The DeLay Principle

Paul Krugman on the estate tax, war, and politics.

So a more precise statement of the DeLay Principle would be that nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes for very, very wealthy people, like the tiny minority of Americans who are heirs to really big estates.

Americans from an earlier era might have been puzzled by the DeLay Principle. They still believed in the principle enunciated by Theodore Roosevelt, who called for an inheritance tax in 1906: "The man of great wealth," said T.R., "owes a peculiar obligation to the state."

But the DeLay Principle isn't really that hard to understand: it's just like the Roosevelt Principle, but the other way around. These days, the state - or rather, the political coalition that controls the state, and depends on campaign contributions to maintain that control - owes a peculiar obligation to men of great wealth. And nothing is more important than cutting these men's taxes, even in the face of a war.

Gotta take care of the Sugar Daddy so he'll keep takin' care of them, the whores.

A tip o' the Brain to Rozius.