Ganging Up on the Tax Cut - A curious coalition against Bush.

According to its mission statement, the purpose of the National Parent- Teacher Association is three-fold: to "support and speak on behalf of children and youth in the schools," to "assist parents in developing the skills they need to raise and protect their children," and to "encourage parent and public involvement in the public schools of this nation." It's a responsibility that PTA officials, who oversee 26,000 local chapters across the country, take very seriously. And it's something that transcends politics. "We are a non-partisan group," says spokeswoman Claudia Soldano. "We don't take political sides on issues."

But these days the PTA is taking a very political side on a very political issue. The organization has joined something called the "Fair Taxes for All" coalition, an aggregation of hundreds of liberal interest groups opposed to George W. Bush's proposal to cut taxes. Led by People for the American Way, which most recently spearheaded the attack on the nomination of John Ashcroft to be attorney general, the coalition is crowded with deep-pocket labor organizations like the AFL- CIO, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, the United Auto Workers, the American Federation of Teachers, and many more. Their presence ensures a well-financed grass-roots operation capable of delivering millions of phone calls, letters, and e-mails to legislators who might be inclined to support the president.

The coalition also includes many groups that aren't known for their work on tax issues. There's the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the American Association of People with Disabilities, and the National Council of La Raza. There's the YWCA. The National Gray Panthers. Even the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League. Why are they involved?

In part, because People for the American Way asked-and asked and asked- them to join the effort. "They did extensive outreach to groups that don't normally participate in these issues," says Arthur Padilla of the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League. "They sent me letters, e- mails, faxes, and phone calls." Other groups say the anti-tax-cut effort is a natural extension of their work. "The reason we are a member of the coalition is that it is of utmost importance to us that women and their families are treated equitably," says Khristina Lew, spokeswoman for the YWCA. (The organization's guiding principle, according to its mission statement, is "to empower women and girls and to eliminate racism.") Claudia Soldano of the PTA agrees: "We want to make sure that anything that is put through maintains appropriate levels of funding for child-advocacy efforts."

There are other, simpler, explanations for some of the groups' involvement. According to a new analysis by the conservative Capital Research Center, many of the organizations in the coalition receive enormous amounts of money from the federal government. The National Council of La Raza, for example, has taken in almost $10 million in federal grants in the last five years. The AFL-CIO took in about $6.7 million. The National Education Association, $4.4 million. And the League of Women Voters got almost $2.5 million. Others took in smaller but still quite significant amounts. With so much money at stake, cutting taxes might directly affect their futures.

But the most compelling reason driving the coalition goes beyond narrowly economic concerns. In a larger sense, many of the groups involved simply cannot afford to let George W. Bush win. A Republican victory on taxes, they believe, could pave the way for a string of GOP triumphs in the next four years. The activists fear a repeat of the 1980s, when they faced a Republican president who was determined to do a few big things-the first of which was to reduce taxes.

It's a bad trip into the past for people like Ralph Neas, head of People for the American Way, who says his group is working so hard on the tax issue because of the lingering memory of losing to Ronald Reagan. "The Right accomplished something very important in 1981," Neas explains. "There were massive tax cuts, increased defense spending, and for the next 13 or 14 years, there was not enough money for investment in vital domestic priorities like health care, public education, and many other things." While ...