Helping the Rich Stay That Way

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Barlett and Steele, who are not ideologues of any discernible persuasion, leave the distinct impression that government has begun to function like a gang. According to political science, "the state" is supposed to be a neutral place where various interest groups -- like, say, the rich and the unrich -- meet to work things out, far from the noisy marketplace. Instead, government seems to have become a place where legislators meet lobbyists, to the happy advantage of each. As for being above the marketplace -- even laws are for sale here. When the rich have exhausted all the other evasive tactics, they can always find some friendly Congressperson to write their own personal tax law -- applying, for example, only to "an oil-refining facility in Rosemont, Minnesota" -- thereby dissolving the burden.

Let those who can, the tax-weary citizen might respond, get away with what they can. Trouble is, "the two tax laws" Barlett and Steele describe are part of what has been tearing America into two nations: an upscale U.S.A. where people raise fillies called "Tax Dodge," and a stressed-out, hardscrabble place where people struggle to keep the public coffers filled by paying 15% in taxes on wages of $6 an hour or so. That's bound to be a losing struggle, what with middle-class wages tumbling from year to year. Hence the deficit, which sits toadlike on our national aspirations. Two-thirds of it could be wiped out overnight if corporate taxes were restored to their 1950s levels. But even the deficit can be a boon if you're in the filly-raising class. The interest payments, which take up about 15% of the federal budget, go to the owners of Treasury bonds, meaning mainly the monied, and thus serve as one more conduit for the upward flow of wealth.

In Barlett and Steele's America, the middle-class voter ends up looking like someone who gets mugged and begs for more. After all, it was the middle class that elected all those fellows, on both sides of the aisle, who so loyally serve the rich. Maybe now we'll smarten up and learn how to hold on to our wallets. Or maybe the dread class war is already over, and the suits have run away with the loot.