European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 25, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Monday november 25, 1991 the stars and stripes a Page 13 commentary William f. Buckley or. It s open season and Only ideas Are tax free in this open season Jan How taxes might be altered one Heads not Only from Macro types who wonder what would be the effect of this tax revision or from others on the Gross National product but also from others who allow themselves to wonder How might a Reform affect life in general. In great Britain for instance the upper Middle class up has been seriously Hurt much More so than by the recession in the Early �?T80s. Journalist Henry Porter writes in the Spectator that he was intrigued by the few words he could hear being uttered by the wife of an . To his own wife at an informal gathering. In Britain the up talk almost exclusively about schools jobs and property. But none of these contexts made any sense of what this up person was saying. Curiosity finally impelled the journalist to Edge closer to the conversation what was going on was an attempt by the . S wife to sell his wife a water purifier. The up person like so Many others had gone into business to attempt to leaven the Impact of the recession. Auberon Waugh will not lose an Opportunity to take a free and iconoclastic View of such Dull subjects As the Economy and he permitted himself to think out loud about tax Reform of the kind that might affect even uppers Down on their tuck. Not Long ago the British government abolished the surcharge of 15 percent on so called a unearned income Quot which is what comes in from a company like general motors when general motors Stock pays dividends. Of course before those dividends Are paid out the company pays a corporate tax so that the income is taxed twice a three times if you remember that corporate expansion is financed by after tax income. Well says Waugh a there might be a Good Case for putting a surcharge on so called a earned incomes. One could Point out that we want to encourage investment and discourage wage rises that practically no one in Britain does any work for their so called a earned incomes but he sighs a that would be becoming a Little More serious he goes on to propose that dividend income be taxed at a lower rate than regular income on the grounds that great Britain desperately needs More investment. Quot but Quot a he More or less Abandons Hope a a even this would require a sort of soft shoe shuffle of which i fear the conservatives Are he then comes up with what he thinks a capital idea a namely to make tax deductible the Cost of Domestic service. This would mean that More British could afford to have gardeners and butlers and chambermaid and More unemployed would find work As gardeners Butters and chambermaid. But always there is a Quot but Quot. A when 1 put it to then Chancellor of the exchequer Nigel Lawson that he could save the country in this Way he looked Crafty and said its effect would be to subsidize those who already had butlers and nannies without encouraging new employers. A this seems obviously wrong Quot or. Waugh reflects. Quot my proposal which would also go some Way to remedying the housing problem is not one to wave before the electorate or even to debate with great noise before the conference. It is one to be discussed quietly in smoke filled rooms Over the port Brandy or fizzy poach wine before the lights Are turned Down clothes Are taken off and the serious business in the United states there Are inventive proposals less droll when one focuses on such As Andrew Tobias made in an essay in time Magazine. Tobias who has no inclination whatsoever to coddle the Rich believes in reducing the cup ital gains tax to Zero a his capital letters. But he would do this Only on future investments in newly issued stocks and Bonds a such a Rifle shot tax Cut would be a huge incentive to invest in new companies and to fund the expansion and modernization of old ones but at a tiny fraction of the Cost of an across the Board Cut. It would be a Boon for Wall Street making it that much easier to Issue new so critics. It would be cheap it would be simple and it would do exactly what the administration claims it wants to do stimulate new investment to improve productivity and create and no d diversionary talk please about Bolding the securities for a year or three years or whatever before the investor could realize his profit Quot it be necessary under this Rifle shot plan. Initial investors would have an incentive to let their gains mount tax free. As for traders and speculators Why impose artificial harriers to the movement of capital there a nothing wrong with a fast profit honestly come but creative reforms Are unlikely. To borrow from ill. Mencken a Democrat is someone who can t sleep at night for fear that somebody somewhere is making Money. Cd us dorsal Pross syndic i David Brode democrats delude themselves about Cuomo to a democratic party wandering in the political desert and thirsting for leadership Mario m. Cuomo looks like a Spring gushing Forth Cool Clear water. Very few recognize that he May be a Mirage. As this is written the governor of new York is still teasing the democrats with hints that he May be available. They Are panting for the answer to be yes. The reasons Are obvious. When Cuomo comes into a room or onto the television screen his personality fills the available space like no one else a. His hands his face his features Are big and expressive a and so is his spirit. He writes like a dream and his actors sense of timing makes his speeches sound even better than they read. He has a poets gift of metaphor. Like Ronald Reagan he talks about government policy by telling stories. He invokes values his listeners recognize As their own. His mind is original and far ranging blending the arts of the lawyer and the theologian. He is unbowed by republicans never having lost a race to them. He Speaks the democrats language rekindles their Faith in government and evokes the memories of the glorious Roosevelt Ian past. So democrats Palmitate at the Prospect of having him As their nominee. And the democratic Campaign consultants eager for work recognize that he would enter the race with More Campaign funds a and More Access to contributors a than anyone else. So powerful is the grip that Cuomo has held on democratic imaginations Ever since his keynote address at the 1984 democratic National convention in san Francisco that they Overlook All the warning signs about this Man. 1. Cuomo is far More admired by those who see him from afar than by those who know him Well. In the latest poll of new York voters 55 percent disapproved of his leadership Only 41 percent approved. By a 4-1 ratio they said the state is on the wrong path. His relations with the leadership of the democratic controlled state Assembly have worsened steadily. At the end of the last legislative session they were Rotten a similar atmosphere Clouds his dealings with the Albany press corps. Democrats ignored similar warning signs about Jimmy Carter and Michael Dukakis the last two governors to whom they entrusted their presidential nomination and Learned belatedly that they should have paid attention. 2. What the late James h. Rowe once said about Lyndon Johnson can he applied with equal pertinence to Cuomo Quot one of his problems is that there Are very few people he Ever trusted a and most of them Are dead. Quot Cuomo operates with what May be the smallest Circle of Persona and political advisers of any major american governmental figure a mainly family members and old friends. 3. He is remarkably in travelled in the nation and i he world a and shows surprisingly Little curiosity about that larger universe. Kevin sack who covers Cuomo for the new York times wrote last month that Quot in 3,187 Days Cuomo has been governor he has. Spent Only 36 nights away from the executive in nine years As governor he has visited two foreign countries a the soviet Union and Japan. Even when he travels its questionable How much he learns because his habit is to Fly Back to Albany a even in it takes half the night a As soon As the applause Dies. Last june f asked Cuomo if he were not curious about the Rich diversity of political cultures in this infinitely various nation. His reply was that he can give the same speech a Quot Replete with mom and pop and ethnic references a and gel an equally Quot hysterical response whether he is in new Yorks Chinatown or at a Wake Forest University convocation in North Rofina. Done to doubt that a the cac. But i also understood that Cuomo took a question about the varieties of american experience and turned it into a boast about ins own oratorical prolific nay. Lie missed the Point. Cuomo has gained immunity from the charge of parochialism by displaying the breadth of his mind and the Force of his personality. But he has had less involvement with Oiler democratic parly leaders than either Carter or Dukakis did before they became the democratic nominees a and both of them were later faulted for the narrowness of their backgrounds. Ironically they had actively engaged in polities outside their Home states Carter through the 1974 midterm Campaign Dukakis through the National governors association a far More than Cuomo has. Cuomo has done Only limited campaigning outside new York. He never has made More than a Zamco appearance just Long enough Tor a news conference at the governors semiannual meetings he has joined in their efforts Only when it suited new Yorkus interests As in the fight to preserve Federal of slate taxes collegiality is just Mil his game. None of this matters now As Danio cats contemplate his possible candidacy because no one can match Cuomo on the stump or on the Little screen. But it he becomes a , these facets of his personality will be important. Ii in in in Hijii a a i / a a cps a j
