Got quite a bit of response, both in comments and via e-mail, to this post about the immense sums of money that President Bush and Vice President Cheney personally have at stake in abolishing the estate tax.
One friend suggested that I look at this in terms of the 1993 movie, Indecent Proposal. You'll recall that was the movie in which Demi Moore's character accepted $1 million to sleep with the tycoon played by Robert Redford. My friend agreed with Woody Harrelson's character, Demi's husband, that taking any amount of money to sleep with someone other than your husband is wrong. But what if Redford had offered her $1 million to sleep with Woody? She was going to sleep with her own husband anyway, so how could it be wrong to take the money?
In other words: It's not the greed, it's the ideology.
The abolition of the estate tax would just be the latest in a very long line of legislative and regulatory windfalls profiting the president and his cabinet. My friend's analogy suggests that something like the principle of double effect* excuses this kind of personal profit at public expense. As long as such personal profit is not the primary intent of the legislation or regulation in question, then perhaps it is acceptable. It's simply a side effect, a fringe benefit, a lagniappe for supporters of an antitax, antiregulatory, antigovernment ideology. So all the president's men may be lining their pockets, but it shouldn't count as corruption. There's a quid and a quo, but no pro.
I wouldn't try this argument in court. Plenty of public officials have been convicted for taking bribes and kickbacks for things they probably would have done anyway.
A county commissioner might always side with developers, and might have a 20-year track record of approving every project that comes before the panel. But none of that will help him if he's caught accepting a $40,000 gratuity from a developer with a project awaiting the county's approval. (And $40,000 is, again, about the amount that President Bush gets every year thanks to his first tax cut in 2001.)
The problem with the argument that "it's not the greed, it's the ideology" is that it merely pushes back the matter of choice/intent/corruption one level deeper. This regression doesn't resolve the matter. Perhaps Bush's motive for supporting tax shelters for heirs of the super-rich is not greed. Perhaps his motive for this support is that he subscribes to an antitax ideology.
OK, then. But why does he choose to subscribe to such an ideology? Greed again appears a likely suspect.
Wait just a moment, some will say, isn't questioning others' motives supposed to be off-limits? What gives us the right to cast suspicion on the president's motive?
Two things. First is the appeal to double effect. That's all about motive and intent, so it puts them into play. The second thing is all that money.
You take the money and your motive becomes suspect. You accept the money and you accept along with it the burden of proof. The onus is now on you to demonstrate that you are such a saintly, incorruptible person that $40,000, or $787,193, does not even slightly influence your decisionmaking.
"It's not the greed, it's the ideology" doesn't eliminate the grounds for this suspicion. It only means that the president's ideology, like his character, is suspect.
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* "Double effect" is a principle usually applied in medical or military ethics. The idea is that it may be morally acceptable to cause harm if such harm is a side effect, but not a means toward, promoting a greater good. It's a subtle distinction, but one that's often inescapably necessary. It's also prone to abuse (particularly in military matters).
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