Essay by Marjorie E. Kornhauser
In the United States, rhetoric has always been an intrinsic part of tax debates. The rhetoric of current debates, however, is even more heated than the great debates of the 1980s. Today, rhetoric has so expanded both quantitatively and qualitatively that the real issues have all but disappeared from public discussion. After briefly explaining the basic tax issues involved, this Essay examines the expansion of rhetoric. As an illustration of quantitative expansion, the Essay compares two reports prepared by the Joint Economic Committee, a committee established to provide assistance to Congress on technical and specialized matters. The 1984 report, largely devoid of rhetoric, provided an analytical framework for congressional discussion by presenting both sides of the basic tax issues. The 1995 report, largely devoid of analysis, provided a rhetorical platform to advance only one side of the issues—the pro flat, consumption side. As an example of the qualitative expansion of rhetoric, the Essay notes the rise of a new rhetorical device. Generational warfare—pitting the old against the young—now joins class warfare as a potent tool in the rhetorical arsenal. The Essay concludes that the expanded rhetoric, especially in governmental reports such as the JEC reports, is detrimental to the rational public debates necessary for a healthy democracy.
Politics and rhetoric go hand in hand. In the United States, this fact is nowhere more true than in the area of taxation. From the Boston Tea Party to the present, taxation has been a politically and rhetorically charged issue, serving as a lightning rod for expressing differing visions of government, society, and humanity. The history of the income tax, for example, reveals that the same political issues have been debated in the same highly charged rhetoric for at least the past century. Both politicians and an aroused public consistently speak of issues such as fairness (i.e., who should bear the burden of taxation), economic growth, and the relation of taxation to democracy. They also speak in the same rhetoric of “opportunity,” class warfare, governmental tyranny, and morality (i.e., the virtue of saving and the sloth of spending). In some sense, then, the current tax reform debate is “ dej'a vu all over again”: The same issues are debated in the same highly inflammatory terms.
Today's debate, however, differs in some respects from previous debates. First, the quantity of rhetoric seems to have increased since the last great discussion in the mid-1980s. This shift from fourth gear, as it were, into overdrive has all but obliterated any substantive discussion in the public domain. Soundbites replace information, and rhetoric twists and distorts issues rather than clarifying them. Most disturbingly, this level of rhetoric has spread to areas that once were relatively immune. Second, the quality of the rhetoric has also changed. Although much of the rhetoric uses the same terms and arguments it always has—class for example—a new rhetorical argument has been added: The generations are now being cast as arch rivals, with the elderly being the villains. Finally, rhetoric is being used to mask proposed changes rather than what more typically occurs, which is to mask the lack of change.
Rhetoric is unavoidable in a discussion about an important public issue such as tax. There are, however, two kinds of rhetoric: good and bad. Good rhetoric clarifies the issues as well as tries to persuade the public. Consequently, good rhetorical debate would discuss the current issues—rate schedules (a flat versus a progressive or graduated tax) and tax base (an income versus a consumption tax)—in terms that reveal the social and political visions behind them. Bad rhetoric obscures the issues; even worse, it buries them in words that act like red flags for bulls causing the public to respond reflexively rather than thoughtfully.
This Essay presents one example of how the bad, red flag waving rhetoric of the current debate both repeats the rhetoric of the past and initiates new aspects. It begins with a brief presentation of the real issues at stake in the current tax debate. It then proceeds to discuss the old rhetoric, focusing on two Joint Economic Committee (JEC) staff studies—one from 1984 and one from 1995. A comparison of these two studies reveals an increased tendency to use rhetoric to confuse rather than to elucidate issues. There is also an infiltration of rhetoric into new areas of the tax debate; the tone of the studies shifts from analysis to mere political rhetoric. Finally, the Essay briefly notes the beginnings of a new rhetorical device in the tax debates: the pitting of the generations against each other.
About the Author
Marjorie E. Kornhauser. Professor of Law, Tulane Law School.
Citation
70 Tul. L. Rev. 2345 (1996)