CARL HIAASEN

Posted on Sunday, 03.29.09
Paying higher taxes no fun -- but necessary
By CARL HIAASEN
If you're rich and think nobody loves you anymore, meet Rep. John Boehner.

He's the House minority leader from Ohio who is anchoring the opposition to President Barack Obama's proposed tax hikes on households making more than $250,000 a year.

Although my family falls into that category, I never asked Boehner to take up our cause. The idea of paying higher taxes doesn't make me want to turn cartwheels, but I understand why it's necessary. The math is pretty basic.

One of the richest guys on the planet, Warren Buffett, says he's totally cool with Obama's tax plan, even though it would personally cost him millions of dollars -- which he can afford.

We may safely assume that Buffett doesn't require, or want, any politicians out crusading on his behalf. Yet most rich people aren't as famous or influential as the iconic Omaha investor, and some of them are glad to have a friend in John Boehner.

And he's one friendly dude, if you've got money.

Corporate lobbyists adore the man, and the feeling is mutual. Boehner is well known for letting private interests fly him all over the place on golf excursions disguised as speaking gigs -- to Pebble Beach in California, Green Briar in West Virginia, St. Andrew's in Scotland.

''Yes, I am cozy with lobbyists,'' he once told The Washington Post, while proclaiming that his ethics were unassailable and his true loyalties lay with ordinary Americans.

When sleazeball lobbyist and future felon Jack Abramoff got rolling in Washington, one of the first things he did was advise the Indian tribes that were his clients to give plenty of campaign contributions to John Boehner.

Later, after Abramoff got in trouble with the law, Boehner stammered and shuffled and insisted he'd only met the guy maybe once.

Watching Boehner at his press conferences, you'd never guess he was such a social butterfly. His delivery is so dull that he makes Bob Dole look like Jim Carrey.

Everybody must pay

Yet, according to Boehner's hometown newspaper, one of the hottest bashes at Republican conventions is known as the ''Boehner party,'' which is held nightly until the early hours by lobbyists schmoozing the congressman.

Never having invited Boehner on a Scottish golf vacation, or thrown a party for him, or mailed him even a nickel in campaign donations, I suppose I should be grateful that he's taken such an avid interest in my tax situation.

But here's the deal. If government is serious about rebooting the economy, reforming healthcare and improving public education, everybody's going to pay for it -- just like we're paying for this brilliant, trillion-dollar adventure in Iraq (which, by the way, Boehner thinks was a swell idea.)

The difference is that much of the money spent here at home will have a measurable impact on American children, college students, seniors, veterans, working families and small businesses.

As a taxpayer, I've got no problem with that. It makes more sense than starting a faraway war on a whim.

More-equitable law

Under Obama's plan, the Bush tax cuts that benefited the wealthy would be allowed to expire in a year or so, while couples earning less than $250,000 annually would receive an immediate reduction in their tax rates.

That means the vast majority of Americans would actually see their income taxes go down. My mother, for example, would pay less than she does now, which would be a good thing.

Under another of the president's proposals, some of the itemized deductions that I take on my tax returns would be pared in order to raise revenues for healthcare, and also to make the law more equitable.

The way it stands now is stacked in my favor. If Mom and I each donated $100 to the United Way, I'd get a better tax break for the contribution just because I'm in a higher bracket. The same is true for mortgage-interest deductions.

If Obama's revisions should pass, it won't mean that every tax dollar raised will be spent carefully and efficiently. Our government is too sprawling and clunky. Waste, ineptitude and corruption have been a plague since the founding of the republic.

Yet what good things the government can and must try to do require lots of money, and it has to come from somewhere. For those of us who are in better shape to take a hit than our parents or our kids, this is a no-brainer.

Golfing continues

You'd never know from listening to Boehner, but lots of people with money are willing to write the IRS a bigger check if it means easier times for folks we know who are struggling.

Boehner says any tax hike would be terrible for the economy, but not a soul at the top of those lofty brackets intends to stop spending their dough if the law changes.

And that includes the congressman's golf buddies