PATRICK PATT IS TICKED. The wealthy ex-superintendent of a suburban Chicago school district is so peeved about recovering $600 of the money he paid in taxes last year that he wrote a letter to the Chicago Tribune about it. Patt reveals in his letter that he and his wife paid $50,000 in federal income taxes last year, and, he concedes, “collectively earn a good salary.” But to those who believe this sum entitles him to a rebate that amounts to about 1 percent of that total, he says: “Wrong!” In his letter, he connects the rebates to income inequality, local school funding, child poverty, and campaign finance reform. In a subsequent phone interview, he throws in “drilling in the Arctic” and “tax incentives for oil companies.” The tax plan, he insists in the letter, is “illogical, irrational and immoral legislation.” He believes all of this because the federal government is returning money to those who paid it. Patt is not alone. (Okay, statistically speaking, he’s almost alone.) Some 973 of the 95 million Americans who will get rebates have signed a petition at TaxRebatePledge.org. At least a few hundred other Americans are furious, too, about getting their money back. And inevitably, lefty groups are loosely organizing a protest. In addition to TaxRebatePledge.org, other protest websites—rebateTHIS.org, rejecttherebate.org—have sprung up to encourage protest donations to left-wing nonprofits. Each of the sites invites protestors to comment on the rebates (and, apparently, whatever else crosses their mind as they type). It’s probably a stretch to call the postings entertaining, but they’re amusing in a vague, people-really-believe-this-stuff sense. (One rebate protester, Sally Arnold from California, told a reporter from the Progressive, “One of my friends was saying the money they’re giving away could be used to put solar panels on every public building.”) After all, these are people who not only believe that they’re taxed too little, but who get cartoon-character hopping mad—steam from their ears and everything—that the federal government isn’t doing more. Say “problem solver,” and they think of the fat-tie, short-sleeved-shirt bureaucrat brigade, the guys who sleep with their government ID badges around their necks. One of the more frequent complaints is that the rebates are simple bribes—a cash-for-votes scheme. C. Dykstra of Potomac, Maryland, writes on rejecttherebate.org: “Mr. President: don’t try to buy my support through insulting cash rebates. I’d rather you used the money for better causes!” The Nation magazine has even gotten into the act by launching a fund-raising drive based on the rebate. The neo-pinko magazine proudly announces on its website its 136-year history of profit-seeking failure and even reprints the federal rebate schedule to give readers a heads-up on their checks. When the money comes, explains the pitch, readers can simply sign over the actual rebate check by writing “Pay to the Order of The Nation Co. L.P.” and dropping it in the mail. If securing the future of the Old Left’s flagship publication isn’t enough, the magazine throws in an added incentive: “Nation publisher Victor Navasky will include the names of all Nation Rebate Rebels in a future letter to the White House.” Interestingly, the magazine’s “Rebate Rebel” campaign essentially sets up two possible outcomes: (1) The Nation rakes in tons of cash and has conservatives to thank for its fiscal stability; or (2) self-styled progressives succumb to the greedy impulses of capitalism and decide to pay off a credit card, put the money in the bank, or buy back-to-school outfits for their kids. A recent CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found that an overwhelming majority of Americans plan to do just that. Forty-seven percent plan to pay bills or debts. Another 32 percent said they will save or invest the rebate, and 17 percent said they’ll spend it. Only 2 percent indicated they plan to give the money to charity. The whole issue is rather confusing for the Democrats who opposed the “irresponsible” Bush tax package. The Democratic National Committee initially had the same idea as the Nation, and asked supporters to send their rebate money to the DNC. National Democrats quickly abandoned that plan when it turned out to be a PR disaster, but some local Democratic groups haven’t given up. Liberal politicians and interest groups continue to hit the Bush tax plan as excessive, the rebates as a gimmick. “This bill is a monument to fiscal irresponsibility,” said senator Kent Conrad, a Democrat from North Dakota, shortly after the bill was passed. “It threatens to put us back into deficit, back into debt. It threatens to invade the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare.” But even as congressional Democrats are disavowing the tax plan, they’re embracing the rebates. Sort of. At a news conference last week, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle first gave credit to President Bush for the rebates, then said Democrats should share in the credit, then worried about draining the Treasury, and finally boasted that Democrats themselves came up with the plan. “We support it,” he said of the rebate package. “As I said, it was our idea in the first place.” Actually, socialist congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont is widely credited with first proposing rebates, but perhaps that’s close enough. As rebate opponents trumpet their charitable giving, it’s fair to wonder whether they’re not actually reinforcing the main point of Bush’s tax cuts: Individual taxpayers should decide how to spend their own money. If they believe that the rebates jeopardize necessary government spending, congressional Democrats should simply tear up their rebate checks. The money then stays in the Treasury. Some imprecise calculations: If half of the 260 congressional Democrats are married, and all of them and their wives leave their rebates in the Treasury, the government will be $117,000 richer. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s enough to fund a Hillary Rodham Clinton Bridge in upstate New York, or a Paul Wellstone Park in Minnesota. Add the 9,000 (combined guesses of some really smart people) Democratic staffers on Capitol Hill and in the political committees, and do the same math. Bingo, another $4.05 million. The Senate is half Democratic, the House is essentially half Democratic, the White House vote in 2000 was half Democratic, so let’s say that of the $38 billion in tax rebates, half goes to Demo- crats. If all Gore voters receiving a rebate burn their checks, mark “Return to Sender,” or simply let them sit in a drawer somewhere, some $19 billion will remain in the federal kitty. (Actually, Democrats probably make up a bit less than half of those getting checks, and of course, not all taxpayers will have voted.) Don’t like marginal rate cuts? Pay more! Down about the death of the death tax? Send a check! Don’t need no stinking child tax credit? Blow it off! The larger point is this: If those who oppose the rebate put their money where their mouth is, so to speak, they can negate much of its effect and alleviate much of their worry by simply doing nothing. Stephen F. Hayes is a staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
