Tilting at windmills: the big story the handful of marshals the actor's wife fleeing to the hamptons a smart tax cut and a dumb one - Column - Statistical Data Included

Washington Monthly, Nov, 2001 by Charles Peters

ONE OF THE WAYS I PREPARE to write this column is by collecting clippings of newspaper and magazine articles that I found interesting during the preceding month. Then, the day before I start writing, I sort the clips, discarding those that on reflection don't seem so fascinating after all. This month, as I sat down to do the sorting, I found that my stack of clips was much larger than usual, and as I did the sorting, the number discarded was much less. This, I believe, reflects a media that has, since September 11, become vastly more relevant. Newspaper and television news, and even talk shows, have offered a steady diet of interesting information. At long last, we have a "Big Story" that really is a big story. Mindless gossip about the sex lives of public figures has taken a backseat where it belongs.

One hopes that this reform is genuine and that what the media decides are big stories continue to be about genuinely important subjects. It's hard to be optimistic, however, when The New York Times reported that fewer than two weeks after September 11, "Carol Wallace, the managing editor of People magazine, spent Friday morning with staff members, discussing how to move with sensitivity back into the celebrity grind."

"When a publicist called her last week," reports Alex Kuczynski of The New York Times, "pitching a story that might have flown three weeks ago, about the wife of a famous actor and her battle with irritable bowel syndrome, Ms. Wallace turned the story down. `We're going to hold off on stories like that,' she said. `We'll ease back into it.'"

All this is not to say that gossip isn't fun. Of course it is. For years our "Who's Who" column has been largely devoted to it. But, and it seems to me this is the important point to remember, "Who's Who" takes up about one-thirtieth of this magazine's content, which is just about its rightful share.

I SHARE THE NATION'S ADMIRATION for the way New Yorkers responded to September 11. But the reaction of some of the city's wealthy reminds me that the rich are different. Take Suzanne Schiffman who, writes Abby Goodnough of The New York Times, "fled New York City and signed [her two] girls up for school in the Hamptons, where their summer home has become a semi-permanent refuge from the chaos of lower Manhattan." Schiffmann explains, "The public school they were attending in Battery Park City was pretty exclusive, and the ones they'd have to transfer to, I would never send them there."

OF ALL THE ECONOMIC STIMULUS proposals, the one we favor the most is the rebate of payroll taxes, something we first proposed last March. Back then the idea got nowhere. But its time seems to have come. Just as we were going to press, The Washington Times, which has excellent sources in the GOP, reported that congressional Republicans "appear willing to back a Democratic proposal" for such a rebate. The reason we're for it is that it puts money into the hands of the people who need it most because they do not earn enough money to pay income taxes. They are likely to spend what they get, and spending is what the economy needs right now. On the whole, however, I would like to see the spending come not from individuals but from the government, not only for the prevention of terrorism, but also for other widely beneficial public purposes such as healthcare, education, and infrastructure rebuilding of sewers, bridges, and roads. So I'm against more tax cuts for the affluent.

Most of all, I oppose slicing the capital gains tax. Warren Buffett opposes the capital gains tax cut, as does Paul Krugman, and here's what former treasury secretary Robert Rubin has to say on the subject: "A capital gains tax cut, according to a 1998 Congressional Budget Office study, would have nearly zero effect on the economy in the short term. I think the effect could actually be negative in that the capital gains tax cut could induce increased stock sales."

What Rubin means is that if you've been holding onto stocks because you didn't want to pay the current capital gains tax on them, you'll be tempted to sell when the tax is reduced. Selling stocks makes the market go down, not up.

YOU MAY WONDER HOW RICH New Yorkers are coping with the long security lines at commercial airports. "But how are we going to get to Vail?" one woman asked at a recent dinner party. Again, I rely on Kuczynski of the Times, who says the answer is to charter a jet, buy a timeshare in one, or hitch a ride on a friend's. While there's been a dramatic decline in the use of regular airlines, she reports that 80 percent of charter companies say they have had increased bookings since September 11.

THE CATCH TO ALL THIS IS that the security at private air ports and the private terminals at commercial airports is terrible. Passengers are not required to go through metal detectors; luggage is not x-rayed; in fact, cargo is seldom searched at all. Often there is no security for the planes themselves. "Many small airports lack even rudimentary security measures like fences, lights, or guards," writes Andrew C. Revkin of The New York Times. "I can go to any small airport, and you tell me which airplane you want to break into, and we just take off. That's how easy it is," one security consultant tells Revkin. Confirmation comes from another security consultant who writes in The Washington Post, "Worst of all, there is no requirement at these facilities that aircraft be locked, and many are left open or are protected by locks that can be opened in a matter of seconds. In most cases, starting a plane is easier than igniting the engine of a stolen car."