December 14, 2006
Aaron Asher’s LBJ II Posted by John Steele Gordon at 10:50 AM EST Fredric Smoler’s post on the extraordinary sanctimony of those opposed to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s gave me an intense jolt of déjà vu, for it reminded me of a classic instance of that sanctimony that I had forgotten. It was at a dinner party, circa 1967, when, needless to say, the war was the subject of conversation. One of the guests, a young, intelligent woman, not in any way a political crazy, at least by the standards of the time, said matter-of-factly that if she had the opportunity (and, at least she admitted, the courage) she would assassinate President Johnson. No one else thought this statement, that she would murder a democratically elected President in order to end a war that she—in her infinite wisdom and perfect morality—knew to be wrong, was in any way reprehensible. Their only regret, it seemed, was that it was probably not possible to accomplish the deed. I was utterly appalled and said so and was immediately attacked for being out of step with truth and justice. It might be noted that this took place only a few years after another President had been murdered in cold blood. I remember my grandfather saying, “God save us from those who think they are doing God’s work.” This, I think, was an instance of precisely what he meant. Mr. Smoler goes on to compare George Bush with LBJ in a way that is, I think, most unfair. He writes, “George Bush, although like Johnson a President who prosecuted an unpopular war, did not ram through any Civil Rights Acts; he instead managed to cut taxes on the richest among us and make it harder for very poor people to get out of the clutches of their less than scrupulous creditors. He did not set up Medicaid, he rather managed to stop medical research that was in the long run likely to free uncounted numbers of people from great pain and disability. But despite the injustice of the comparison, I am struck by how orgiastic sanctimony and exultant indignation now seem to be a durable part of our political culture.” Tax cuts: It is, of course, the received wisdom of the left that cutting marginal tax rates on “the rich” is a terrible thing to do, with absolutely no economic effects other than to make the rich richer. The fact that every time this has been done, in the 1920s, the 1960s (by a Democratic administration and Congress), the 1980s (by a Republican President and a Democratic House), and the 2000s, the economy immediately responded in highly positive ways is simply ignored. The unemployment rate in 2003 was 6 percent, the highest in nine years. Today it is 4.5 percent, the lowest in six years (and, except for 1999 and 2000, the lowest since the 1960s). And, of course, the Bush tax cuts have not simply been for “the rich.” (Since “the rich,” by definition, are only a small part of the population, how could tax cuts just for them have so often been politically possible, let alone a winning strategy?) Almost 70 percent of American families own their own homes (as do more than 40 percent of “the poor”). The tax cuts on capital gains have or will benefit many of them. Over half of American families own stocks and bonds in their own name. They all benefit from the cut in capital gains taxes and from the cut in taxes on dividends. The tax cut on dividends has caused a surge in dividends with all sorts of positive benefits for the economy. (For one thing, profits are an accounting concept; dividends have to be paid with real money. For another, they make equities a much more attractive investment relative to bonds, giving investors more diversified opportunities. For a third, retained earnings—out of which dividends are necessarily paid—are not taxed at all; dividends are, increasing government revenues.) Bankruptcy: Mr. Smoler says that the new laws “make it harder for very poor people to get out of the clutches of their less than scrupulous creditors.” Maybe so, I don’t know. But they also make it harder for millions of middle-class deadbeats to escape paying their entirely scrupulous creditors what they owe them, which lowers (or should lower: interest rates on unsecured loans tend to be very sticky downward) the cost of credit for everyone else. Medicaid and (I assume) stem-cell research: No, he did not set up Medicaid, but he did add a large drug benefit for Medicare recipients, one that is costing much less than estimated, thanks to utilizing market forces and significantly lowering annual medical costs for millions of seniors. It is less than fair to omit that relevant fact. As for stem-cell research, he did not “stop medical research . . . likely to free uncounted numbers of people from great pain and disability.” He forbade the use of federal funds for research that would involve the killing of embryos. Stem-cell research is going on all over the world. States are funding many projects, as are privately funded organizations. I doubt that his decision has slowed down research in this promising (if probably overhyped—the more promising the more overhyped is usually the case) area by so much as a mile per hour. George Bush made his decision, a very difficult one, according to his best moral judgment. Mr. Smoler, had it been up to him, would have come to a different decision. Fair enough. But his implicit argument—that George Bush came to a different conclusion about what is right and wrong than Fredric Smoler would have, and therefore George Bush is wrong—seems to me to be an instance of the very moral sanctimony that Mr. Smoler so rightly deplores in others. The pope may be infallible in matters of faith and morals, but the rest of us can only try our best to do right as God gives us to see the right.
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