ECONOMIC CONSULTANTS Jeffrey Bell and John Mueller broke a taboo when they met in mid-September with the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, better known as the Kemp Commission. They raised the issue of the middle class squeeze, the stagnation of average Americans’ wages for the last two decades. Bell said, “The workers are getting screwed.” The commission’s honchos — Jack Kemp, Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, economist Alan Reynolds, staff director Grace Marie Arnett — listened in silence. Given their aversion to discussing the erosion of workers’ pay, they also responded coolly to the suggestion that a fiat tax might make a bad situation for the middle class worse.

Conservatives are in a state of denial about the income of middle class Americans. It’s plainly declined. True, real income rose slightly during the heyday of Reaganomics (1983-1990), more for entrepreneurs than working families. But it dropped sharply in the 1970s and is sinking again in the 1990s. Conservatives rarely broach this subject, and when they do, their purpose is invariably to say the decline is exaggerated (soaring fringe benefits aren’t counted as income) or merely a misinterpretation of economic statistics.