The Week

Al Gore was at his obnoxious best in the first presidential debate. While George W. Bush spoke, Gore grimaced, sighed dramatically, chuckled mirthlessly. Gore interrupted and browbeat Bush. He kept. . . ex-AG-ger-a-ting his … in-TO-nations in that weird way of his. And he won the debate. He took command early, trampling all over Jim Lehrer and the debate format the campaigns had negotiated so carefully, and as a result had the last word on almost every subject. He got across all his points, put Bush on the spot, even got part of the audience at one point to laugh at him. Bush did well only in comparison to the late-night-TV caricature of himself. He showed that he wasn’t in completely over his head. On a few issues—education, Social Security, Gore’s profligacy—his answers were pretty impressive. (You could tell because they provoked Gore’s deepest sighs.) But his jokes fell flat. He fumbled the question about what he would do in a financial crisis. On abortion, he made two mistakes: He let Gore get away with the disingenuous claim that he would ban partial-birth abortion as long as there was an exception for the health of the mother, and his position on RU-486 was confusing. The silver lining for Republicans is that the debate probably won’t matter much. Nobody doubted that Gore knew his stuff, and he didn’t give undecided voters good reasons to vote for him. Bush avoided disaster; he can’t have gained voters, but he probably didn’t lose many either.

Perhaps Bush was weakest in deflecting Gore’s charge that his tax cut is unreasonably skewed to the top 1 percent of earners. But the relief the wealthy get under the Bush plan is a product of the steeply progressive nature of the tax code. The top 1 percent of earners pay about a third of income taxes—and this category doesn’t include just millionaires, as Gore seemed to suggest at one point, but reaches down to people making roughly $250,000 a year. The top 10 percent of earners—a category that includes people making $80,000—pay about 60 percent of all income taxes. In contrast, the bottom 50 percent of earners pay just 4 percent. This is why any income tax cut is a “tax cut for the rich.” In any case, experience shows that the way to get “the rich” to cough up more revenues is to cut their tax rates. Before the Reagan tax cuts, the top 1 percent of earners paid about 18 percent of income taxes. After the cuts, the number jumped to about 28 percent (by 1988). This is because the lower rates encouraged productivity and growth, expanding the economic pie for everyone and creating more tax revenues in the process. In fact, Gore’s dreaded wealthy are the ones who have provided the seed money for the high-tech startups that have driven the nation’s economic growth. Leaving more capital in their hands—where it can be saved and invested, and fund the next great leaps of American prosperity—isn’t a weakness of Bush’s plan, but one of its great strengths.

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Al Gore

George W. Bush

Presidential Election

Al Gore was at his obnoxious best in the first presidential debate. While George W. Bush spoke, Gore grimaced, sighed dramatically, chuckled mirthlessly. Gore interrupted and browbeat Bush. He kept. . . ex-AG-ger-a-ting his … in-TO-nations in that weird way of his. And he won the debate. He took command early, trampling all over Jim Lehrer and the debate format the campaigns had negotiated so carefully, and as a result had the last word on almost every subject. He got across all his points, put Bush on the spot, even got part of the audience at one point to laugh at him. Bush did well only in comparison to the late-night-TV caricature of himself. He showed that he wasn’t in completely over his head. On a few issues—education, Social Security, Gore’s profligacy—his answers were pretty impressive. (You could tell because they provoked Gore’s deepest sighs.) But his jokes fell flat. He fumbled the question about what he would do in a financial crisis. On abortion, he made two mistakes: He let Gore get away with the disingenuous claim that he would ban partial-birth abortion as long as there was an exception for the health of the mother, and his position on RU-486 was confusing. The silver lining for Republicans is that the debate probably won’t matter much. Nobody doubted that Gore knew his stuff, and he didn’t give undecided voters good reasons to vote for him. Bush avoided disaster; he can’t have gained voters, but he probably didn’t lose many either.

Perhaps Bush was weakest in deflecting Gore’s charge that his tax cut is unreasonably skewed to the top 1 percent of earners. But the relief the wealthy get under the Bush plan is a product of the steeply progressive nature of the tax code. The top 1 percent of earners pay about a third of income taxes—and this category doesn’t include just millionaires, as Gore seemed to suggest at one point, but reaches down to people making roughly $250,000 a year. The top 10 percent of earners—a category that includes people making $80,000—pay about 60 percent of all income taxes. In contrast, the bottom 50 percent of earners pay just 4 percent. This is why any income tax cut is a “tax cut for the rich.” In any case, experience shows that the way to get “the rich” to cough up more revenues is to cut their tax rates. Before the Reagan tax cuts, the top 1 percent of earners paid about 18 percent of income taxes. After the cuts, the number jumped to about 28 percent (by 1988). This is because the lower rates encouraged productivity and growth, expanding the economic pie for everyone and creating more tax revenues in the process. In fact, Gore’s dreaded wealthy are the ones who have provided the seed money for the high-tech startups that have driven the nation’s economic growth. Leaving more capital in their hands—where it can be saved and invested, and fund the next great leaps of American prosperity—isn’t a weakness of Bush’s plan, but one of its great strengths.