The Week - John McCain's tax plan; George W.Bush's language policy; other political topics

National Review, Feb 7, 2000

--The theme for Al Gore's address to the Democratic convention has finally been set-one of his daughters was just involved in a minor car accident.

--Maybe the reason George W. Bush injects so much Spanish into Republican presidential debates is that he wants to use a language he's comfortable with.

--John McCain's tax plan may reasonably be described as Bush Lite. Like Bush, he cuts or eliminates the estate tax, the Social Security earnings test, and the marriage penalty; like Bush, he expands the tax credit for children. He falls short of Bush in cutting marginal tax rates: Where Bush cuts across the board, McCain only cuts rates for some people in the 28 percent tax bracket. McCain does more for individual investors than Bush: The senator would create new family savings accounts and liberalize 401(k)s, education savings accounts, and medical savings accounts. But McCain raises taxes on corporate investment in the name of closing "loopholes." His rhetoric, meanwhile, has been worse than his proposal. He suggests that Bush's tax cut is so large that it endangers Social Security-as though the government could possibly tax its way into solvency for that program. When McCain said that Bush's tax cut was "unfair"-i.e., too generous to the rich-he should have known that no tax cut could be "fair" by the liberal definition he was using. Now that he has unveiled his tax plan, liberal critics are saying that it is almost as biased toward the rich as Bush's. McCain has only himself to blame for that-and for letting Bush get to his right on taxes.

--Asked during the last Iowa debate whether the town of El Cenizo, Texas, conducts its official business in Spanish, George W. Bush denied it, and said that he was in favor of "English-plus," a policy that, in schools, means that English is the main language of instruction, though other languages can also be used. The standing conservative objection to bilingual policies is that they tend, in the hands of multiculti bureaucrats, to become English-minus. This means that a clear majority- culture direction must be set from the top. When George W. Bush begins his answers to such questions, as he did in the Iowa debate, in smiling, Anglo-accented Spanish, straight out of the Berlitz guide SPANISH FOR PANDERERS, it only strengthens the doubts he seeks to allay.

--Speaking at the Richard Nixon Library, Pat Buchanan gave a sober, and sobering, address on a non-subject of the current campaign: immigration. "At present rates, mass immigration reinforces ethnic subcultures, reduces the incentives of newcomers to learn English, and extends the life of linguistic ghettos. . . . If we want to assimilate new immigrants-and we have no choice if we are to remain one nation-we must slow down the pace of immigration." Buchanan proposed to reduce entry visas to 300,000 a year, and to tighten border controls: almost the same recommendations of the commission headed by Barbara Jordan five years ago. If someone translates the speech into Spanish, maybe George W. will read it.

--"I've raised money for crisis-pregnancy centers while my friend Steve Forbes was raising money for Christie Todd Whitman," said Gary Bauer at a Des Moines presidential debate. Now it turns out that cash-strapped crisis-pregnancy centers, which steer women away from abortions, have been raising money for him, too. According to financial-disclosure forms filed last year, Bauer accepted more than $50,000 in speaking fees from crisis- pregnancy centers in 1998 and the first five months of 1999. He also received more than $140,000 in fees from pro-life groups, family organizations, churches, and Christian schools-in addition to earning a 1998 salary of $160,000 at the Family Research Council (plus a ten-year bonus of $150,000) and "consulting fees" totaling more than $100,000 from the Campaign for Working Families and American Renewal. Pro-lifers hardly need to take vows of poverty, but pardon us for wondering whether the head of the Family Research Council must be compensated beyond his salary for speaking at a crisis-pregnancy center's annual banquet-even if he is the son of a janitor.

--The Confederate flag that flies over the South Carolina statehouse was hoisted into the Republican primary. George W. Bush played possum, saying it was a matter for South Carolinians to decide; John McCain tried to see both sides, understanding the dislike many blacks feel for the symbol, as well as the honor many white southerners accord, through it, to their ancestors. Glenn Loury, the ex-conservative sociologist, added a new thought to the debate: Loury claimed he is not angry to see the flag displayed on bumpers or jackets as a symbol of heritage, but added that, when flown from an official flagpole, it is an incongruous validation of treason. The Confederates did not think they were committing treason-they were loyal to their states-but that is one question the war should have settled. The display is hardly an old custom, having been initiated by Governor (now Senator) Ernest Hollings in the early Sixties. Time to rally round this flag elsewhere.