George:

Let us not forget, in all of this, that the $300 rebate (or $600 for married folks) was actually Joe Lieberman's addition to Bush's bill. It was never in Bush's original concept, and his people even derided it as a gimmick for a day or two before they realized that it was what was going to help them sell the bill to Democrats. Bush had been saying that we could afford the tax cut because the economy was so strong; then he began to justify it because the economy was weak. Lieberman then said, in essence, that if the problem is that the economy needs a shot in the arm, we should give people money to spend NOW -- not by cutting estate taxes in the year 2011.

I sympathize with John Howard and his goal of trying to get people to spend the rebate on the agencies and causes that are suffering from budget squeezes. Candor compels me to note, however, that the federal government has no tie between spending and taxation, and there is no indication that ANY agency will suffer as a result of the tax rebate. No cuts have been proposed for this fiscal year, when the rebates are being paid. It is likely that the Republicans will in the future try to cut, or limit, funding for some social problems that I would like to fund, justifying it by invoking the need for a balanced budget. But I can't stand up now, in 2001, and point to a single program that will suffer as a result of my getting Lieberman's rebate.

Note that this same logic does not apply to the debate in Virginia over the car tax. This is true because Virginia, unlike the federal government, is required to have one balanced budget. The result is that we can look at the car tax reduction and say with certainty that our teachers are not getting raises because our car tax is being cut. We can say that deputy sheriffs and police officers will not get raises, and that mental health services will be cut, because of the car tax.

If you want to begin a program of donations of tax rebates, I suggest that we all give an amount of money equal to our car tax cuts to the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Lloyd Snook (electronic mail, July 25, 2001).