eating from the government trough. Oh, how they ate! Not just turkey franks either, but jumbo corn dogs with Ho Hos for dessert.
Yes, it was an unbelievably sumptuous life on welfare, a veritable macaroni-and-cheese heaven, but fortunately Congress put a time limit on this gravy train, and the culture of dependency was dealt a deathblow. Quite rightly, too!
My point is that a new, more insidious culture of dependency may be arising -- and, most shockingly, it may come courtesy of the Bush administration. The problem is immutable human nature. It does not change depending on whether a person is rich or poor. Anybody can fall victim to a culture of dependency.
The administration's package of tax cuts is the potential culprit. Now, don't get me wrong. Tax cuts are generally good, and I want a tax cut as much as anyone. My wife, my children, my local beer distributor -- all wish that I had more money.
No. The real problem is the proposal to abolish the estate tax. President Bush says taxing a person's estate is like taxing a person twice -- once in life, once in death. But a dead person can't be taxed. That's the thing about being dead. You are immune to anyone doing anything further to you.
What Mr. Bush meant to say is that the living heirs of the rich person are taxed (and this tax only affects the very rich). All they have done to deserve this money is to have the dumb luck to be related -- a fact that plainly has the potential to destroy self-respect.
Rich people may find it hard to accept, but unless the government continues to get some share of their estates, a terrible culture of dependency must inevitably ensue. Just as a poor person will eat corn dogs all day when he knows he doesn't have to work, so will a rich heir gobble up caviar without a care for self-advancement.
If the Bush administration succeeds, a whole generation of American Bertie Woosters will be spawned, an aristocracy of the idle attended by an army of Jeeves-like butlers. They will be saying "pip, pip" and "what ho, old sport." Why, everywhere you look, it will seem like Fox Chapel.
For his own moral guidance, I have told my son, Jimmy: "Son, you will have to carry your own golf bag in this life." And that is the lesson Uncle Sam needs to impress on everybody if the dreaded culture of dependency is to be avoided.
Reg Henry's e-mail address is rhenry@post-gazette.com.