Word: kuttner
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...them. Landlords earned windfalls, and renters saved only what their landlords chose to pass along--usually very little. The biggest winners of all were the corporate property owners: Pacific Telephone saves $130 million; Pacific Gas $91 million; and Standard Oil saved $13.1 million in one county alone. In short, Kuttner writes, "unfortunately, in Proposition 13 and most of the other remedies the bulk of the tax relief went to those who needed it least...
...Kuttner does not--and should not--attribute the tax-cutting impulse exclusively to hostility towards the poor, or the government...
...groups have captured the ideological as well as political momentum away from the liberals (a word now about as popular as "child molester" with politicians). What's good for General Motors has become once again good for everyone. Tax abatements to attract business are a national fad, even though Kuttner says they do not succeed in attracting business, and even if they did, would not generate enough tax revenue to make up for their cost. Furthermore, he attacks the Right's insistence that the government causes all inflation. He notes that Germans, living in their elegantly humming capitalist machine...
There is almost a poignancy to Kuttner's clear (if occasionally turgid) readings of the taxation numbers in America. Given the political realities in Washington today, it sounds almost like so much baying at the moon, justified though it may be. Kuttner has few suggestions for the Left in the future, only warnings about the past. He concludes with a revealing discussion of the nation's health and housing policies, and how, liberals would be shocked to learn, more money has often meant worse services. Then again, less money probably would have meant even worse service. Structural reform is clearly...
...hints peripherally at how this "movement" might take shape with a discussion of Massachusett's 1978 tax classification battle, Proposition One. Voters here did approve this referendum over the well-financed protests of the business community, and Kuttner devotes a long, celebratory passage to the efforts to pass it. But the author glosses over the approval two years later, of Proposition 2 1/2, the massive tax cutting ballot initiative. Kuttner's evanescent constituency even in the nation's most liberal state, disappeared almost immediately...