THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 31, 1996 TAG: 9610300007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: GLENN ALLEN SCOTT
LENGTH: 97 lines
The major-party contenders for the presidency and candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate during this election season have had nothing to say about the pronounced shift in wealth and income distribution in the United States in recent decades.
That's understandable. In the United States, any politician who brings up the topic of wealth-and-income distribution risks being labeled ``socialist,'' ``communist,'' ``un-American'' or ``initiator of class warfare'' - end of discussion.
Some readers stuck these labels on Philadelphia Inquirer investigative reporters Donald D. Barlett and James B. Steele because of their 10-part ``Who Stole the Dream?'' series, which The Virginian-Pilot reprinted in September. But Barlett and Steele are journalists who, in an earlier series, ``Who Pays the Taxes,'' documented how corporate America and wealthy Americans had eased their federal tax burden while the federal, state and local tax burden on middle Americans got heavier, public schools and public safety deteriorated and hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs with benefits evaporated.
Stated simply, the richest Americans' share of income and wealth has increased markedly since 1980 while middle-income and poor Americans' share has decreased markedly. Middle America is insecure about its present and future and remains suspicious of Washington, which it sees as an instrument primarily in the service of the rich and powerful and harmful to everyone else.
Meanwhile, just about everyone except tax lawyers and accountants complains about the mind-boggling complexities of the federal tax code, which Jimmy Carter in the 1970s pronounced ``a disgrace.'' But guess whose demands for favorable tax treatment prompted changes that so complicated the code? Not the repair technicians, truck drivers, nurses, teachers, press operators, assembly-line workers and millions of other middle Americans without whose skills and labor the United States would not be as prosperous as it is.
Because Barlett and Steele are journalists and not public-office seekers, they are free to explore thorny matters from which politicians shy. Criticism comes with the territory.
Newsweek economics writer Robert Samuelson, author of It's Not as Bad As you Think, castigated Barlett and Steele's latest handiwork as ``junk journalism'' by reporters who did not ``seek a balanced picture of the economy - strengths as well as weaknesses - or an accurate profile of living standards.''
And mutual-fund wizard Peter Lynch, whose management of Fidelity's Magellan Fund produced legendary results for investors for many years, argued in a detailed essay printed in The Wall Street Journal (and reprinted on The Virginian-Pilot Perspectives page) that Barlett and Steele overlooked the ``upsizing'' that is occurring along with the ``downsizing'' of America. Lynch cited emerging companies that are providing well-compensated jobs that previously did not exist.
But the relevant reality at the moment is that middle Americans feel squeezed because they are squeezed. Yet politicians won't touch the wealth-and-income-distribution taboo. Both President Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole and congressional candidates instead propose tax relief, government-spending cuts and other official moves to aid the ``middle class.'' Considering Clinton's puzzling-to-many double-digit lead in public-opinion polls, the electorate finds the president's pitch more to its taste than the challenger's.
Political analyst Kevin Phillips, prophesized the upturn of the GOP's political fortunes in the 1980s in his 1969 book, The Emerging Republican Majority. But he foresaw trouble for Republicans and Democrats from the swift growth of wealth and income among the rich and super rich during the Reagan years while middle Americans' income stalled.
Phillips laid out the wealth-and-income trends in his 1990 book, The Politics of Rich and Poor, a work hailed by both former President Richard M. Nixon and then New York Gov. Mario Cuomo.
As ``downsizing'' accelerated and the wealth-and-income gap between those at the top and all others widened in the 1990s, the political turmoil forecast by Phillips intensified. In 1992, an economically threatened middle America evicted George Bush from the White House and gave the key to Arkansas Governor Clinton. Texas billionaire Ross Perot, who spotlighted the perils in the ballooning federal debt and endless federal deficits, garnered 19 percent of the vote.
In 1994, the still-unhappy electorate ended Democrats' long dominion on Capitol Hill. After all, who was in charge of Congress while middle America's fortunes declined?
But middle America's expectation that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress would right things wasn't fulfilled. If anything, the 104th was even more attentive than Democrats to the rich and powerful. Now Republican control of Congress is in jeopardy.
The economy, which began to improve in the latter months of the Bush administration, is better today than four years ago. That helps the Bill Clinton-Al Gore ticket. But middle Americans' insecurity is also a powerful force propelling the Clinton toward triumph next Tuesday and even boosting the erratic Perot's standing with the public.
Last Friday, USA Today published results of a survey of Americans' worries. The pollsters found 82 percent of adult Americans ``very'' or ``somewhat'' concerned about being able to afford a comfortable retirement and 80 percent ``very'' or ``somewhat'' concerned about getting needed health care. Such statistics portend more rough political weather. MEMO: Mr. Scott is associate editor of the editorial page of The
Virginian-Pilot. by CNB