On the Right - The Paul O'Neill Hour.(Brief Article)(Column)

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 9

Paul O'neill, our treasury secretary, breathes clean air and has clean thoughts, and the response to them is Orwellian. We have not seen what Jay Leno and Mr. Letterman et al. will be doing to him in the days ahead, but he will be made to sound like the Neanderthal Man, arriving on the scene in his Lexus, having escaped from all socially liberating thought since the Industrial Revolution. What Mr. O'Neill said was that he thought it quite wrong to conduct economic policy in a "robber baron" rhetorical context in which attention is given to who gets what after tax reform. "I think it is really corrosive to have this argument. . . . It's not worthy of where we are."

The allure of ad hominem arguments is as ever irresistible. The news accounts tell us that Paul O'Neill made $59 million in salary and stock options last year, from which we are supposed to deduce that he is especially inclined to favor rich taxpayers. To be sure a few will reflect that the experience of a man who brought about the reformation of an entire industry (aluminum) is worth much more to the United States prospectively than the $59 million paid to its chairman. But on one matter, attention needs to be paid. It is: Should heavy emphasis be given to the incidence of reform taxation? Or merely to the economic impact of it?

Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities was shaken by what he saw as the implied consequences of Mr. O'Neill's criticism. "You have to allow a conversation about who would get the benefits of various tax-cut proposals without being accused of waging class warfare." Yes, but the mode in which such discussion is conducted is readily seen as such when the effort isn't to analyze disinterestedly, but to curry resentment. And the same day that we heard from Mr. Greenstein, we heard from Senate minority leader Daschle just the kind of thing Mr. O'Neill is getting at: Mr. Daschle said the rich are getting richer, the poor poorer. But that has nothing at all to do with the question whether the proposed tax reform is desirable.

It isn't as though Mr. Bush proposes to tax the poor more heavily. The taxation of the poor is already heavy, but it is done not through income taxes but payroll taxes, and neither Al Gore nor Ralph Nader proposed reducing those, given the shortfall in sight 25 years from now on Social Security payments.

No, ...