Marginalia: Paul O'Neill, John Stuart Mill, Torture

In 2002, Bush fired Treasury Secretay Paul O'Neill when O'Neill wouldn't lead the next conga line for the 2003 round of tax cuts on capital gains and dividends. (O'Neill also left, according to Ron Suskind's book, because Bush is an incurious imbecile who confuses bullying with leadership, but that's another story). O'Neill believes in tax cuts' power to propel the economy up to a point. Dividends and capital gains are beyond that point, since cutting taxes on those registers not even a marginal effect on re-investment and ends up benefiting the rich overwhelmingly. Warren Buffett illustrated the point nicely in his "Dividend Voodoo" piece back in 2003. Treasury Secretary John Snow must've finally got (or gotten, if you're reading this in Texas) his pink slip, because he's breaking out in hives of honesty: "Asked by Knight Ridder if the tax reductions paid for themselves, Snow acknowledged that they don't. He also acknowledged that economic growth and stock market gains were strong in the late 1990s, when the capital-gains tax stood at 20 percent and dividend income was taxed at rates as high as 38.6 percent. Bush and Congress cut both to 15 percent in 2003; the legislation that the president signed Wednesday extended that rate through 2010." More marginal notes...