“Senator, the thing we forget is why we’re here and what we’re trying to do. The government doesn’t provide productive jobs. That’s not what we’re supposed to do. General Motors and Boeing and Microsoft are the ones who employ workers to turn out products the people need. The job of government is to protect the people, to enforce the law, and to make sure people play by the rules, like the umpires on a ball field. It’s not supposed to be our job, I think, to punish people for playing the game well.
“We collect taxes so that the government can perform its functions. But we’ve gotten away from that. We should collect those taxes in such a way as to do minimum harm to the economy as a whole. Taxes are by their very nature a negative influence, and we can’t get away from that, but what we can do is at least structure the tax system in such
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a way that it does minimum harm, and maybe even encourages people to use their money in such a way as to encourage the overall system to work.”
“I know where you’re going. You’re going to talk about cutting capital-gains taxes, but that benefits only the few, at the cost of–”
“Senator, excuse me for interrupting, but that simply is not true, and you know it’s not true,” Winston chided brusquely. “Reducing the rate of tax on capital gains means the following: it encourages people to invest their money–no, let me back up a little.
“Let’s say I make a thousand dollars. I pay taxes on that money, pay my mortgage, pay for food, pay for the car, and what I have left I invest in, oh, XYZ Computer Company. XYZ takes my money and hires somebody. That person works at his job like I work at mine, and from what work he does–he’s making a product which the public likes and buys, right?–the company generates a profit, which the company shares with me. That money is taxed as regular income. Then I sell the stock and buy into another company, so that it can hire somebody else. The money realized from selling the stock issue is capital gains. People don’t put their “money under the mattress anymore,” he reminded them, “and we don’t want them to. We want them to invest in America, in their fellow citizens.
“Now, I’ve already paid tax on the money which I invested, right? Okay, then I help give some fellow citizen a job. That job makes something for the public. And for helping give a worker a job, and for helping that worker make something for the public, I get a modest return. That’s good for that worker I helped to hire, and good for the public. Then I move on to do the same thing somewhere else. Why punish me for that? Doesn’t it make more sense to encourage people to do that? And, remember, we’ve already taxed that investment money once anyway–in actual practice, more than once.
“That isn’t good for the country. It’s bad enough that we take so much, but the manner in which we take it is egregiously counterproductive. Why are we here, Senator? We’re supposed to be helping things along, not hurting.
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And the net result, remember, is a tax system so complicated that we need to collect billions to administer it–and that money is totally wasted. Toss in all the accountants and tax lawyers who make their living off something the public can’t understand,” SecTreas concluded.
“America isn’t about envy. America isn’t about class rivalry. We don’t have a class system in America. Nobody tells an American citizen what they can do. Birth doesn’t count for much. Look at the committee members. Son of a fanner, son of a teacher, son of a truck driver, son of a lawyer, you, Senator Nikolides, son of an immigrant. If America was a class-defined society, then how the heck did you people get here?” he demanded. His current questioner was a professional politician, son of another, not to mention an arrogant son of a bitch, Winston thought, and didn’t get classified. Everyone he’d just pointed to kvelled a little at being singled out for the cameras. “Gentlemen, let’s try and make it easier for people to do what we’ve all done. If we have to skew the system, then let’s do it in such a way that it encourages our fellow citizens to help one another. If America has a structural economic problem, it’s that we don’t generate as many opportunities as we should and can do. The system isn’t perfect. Fine, let’s try to fix it some. That’s why we’re all here.”
“But the system must demand that everyone pay their fair share,” the senator said, trying to take the floor back.
“What does ‘fair’ mean? In the dictionary, it means that everyone has to do about the same. Ten percent of a million dollars is still ten times more than ten percent of a hundred thousand dollars, and twenty times more than ten percent of fifty thousand. But ‘fairness’ in the tax code has come to mean that we take all the money we can from successful people and dole it back–and, oh, by the way, those rich people hire lawyers and lobbyists who talk to people in the political arena and get a million special exceptions written into the system so that they don’t get totally fleeced–and they don’t, and we all know that–and what do we end up with?” Winston waved his hand at the pile of books on the floor of the committee room. “We end up with a jobs program for bureaucrats, and accountants, and lawyers, and lobbyists, and somewhere along the way
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the taxpaying citizens are just plain forgotten. We don’t care that they can’t make sense of the system that’s supposed to serve them. It’s not supposed to be that way.” Winston leaned into the microphone. “I’ll tell you what I think ‘fair’ means. I think it means that we all bear the same burden in the same proportion. I think it means that the system not only allows but encourages us to participate in the economy. I think it means that we promulgate simple and comprehensible laws so that people know where they stand. I think ‘fair’ means that it’s a level playing field, and everybody gets the same breaks, and that we don’t punish Ken Griffey for hitting home runs. We admire him. We try to emulate him. We try to make more like him. And we keep out of his way.”
“Let ’em eat cake?” the chief of staff said.
“We can’t say hot dogs, can we?” Kealty asked. Then he smiled broadly. “Finally.”
“Finally,” another aide agreed.
THE RESULTS WERE all equivocal. The FBI polygrapher had been working all morning, and every single set of tracings on the fan-fold paper was iffy. It couldn’t be helped. An all-night session, they’d all told him, looking into something important which he wasn’t cleared for. That made it the Iran/Iraq situation, of course. He could watch CNN as well as anyone. The men he’d put on the box were all tired and irritable, and some had fluttered badly on telling him their proper names and job descriptions, and the whole exercise had been useless. Probably.
“Did I pass?” Rutledge asked, when he took off the pressurized armband in the manner of someone who’d done this all before.
“Well, I’m sure you’ve been told before–”
“It’s not a pass-or-fail examination process,” the Under Secretary of State said tiredly. “Yeah, tell that to somebody who lost his clearance because of a session on the box. I hate the damned things, always have.”
It was right up–or down–there with being a dentist, the FBI agent thought, and though he was one of the best
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around at this particular black art, he’d learned nothing this day that would help the investigation. “The session you had last night–” Rutledge cut him off cold. “Can’t discuss it, sorry.” “No, I mean, this sort of thing normal here?” “It will be for a while, probably. Look, you know what it’s about, probably.” The agent nodded, and the Under Secretary did the same. “Fine. Then you know it’s a big deal, and we’re going to be burning a lot of midnight oil over it, especially my people. So, lots of coffee and long hours and short tempers.” He checked his watch. “My working group gets together in ten minutes. Anything else?”
“No, sir.”
“Thanks for a fun ninety minutes,” Rutledge said, heading for the door. It was so easy. You just had to know how the things worked. They wanted relaxed and peaceful subjects to get proper results–the polygraph essentially measured tension induced by awkward questions. So make everybody tense. That was simple enough. And really the Iranians were doing the work. All he had to do was stoke the fires a little. That was good for a smile as he entered the executive washroom.