Newsgroups: bit.listserv.words-l
Date:         Wed, 14 Oct 1992 21:01:50 EST
From:         Entropy Warrior <AUSBROOK@UCS.INDIANA.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Reality vs. Rhetoric

>Hey, all I did was look up the citation in the goddam book, okay?  I was
>hoping to catch the veep in an obvious clanger but it turns out that he was
>right!

Remember Marty's post about Nightline last night--how all those independent
economists, according to Jeff Greenfield, said that Clinton's tax proposals
make sense?

Well, here's the bit from Greenfield about Gore's book:

>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: The fact of the matter is, is that one of the proposals
>that Senator Gore has suggested is to have the taxpayers of America spend $100
>billion a year on environmental projects in foreign countries-
>
>Sen. GORE: Just not true.
>
>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: -foreign aid-
>
>Sen. GORE: Just not true.
>
>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: -Senator, it's in your book-
>
>Sen. GORE: It's not.
>
>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: -on page 304, it is there-
>
>Sen. GORE: No, it's not. No, it's not.
>
>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: -it is in your book.
>
>GREENFIELD: In his book, Earth in the Balance, Senator Gore clearly does call
>for a global Marshall Plan, and he does say the United States should take a
>leading role in the plan, but nowhere in the book does Gore come anywhere
>close to saying the U.S. should invest $100 billion of its money in such a
>plan. The Bush campaign reached that conclusion by noting that in the book Al
>Gore says the original Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II
>would cost $100 billion in today's money. That is, to put it mildly, a
>stretch.

Well, Greenfield is wrong, right?  He is wrong about "today's money"--it's a
question of percentage of GNP.  And Gore's obvious suggestion is that such a
sum would be appropriate.  No big deal.  Just don't believe what Nightline's
butt plugs pull out.

Here is what Greenfield had to say about the tax question:

>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: I hope that when you talked to those people you said,
>"And the first thing that Bill Clinton and I are going to do is raise $150
>billion in new taxes."
>
>Sen. GORE: You've got that wrong, too.
>
>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: And the first- and the first- that is part of your plan-
>Sen. GORE: No, it's not.

>Vice Pres. QUAYLE: -$150 billion in new taxes. Everyone knows that you
>simply can't get $150 billion in new taxes by raising the marginal tax
>rate, the top rate of 36 percent and only tax those making $200,000 a year.
>Everybody making more than $36,000 a year will have their taxes increased if
>Bill Clinton is president of the United States.
>
>Sen. GORE: No.
>
>GREENFIELD: Page 27 of Clinton's economic plan, "Putting People First,"
>does call for the raising of $150 billion in new revenue over four years
>through what it calls closing corporate loopholes and economic fairness,
>for instance, raising taxes on those making $200,000 a year.  It also says a
>lot of that money would come from simply enforcing the tax laws against those
>who are now not paying anything at all, or anything like what the law
>requires.
>So this one depends on whether you believe that any tax or
>revenue increase is inherently bad or evil, or whether you think that some tax
>and revenue increases are better than others. As for the middle-class tax
>charge, the Clinton campaign clearly does not call for increased taxes on the
>middle class. But the Bush campaign calculates that since Clinton
>could not possibly raise the money he needs to pay for his spending
>programs with his revenue proposals, he would have to impose a 36 percent tax
>rate on anyone making over $36,000 a year. Independent examination of this
>charge by, for example, press organizations, has found it, to say the least,
>misleading

Przyganial garnkowi.

-K

-Mka
PS--there's a cute coincidence--the number of workers Gore claims to
have been thrown out of work in Decatur by AID wooing away a factory?

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