The American Spectator

The Bush tax proposals are based on simple logic and fairness. For taxpayers to have to pay tax on dividends, after the company issuing the dividends has already paid tax on its profits from which the dividends are paid, is palpably unfair to 34 million (representing 71 million citizens) who report dividends on their tax returns. Surely many of these taxpayers are Jewish. The tax cuts are not only for the rich — although logically if you pay more taxes, you should receive a larger benefit —in fact, under the Bush proposals, the rich receive smaller tax cuts than middle-class citizens.

Estate tax relief also represents an exercise in simple fairness. President Reagan called it the most unfair of all taxes. You pay tax on the money when you earn it, and then the money that is left, if you want it to go to a person of your choice, is taxed again—to the tune of as much as 50 percent. Although our guess is that percentage-wise among other national groups, Jews stack up very favorably as having enough money to leave an estate, since it is at Republican proposal, the Jews will undoubtedly turn their “thumbs down”.

THIS BRINGS US TO THE candidacy of Joseph Lieberman. Lieberman, after Gore put him on his ticket, changed his positions more times than a contortionist on his honeymoon. Lieberman, if nominated, says Jews, given their present mindset, will probably do the Al D’Amato number on Bush, and in answer to some ancient genetic call, cast their vote for Joe Lieberman. This will give them a double whammy: a vote for a Jew for President, and a vote for a Democrat for President. But in the unlikely possibility that he is actually elected, they well may be the victims of their own 1-2 punch.

A Jewish President will undergo a transformation the like of which has not been seen since Paul was on the road to Damascus and saw a transforming vision. On the major questions of concern to Jews, Lieberman would have to bend over backwards to show he is not partial to Israel, and in short order the support and nurturing Israel has enjoyed in a succession of Republican presidents would be eroded. Added to this would be Democratic Party policies that would be particularly harmful to the present socioeconomic status of Jews in America. The realization of a Jew achieving national office may prove to be the undoing of both foreign and domestic issues of particular concerns to Jews. They should heed Truman Capote’s observation that there may be only one thing worse than unanswered prayers, and that is answered prayers.