Re: Krugman Watch: the estate tax abolition

[Joel Blau]

This column is the linear descendant of articles such as "The Rich, The Right, and The Facts," which nailed the right on growing inequality when Krugman wrote it for The American Prospect five or six years ago. But as always when he tilts liberal, one gets the feeling that the latent message--repositioning himself on the political spectrum as a balanced, objective observer--is as least as important as whatever he happens to arguing.

Joel Blau

Jim Devine wrote:

 >June 14, 2000 / New York TIMES

 >RECKONINGS / By PAUL KRUGMAN

 >Death and Taxes<

(long ellipsis)

PK discusses the recent US Congressional phased-in abolition of the estate
tax, a tax that only hits the very rich. It has not yet been ratified by
the Senate.

PK concludes: >But if you believe any of these [politicians'] explanations
of last week's vote, I've got this bridge you might be interested in
buying. The truth is that the vote to repeal the inheritance tax was just
an unusually blatant demonstration of a much simpler power law -- the one
that says that money talks. <

For the full column, see
http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/krugman/061400krug.html

This column is by-and-large very good. I have three notable points:

1) this column is an example of how PK sometimes leans to the left, to
criticize the Right. This proves, I guess, that he's in the middle. Of
course, this definition of the "middle" says a lot about the general
rightward trend of US politics during the last 30 years.

2) Despite the lean to the left, he ignores _trends_ in the distribution of
wealth. Doug Henwood's LEFT BUSINESS OBSERVER #94 (May 5, 2000) summarizes
Federal Reserve data suggesting that the share of wealth claimed by the
richest 1% has been rising since 1992 (with a little dip going from 1995 to
1998). This shows that the end of the estate tax is to exacerbate existing
trends. [To subscribe to this worthy publication, go to
http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_subinfo.html] That seems a even stronger
argument against its abolition than that presented by PK.

3) Note that PK is here ("money talks") acknowledging the venality of the
US government (referred to in my last comment on his columns). But somehow,
he ignores the role of this venality in determining the policies of the US
Treasury and its scions, the IMF and the World Bank.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
["clawww" or "liberalarts" can replace "bellarmine"]