This morning I overheard a radio news break reporting a second policy front on which Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan supports President Bush. The tax code:
Calling the existing U.S. tax code overly complex with an "overlapping web of deductions and exemptions," Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suggested a consumption tax could spur more personal savings and economic growth.
I laughed out loud, knowing how desperate the Democratic Party has grown for support beyond a mainstream media bunch increasingly and correctly identified as leftist rather than objective. Democrats wanted Greenspan to stand with them or keep his mouth shut; he did neither.
Greenspan objectified is a political totem — he won't win a Washington battle alone but his presence certainly helps the side who's got him. The perennial nonpartisan guru, Greenspan was publicly measured on taxes, even suggesting the addition of levies to supplant less economically and fiscally beneficial forms of collection.
Yet as with social security, halfway insulted the Democrats, who apparently expect party line from the chairman. I knew they would be furious, some leading representatives compulsive in their egalitarian gripes. What I did not realize was how uncontrollably angry the collectivist-nihilist lot of the party might become — and what some of them are now conniving.