Molly Ivins February 23

AUSTIN, Texas — I love these episodes where the Republicans suddenly leap up and accuse Democrats of conducting "class warfare." This occurs whenever Democrats, in some rare lapse into their ancestral ethos, point out that Republicans are once again giving tax breaks to the rich.

Some happy class warrior wrote in The Washington Times, "These people (the class-warfare crowd) resent success and want to seize the income of people they envy. ... (They are) the hate-and-envy crowd." Sheesh. Stand up for a smidge of fairness in this world, and there you are in the hate-and-envy crowd.

However, I notice that Republicans are not above playing the class- warfare card their own selves. According to The New York Times, the recent winter meeting of the AFL-CIO moved Scott Hatch, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, to comment, "It's ironic that the union bosses are meeting in sunny Miami and staying at fine resorts plotting to buy influence among the Gore-Gephardt Democrats rather than using union dues to improve the quality of lives of their hard-working members." Make that man an honorary member of the hate-and-envy crowd!

"A 10 percent across-the-board tax cut, what could be fairer?" cried Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, that well-known friend of the working class. (I always liked the old class-warfare standard "the little man," but the little man is out of vogue now — probably because of objections from the short people's lobby.)

What could be fairer than a tax cut that gives 62 percent of its benefits to the richest 10 percent of the people? A tax cut that gives 32 percent of its benefits to the richest 1 percent? A tax cut where the lowest 60 percent of income earners would get a tax cut averaging $99 while the 1 percent of the taxpayers making more than $301,000 a year would receive a cut averaging around $20,700?

Gee, I dunno — we'll have to think hard about that.

The next step in this minuet is to have the Republicans denounce the source of such numbers as "radical" and "leftist think tank." True, Citizens for Tax Justice, where the whiz-bang counters figured this out, does get funding from the labor movement — unlike, say, the Heritage Foundation.

And the very NEXT step is for condescending Republicans to point out, with painstaking patience, that the reason, actually, rich people get a larger share of the across-the-board tax cut is because (ta-dah) they pay more in taxes! Thanks for your help on that, Sherlock — we never would have figured it out without you.

Guess we'll also never figure out why the rich have gotten so much richer while everyone else hasn't.

The question, as columnist Lars-Erik Nelson pointed out, is who needs the tax cut: the Wall Street broker making $500,000 a year or a young couple with two kids making $30,000 a year? It all depends on your concept of fairness, doesn't it? But before we argue that tricky issue, let's go back to the numbers.

As Nelson explains, the $63 billion federal surplus, which would fund the proposed across-the-board tax cut, does not come from income taxes but from Social Security taxes. Follow this carefully: If you exclude Social Security taxes, the federal budget is just barely in balance; the surplus is provided by deductions from the paychecks of working Americans. So your across-the-board tax cut takes payroll taxes from average Americans and gives most of it to the richest 10 percent of the people in this country. And what point on the income scale does Social Security max out? At $72,600. In other words, our $500,000-a-year stockbroker is paying the same in Social Security taxes as the guy making $72,600 — but he's getting much, much more of the tax cut.

One of the favorite arguments used by Republicans is to point out that the poorest workers pay no federal income tax at all! You're supposed to be amazed at the generosity of a federal gummint that would let them get away with that.

But guess what taxes those poorer workers still have to pay? Yep, payroll taxes, including Social Security. So their money will be funding the tax cut for our $500K-a-year broker.

How do you like them apples for class warfare?

Crow Eaten Here: Ooops! On Feb. 14, I quoted a wonderful line from Harold Bloom ("Polonius on the outside, Iago on the inside") but aimed it at Rep. Henry Hyde. It was actually Kenneth Starr who drew Bloom's barb. Sorry about that.

Molly Ivins is a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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