The revolutionaries in the U.S. House have voted to kill off the income tax code. The execution has been scheduled for Dec. 31, 2002.
This will delight many voters, but it was particularly great fortune for one of the revolutionaries, Bud Shuster, the Pennsylvania Republican who runs the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
This week, Shuster got to blow up the federal income tax system.
Last week, Shuster grabbed $110 million in federal pork-barrel money for the home folks, including a few million to start up a truck driving school that will be plopped down along an abandoned highway in his district.
In a revolution, timing is everything.
The Republicans’ timing says they want to be revolutionaries while they do their best to save the status quo. Shuster was the biggest player in the $216 billion highway bill, which President Clinton signed last week. By Congressional Quarterly’s count, Shuster gave himself $110 million, gave about $40 million to the others on his committee, added a bonus for senior members of the committee, and parceled out much less to congressmen who weren’t fortunate enough to be at the table with him.
Shuster’s haul includes the money for the truck driving school. Nobody knows who’s going to run the school, but everybody back home knows who’s going to pay for it–Washington will, thanks to good old Bud. (If they want to drive over to his Altoona office to thank him, they can take the Bud Shuster Highway.)
The Republicans run the Transportation Committee just like the Democrats would if they were still in charge. The Republicans run it like an orphanage for needy Republicans. Half a dozen of their most vulnerable members have a home on the committee. Four of those Republicans did not better than 51 percent of the vote in their last election.
Clinton signed the highway bill, with 1,850 pork-barrel projects thrown in for the local congressmen, without even blinking.
So the congressmen, Republicans and Democrats alike, could scurry home and start bragging about the money they brought with them.
You do have to respect some of the politicians who know how to work the system, like Democratic Rep. Bill Lipinski, a member of Shuster’s committee and a master at getting transit money for Illinois. If that’s the system, better to have somebody around who knows how to deal with it.
But if the Republicans were going to be true to their revolution, true to reducing the size and power of the federal government, why weren’t they busy dismantling a system that sucks up gasoline tax money from every local filling station in the country, sends it to Washington, lets Washington cut the pie, and then sends it back to the locals?
Why not let the locals keep it?
Why weren’t the Republicans screeching about a gas tax system that is supposed to be more “fair” now because it takes all that money from the states and guarantees that every state will get at least 90 cents back on the dollar?
To preserve the federal highway system? The highway bill goes way beyond what’s needed to keep a national highway link.
They passed a $216 billion bill because the Republicans have those half a dozen vulnerable members on the House Transportation Committee. Because now each of those members has a goody bag courtesy of Bud Shuster to show off in the fall campaign.
And because the revolution could wait a week.
With the transportation bill safely signed, sealed and delivered, the House got rascally. It passed the bill Wednesday to abolish the federal income tax code. In a sentimental touch, the vote was held on the birthday of the sagging revolutionary hero himself, House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
“This is one of those pivotal and rare votes that separates the sheep from the goats,” said Rep. Steve Largent, the sponsor of the bill. Largent didn’t say why Republicans are sheep, but obviously he expects President Clinton to be the goat. Clinton, if he gets the silly bill, will veto it.
But Clinton might as well sign the thing, because it is meaningless. The bill is supposed to force Congress to replace the tax code with something simpler and fairer. But the tax code won’t be abolished unless Congress first approves a replacement system. If Congress does nothing, life and taxes go on. (The only Illinois Republicans who saw this as a sham and voted against it were Reps. Harris Fawell, Ray LaHood and John Porter.)
With so many Republicans talking like Republicans and acting like Democrats, John Kasich looks better and better all the time.
Kasich is the blunt-speaking, populist Ohioan who heads the House Budget Committee and was a key player in reaching a deal on a balanced federal budget.
When the rest of the Republican revolutionaries were lining up to accept their piece of the highway bill, Kasich called it just what it was–pork–and refused to ask for any of the money.
When the rest of the Republican revolutionaries were ready to sit on their hands rather than push for deeper spending cuts than they got in last year’s balanced-budget deal, Kasich used the power of his committee to demand more. He pushed through the House a resolution calling for another $101 billion in cuts over five years. The resolution isn’t binding, and Congress ultimately won’t cut $101 billion. But Kasich, at least, is pressing the GOP to stick to its convictions.
Kasich is talking about running for president. Right now he’s standing pretty tall, but that might be because the rest of the GOP are down on their knees, kissing Bud Shuster’s wingtips.
