Charlie Rangel, Man of Reagan

In what I'm sure is a sign of the coming apocolypse, George Will is singing the praises of Democrat Charlie Rangel, calling him a closet Reaganite of all things. He starts out with a recapping of the life story of Rangel, going from being a college drop out, joining the military, serving in the Korean War (at the Chosin Resevoir, I believe) and then coming home and graduating high school and eventualy going to law school and going on to the Congress. It is a fairly inspirational story.

The gist of the article comes down to this:

Regarding two matters, Rangel is a Reaganite. Ronald Reagan opposed using the tax code "as a means of achieving changes in our social structure." Rangel -- in his 19th term, a man of House proprieties -- says, "I don't think the tax code should be a substitute for the appropriations process in making social change." Social policy should be, he thinks, the province of "the standing committees." The question for tax writers "is not just what is fair and equitable but what is good for the economy."

It certainly isn't the quote you would expect from a Democrat if all you read were right wing publications and even most left wing publications for that matter and I think Rangel is right. Democrats have for that past couple of decades have been playing the games of the tax cut junkies, and that is the constant manipulation of the tax codes to try to exempt more and more people at the bottom. Part of the reason the Dems bottomed out in the 90s is that with the EIC we reached a point where the people on the bottom either paid nothing or got back more in from a tax return than they paid in taxes.

Just as you aren't providing health insurance to poor people by providing tax deductions, you don't create opportunity for the poor to improve thier lives by cutting what little taxes they do pay. You create opportunity for people by providing as many educational opportunities as possible, by providing small business loans, by enhancing worker rights, and by insisting on fair trade. We have to balance the interests of workers with the interests of business. We can't simply have a supply side economic policy and I'd bet that is where Rangel parts ways with Reagan.