FACES AND PLACES: The politics of resentment (10/01/00)

FACES AND PLACES

by Myron B. Kuropas

The politics of resentment

I admire Julian Kulas, especially his long history of community activism, which has been beneficial to all Ukrainian Americans. Few Ukrainian Americans have accomplished more for our community.

Lately, however, Mr. Kulas, a lifelong Democrat, has been making statements to the Ukrainian American press that beg clarification. During an interview with the Chicago newspaper Chas i Poddiyi he was asked to explain the difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. The Republicans, he argued, represent the party of "the rich," while Democrats represent "the people" - the narod.

I thought there was some mistake. Surely Mr. Kulas knows better than to indulge in this kind of class warfare, so I called him. No mistake. "That may not be exactly what I said," he told me, "but that's the general perception among Americans."

"Really?" I asked. "Then how is it that I, a retired school teacher and current college professor, am a Republican, while you, a bank president, are a Democrat?" Julian only laughed.

Democrats like to claim that they are the party of "working families." In truth, this is hardly the case. Important Democratic constituencies include Afro-American leaders, big unions, militant organizations of teachers, the National Organization of Women and the National Abortion Rights Action League. Add to this mix the anti-gun lobby, militant gays and lesbians, lawyers, big government bureaucrats, the left-wing media, and millionaire movie stars and entertainers, and we have the so-called "narod." Which of these groups represent working families?

Most working Americans deplore racial quotas, big union domination of the workplace, substandard education for their children, disparagement of fatherhood, abortion on demand for any reason at any time, higher taxes, a liberal media that "reports" news according to a blatant double standard, gay/lesbian demands for same-sex marriages, tax dollars for national endowments that celebrate scatological art, and Hollywood songs and films that dehumanize women and deprecate religious believers and entrepreneurs.

"Pander bears" in the Democratic Party support all of this, pushing for wider and ever-more encompassing racial preferences, more federal dollars for an educational system that is increasingly indifferent to traditional education, feminist programs that undermine family stability, federal dollars for barbarous partial-birth abortions, which most American regard as infanticide, a law that would revoke the federal charter of the American Boy Scouts because the BSA opposes having homosexual scout masters on overnight camping trips, and increased funding for art and humanities projects that have little if any redeeming artistic qualities.

Most damaging to working families is the tax policy of the Democrats. While campaigning in 1992 the Clinton/Gore team promised a tax break for the working families of America. That never happened.

The Clinton/Gore administration recently vetoed a Republican-sponsored bill to eliminate the draconian death tax because, get this, "it would benefit the rich." Hogwash! Rich people and their heirs pay little or no estate taxes because they hire tax planners who show them how to take advantage of the Internal Revenue Code's many loopholes. Uncle Sam rarely confiscates money from the rich. It's the working families who suffer most when the sadistic IRS follows the grim reaper into their home demanding more tax dollars from the grieving family. Heirs are often forced to sell much of what they inherit in order to pay what the IRS demands. The estate tax has been abolished in Canada, Australia and Israel. It needs to be junked in the United States as well. Penalizing working mothers and fathers who want to leave something for their children is an outrage.

And how working-family-friendly is the marriage penalty, that pernicious tax that forces married couples who file joint returns to pay a higher tax than single people who file individually. The Republican-dominated Congress tried to help working families by passing a relief bill. The Clinton/Gore administration vetoed it immediately because, you guessed it, "It benefits the rich."

Philosopher Thomas Sowell recalls an old tale about two hard-working, dirt-poor Russian neighbors, one who owns a goat and one who doesn't. One day both are visited by a good fairy who offers each neighbor one wish. The peasant who owns a goat asks for another goat. The one who has no goat wants his neighbor's goat to die. There is a slightly different Ukrainian version of this story, but the point is the same. Resentment is an evil that corrupts. Resentment would rather tear down the rich than help the poor. Resentment made it possible for Marxism-Leninism to enjoy its early successes. The rhetoric is always the same, writes cultural philosopher Michael Novak: "If you suffer, they caused it. They want to hold you back. I will fight for you against them."

It is precisely this type of resentment politics that is being practiced by Democrats when they shamelessly attempt to set working families against "the rich and powerful." And just who are the rich and powerful? They are people like Julian Kulas who came to this country on a displaced persons visa. According to economist Walter Williams, some 80 percent of America's millionaires acquired their wealth in one generation. "Sixty percent of families in the bottom 10 percent [decile] of the wealth distribution reached a higher decile 10 years later. An amazing 223 percent rose four or more deciles with 1.5 percent rising from the lowest to the highest decile." And how did they get there? By working hard, real hard. Ask Julian about hard work. Like most American millionaires, he didn't inherit his wealth and he rarely sits around drinking beer, watching television and resenting his neighbor's goat.

Al Gore wants higher taxes for bigger federal programs. According to syndicated columnist Donald Lambro, the vice-president has proposed new federal spending initiatives of $2.7 trillion over the next 10 years "which would not only squander all of the projected non-Social Security budget surplus" but "would also leave taxpayers with a $500 billion deficit..."

With all due respect to his person, Mr. Kulas has it all wrong. The truth is that Democrats represent big government, more and higher taxes, and ever-increasing dependency on government largesse by America's working families. Republicans are for smaller and less intrusive government, lower taxes, and working families who are less dependent on government bureaucrats.

Myron Kuropas' e-mail address is: [email protected]

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