The Boston Globe - 19.09.2019

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 The Boston Globe Opinion A

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Lewandowski’s chilly

moment in the hot seat

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Are the Democrats going to keep

taking this disrespect lying down?

Re “Lewandowski defies Democrats, dodges queries” (Page

A2, Sept. 18): The Democrats are said to be considering

contempt of Congress charges against Corey Lewandowski

after his appearance Tuesday before the House Judiciary

Committee.

“Considering”?

The appropriate response would have been to suspend

the hearing and institute contempt charges on the spot.

The Democrats should have been prepared to do this since

they must have known that Lewandowski would treat

them with contempt — and he wouldn’t have been the

first.

Many otherwise perceptive people still don’t realize

what’s going on. Donald Trump and his minions are

simply doing what they want and daring anyone to stop

them. So far, this seems to be working. Threatening action

maybe next week, or next month, or whenever, is certainly

not impressing anyone with the Democrats’ determination

or their sagacity. I’m afraid that “wimp” is the word that

comes to mind.

MARK BRIDGER

Newton

Democrats’ clumsy tilt toward

impeachment is political malpractice

Giving Corey Lewandowski the chance to act as a human

Trump tweet is nothing short of political malpractice by

chairman Jerrold Nadler and the Democratic majority on

the House Judiciary Committee. Lewandowski took full

advantage of softball questions from Republicans to

advance the false narrative of “no collusion, no

obstruction,” bringing new meaning to fealty.

With each clumsy move by Democrats, the chances of

swaying public opinion in favor of impeachment recede,

denying the electorate its constitutional right to oversight.

The time has come to either abandon the quest for

impeachment or conduct proceedings that question the

credibility of the accused, not the accusers.

JIM PALADINO

Tampa

Because the White House told you to?

When Corey Lewandowski asks me why I’m loading his

car up with his possessions, I’ll tell him, “The White House

has directed me to steal your car and as many of your

valuables as I can fit into it.” Obviously he can’t object, but

if he does, I’ll tell him the White House has also directed

his bank to transfer all his money to the Clinton

Foundation. Perhaps then, in light of consequences that

are both personal and tangible, Lewandowski will realize

that we can’t live in a society where people commit crimes

with impunity simply by claiming the White House

directed them to do it.

JAPE SHATTUCK

Newport, R.I.

This can’t be the makings

of a US senator

So, Corey Lewandowski feels that the truth is just one

possibility in exchanges with questioners. Apparently, it’s

to be doled out as a function of one’s respect or contempt

for those asking the question (“I have no obligation to be

honest with the media”). This is the person who’s

suggesting he wants to be elected US senator from New

Hampshire in 2020.

JAMES P. PEHL

Marlborough

Patriots’ playing Brown

sends harsh signal to women

Dan Shaughnessy (“No way they should play Brown,”

Sports, Sept. 15) is the conscience of The Boston Globe’s

Sports page. I also thought of the late Myra Kraft as I

watched Antonio Brown warming up on the sidelines

Sunday in Miami, and I thought of all the times the NFL or

its individual teams have used the innocent-until-proven-

guilty defense to prioritize winning over the obligation to

listen and respond to a woman’s claims.

At a time in our history when powerful men have

gained political ground despite women’s testimony against

them, the Patriots’ choice to play Brown at Miami reminds

us that the NFL exists to promote a male-dominated

world.

GABRIELLE WATLING

Beverly

A team without a moral compass

Re “On Brown, Patriots looking the other way” (Business,

Sept. 14): Shirley Leung’s last paragraph says it all. The

“Patriots are a different team today. Myra Kraft, the

football dynasty’s matriarch and moral compass, is gone.

Now, winning trumps all, even if it means sacrificing the

team’s values.”

DEBRA LEE COLLINS

Danvers

Wide receiver catching

a lot of attention

If these allegations against Antonio Brown keep piling up,

pretty soon he’s going to find himself on the Supreme

Court.

BOB KOCHEM

Belmont

S

igning Antonio Brown and

sticking with him despite serious

sexual assault allegations says a

lot about the New England

Patriots, owner Robert Kraft, and

coach and general manager Bill Belichick.

But it also says something about the

howling throngs who are happy to embrace

this troubled and troubling athlete as long

as he catches footballs. “It’s a greater lesson

about fans,” said Upton Bell, author of “Pres-

ent at the Creation: My Life in the NFL and

the Rise of America’s

Game,” as well as a one-

time NFL executive and

son of former NFL com-

missioner Bert Bell.

“Two weeks ago, Anto-

nio Brown was the biggest

fool around,” said Bell.

Other teams that swallowed what he dished

out were a “bunch of suckers.” But after

Brown snagged four passes from Tom Brady

against the Miami Dolphins, including a 20-

yard touchdown, he’s more than any bad guy

—“Heis our bad guy,” said Bell.

As long as a player is seen as a ticket to a

Super Bowl, all is forgiven — everything ex-

cept taking a knee during the national an-

them. Fans across the country regularly side

with players accused of assault and domes-

tic abuse. For example, Baltimore Ravens

running back Ray Rice was suspended in

2014 by the NFL after a video showed him

dragging his then-fiancee out of an Atlantic

City casino. But Rice got a standing ovation

when he jogged onto the field during train-

ing camp practice.

When the Patriots signed Brown, he al-

ready had a long history as a gifted but

problematic player. That history grew dark-

er when Britney Taylor, a former trainer,

filed a civil suit against Brown, alleging that

he sexually assaulted her. Just as Taylor’s ac-

cusations were being dismissed by Brown’s

agent as “a money grab,” Sports Illustrated

reported a second incident of alleged sexual

misconduct by Brown, along with disturb-

ing accounts of alleged domestic

abuse, unpaid debts, and bizarre

mistreatment of former employ-

ees and associates.

NFL officials reportedly spent

10 hours interviewing Taylor on

Monday; if he chooses, Commis-

sioner Roger Goodell could put

Brown on the commissioner’s exempt list,

the equivalent of paid leave. But any pres-

sure to do so won’t come from fans. They

just want to vanquish their team’s helmeted

rivals. For ownership, it’s “win or perish,”

said Bell, who as a Patriots GM back in the

early 1970s, knows what it’s like on the per-

ish side.

So if winning is everything, what incen-

tive is there for an owner like Kraft to

change his mind about keeping Brown on

the Patriots? Kraft would have to think of all

the kids and grandkids out there who still

believe in Santa Claus and “the Patriot Way.”

He would have to look at Brown and say

that this enormously talented athlete is sim-

ply too flawed a human being to wear a Pa-

triots uniform.

He would have to tell 42-year-old Tom

Brady he can’t have Brown as his personal

security blanket. Kraft would have to tell

Belichick he will have to try for a record-

breaking seventh Super Bowl win without

Brown. Kraft would have to consult that old-

fashioned thing called a moral compass, de-

cide what is right and wrong, and act ac-

cordingly. Of course, Kraft wants the world

to think that’s what he always does. That’s

why he put out word that he would not have

signed Brown if he had known about the

sexual assault allegations that came out af-

ter the deal was done. Well, he knows about

them now, and so far, Brown is still around.

So much for the statement Kraft gave after

he was charged with soliciting prostitution

in Florida, a charge he is still fighting: “I am

truly sorry. I have extraordinary respect for

women.”

To show that respect, Kraft would have

to tell Patriots fans who are spoiled rotten

by victory, but always baying for more, that

keeping Brown isn’t worth the baggage he

already carries.

It would be so much easier for Kraft to do

the right thing if Brown dropped the ball

four times instead of catching it. Then Patri-

ots fans would be happy to call Brown what

he already is in life, if not football — a loser.

Joan Vennochi can be reached at

[email protected]. Follow her on Twitter

@Joan_Vennochi.

ILLUSTRATION BY GLOBE STAFF; GLOBE FILE PHOTO

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JOAN VENNOCHI

By Kenneth Rogoff

I

t’s time for the United States to

consider switching from an income

tax to a progressive consumption tax

as a way of addressing growing

wealth inequality.

Many economists have long favored a

consumption-based tax system, which for

individuals essentially uses the same

information as the income tax system, but

exempts savings (after all, income minus

savings equals consumption), on the

grounds of its efficiency and simplicity.

Higher saving should help investment and

growth, and it would be vastly more

transparent than our current Byzantine

system. However, the progressive

consumption tax has never gained political

traction.

But now may be the moment.

One of the main objections is that

switching systems would require a complex

transition in order not to penalize existing

wealth holders, who would otherwise be

taxed again when they spent savings on

which they had already paid income taxes.

Yet in an environment where wealth

inequality is rising inexorably, that double

taxation may be a virtue.

There are certainly other, more

straightforward, ideas for tackling wealth

inequality. US Senator Elizabeth Warren has

proposed an ultra-millionaire tax on the

75,000 wealthiest American households,

which would amount to a 2 percent annual

wealth tax for those with more than $

million, rising to 3 percent for billionaires.

Warren’s bold proposal has set off an

intense debate among economists on just

how much revenue it would bring in.

Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the

University of California, Berkeley — heavy

hitters in the inequality literature — have

endorsed Warren’s plan, estimating that it

would raise nearly $3 trillion over 10 years.

But Harvard’s Lawrence Summers, a

former US Treasury Secretary, has argued

that such estimates are wildly optimistic.

Summers and his coauthor, University of

Pennsylvania law professor Natasha Sarin,

say that a better path to the same revenue-

raising end would be a broad range of more

conventional fixes, including an increase in

the corporate tax rate and eliminating the

ability of ultra-wealthy families to avoid

capital-gains taxes through bequests.

It is true that, however compelling the

moral case for a wealth

tax may be, it has

historically proved

difficult to garner large

revenues from that

public-policy

mechanism. But Saez

and Zucman have held

their ground, arguing

that much depends on

the resources the US

Internal Revenue

Service is given to implement the tax.

Although I am not unsympathetic to

either approach, both are complex to

implement. So why not target the same

aims with a better system that enjoys

broader support and will therefore prove

more enduring?

Back in the mid-1980s, Stanford

University’s Robert Hall and Alvin

Rabushka advocated what was essentially a

twist on a value-added tax (VAT) that

allowed for greater progressivity. A

progressive consumption tax system is

simple and elegant, and could save a couple

hundred billion dollars a year in

deadweight accounting costs.

Importantly, a consumption tax can

contain a large exclusion so that lower-

income families pay no tax at all.

Progressivity can also be achieved by

providing a large lump-sum transfer (as in a

universal basic income), as suggested by

leading Portuguese macroeconomist Isabel

Correia, who estimates that her plan would

result in both higher growth and greater

income equality than the current tax

system.

Until now, it has mostly been a

smattering of Republicans who have

favored switching to progressive

consumption taxes, though a variant was

championed by Bill Bradley,

the former Democratic US

senator from New Jersey.

Many on the left,

however, respond to the idea

in knee-jerk fashion,

believing that a consumption

tax must ipso facto be

regressive because sales

taxes are regressive. They fail

to understand that a

consumption tax can be very

progressive if the transfers and exemptions

are designed with equity in mind.

Of course, any large change in federal

taxation has complex effects. Further, the

US Congress probably has an innate bias in

favor of a complicated tax system with lots

of loopholes and exemptions, which gives

members leverage over potential donors.

But that is all the more reason to jump at

the opportunity to clean up the swamp and

help mitigate wealth inequality at the same

time.

Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist of

the IMF, is professor of economics and

public policy at Harvard University.

A simpler path to taxing our way

out of income inequality

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taxcancontaina

largeexclusionso

thatlower-income

familiespaynotax

atall.

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winningis

everything.