On the Right

New York, Jan. 20—It never ceases to surprise you how men and women of cosmopolitan background can crank up the kind of hostility to “the rich” which is the staple of the anti-Reagan critics these days. The other night, at Harvard University, three gentlemen songsters of the Left dwelt almost interminably on the subject of the high favors President Reagan’s Administration is performing for the rich, and the majority of the audience whooped with delight, much as one would expect cannibals to do before roasting their captives, and eating greedily their flesh.

Of course the paradoxes abound. The university wouldn’t exist, save for “the rich.” And by almost any plausible standard, most of the students there will be “rich” very very soon. Indeed, some of them will be “rich” by the time they graduate. Young lawyers are fetching as much as $37,000 a year upon graduation. And the highest marginal tax rate, presumably reserved for “the rich,” was under Mr. Carter applicable at $32,000 per year. After that, you paid fifty cents out of every dollar to the Feds, plus the local tax. Under Mr. Reagan’s tax reform, the figure of $32,000 was raised to $41,000. You are officially “rich” nowadays at that figure. Using 1972 dollars, that means that you became rich just after achieving a salary of $19,000. The anguish of Mr. Reagan’s critics appears to issue from the tax reform that gave any relief at all to “the rich.” Mr. Reagan didn’t lower the marginal tax rate, which remains at 50 per cent. He merely postponed a little bit the figure at which you hit that high rate. That is construed, in fashionable intellectual quarters, as a grievous blow to the poor.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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William F. Buckley Jr.

New York, Jan. 20—It never ceases to surprise you how men and women of cosmopolitan background can crank up the kind of hostility to “the rich” which is the staple of the anti-Reagan critics these days. The other night, at Harvard University, three gentlemen songsters of the Left dwelt almost interminably on the subject of the high favors President Reagan’s Administration is performing for the rich, and the majority of the audience whooped with delight, much as one would expect cannibals to do before roasting their captives, and eating greedily their flesh.

Of course the paradoxes abound. The university wouldn’t exist, save for “the rich.” And by almost any plausible standard, most of the students there will be “rich” very very soon. Indeed, some of them will be “rich” by the time they graduate. Young lawyers are fetching as much as $37,000 a year upon graduation. And the highest marginal tax rate, presumably reserved for “the rich,” was under Mr. Carter applicable at $32,000 per year. After that, you paid fifty cents out of every dollar to the Feds, plus the local tax. Under Mr. Reagan’s tax reform, the figure of $32,000 was raised to $41,000. You are officially “rich” nowadays at that figure. Using 1972 dollars, that means that you became rich just after achieving a salary of $19,000. The anguish of Mr. Reagan’s critics appears to issue from the tax reform that gave any relief at all to “the rich.” Mr. Reagan didn’t lower the marginal tax rate, which remains at 50 per cent. He merely postponed a little bit the figure at which you hit that high rate. That is construed, in fashionable intellectual quarters, as a grievous blow to the poor.