Pay attention to those business stories. For all the hand-wringing about disarmament and the fate of their elected Assembly, which was temporarily suspended last weekend, the people of Northern Ireland have mostly moved beyond the Troubles that consumed them for nearly three decades. There is enough tension and hatred to bring back the worst of times if enough things go wrong. Yet even Ulster’s pessimists don’t expect that to happen. The institutions born of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, like the Assembly, are still young and fragile. The popular desire for peace is not.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has been rickety since day one. In 1999, on what might have been its very first day of official business, it fell apart in less than three hours. The biggest political party, the Ulster Unionists, led by David Trimble, simply failed to show up. (The issue: IRA disarmament.) Once up and running, the Assembly was then suspended in February 2000 for four months. (The issue: disarmament.) And yet support for the 1998 agreement has barely flagged: 71 percent voted for it then; 66 percent support it now.
Life behind the headlines in Northern Ireland shows a society struggling for normality–and coming reasonably close. Educational standards are higher in Ulster than in the rest of the United Kingdom. Hospital waiting lists are shorter. For its size (1.7 million people), the province enjoys a rich cultural life, from searing political theater to regular concert stops by U2, Sting and Belfast’s own Van Morrison. Devolved government, though messy, is universally popular. Gone are the days when Ulster was run by proconsul-like British ministers. Ever since the four-party power-sharing Northern Ireland government was finally formed in November 1999, a dozen ministers have had control of their own budgets, which were purposefully fattened by London to keep everybody happy. Guns and bombs once towered over dialogue and politics in Northern Ireland. They are still a huge factor, but in a crucially different way. IRA guns strengthen the hand of Sinn Fein, its political arm–but only as long as they are not used. And they have not been since the IRA announced a ceasefire four years ago. The 107 deaths since 1997 officially linked to the “security situation” were at the hands of dissident paramilitaries who have no links to mainstream political parties. Many were, in fact, not “political” at all; they were committed by drug traffickers or other organized criminals camouflaging their activities in bogus political rationales.
As the peace process rattles through yet another crisis, it is tempting to sort through the machinations looking for an obstructionist Arafat or an intransigent Sharon to pin the blame on. But Northern Ireland is sui generis, and that uniqueness gives rise to hope. Unlike the Middle East or Macedonia or other hot spots, here no outside powers or interests stand to gain from stirring things up. It’s not just the people and politicians of Northern Ireland who have a deeply vested interest in something like peace. Backed by the United States and united on this matter as never before, the British and Irish governments have for a decade worked together to keep the peace process on track. This powerful combination of concerted interests has prevented Northern Ireland from collapsing into chaos before–and probably will do so again.
title: “Give Peace A Chance” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-05” author: “Gary Odom”
Though it sounds a bit like a banal morning TV talk show, California Today is in fact a bipartisan consumer group with national ambitions. Its first and only mission: to repeal or at least modify the federal government’s alternative minimum tax (AMT).
An increasingly controversial toll, the AMT, which Peace calls the “stealth tax,” was designed 35 years ago to prevent the wealthy from avoiding federal taxes by taking too many exemptions. The problem with the tax, says Peace, is that it was not adjusted for inflation. Consequently, an unintended but exponentially growing number of middle-class Americans is being affected.
The AMT “was meant to tax the very rich who were creatively avoiding paying their taxes, but it’s hurting more middle-class Americans every year,” says Peace. “This is a huge issue; as many as 30 million American taxpayers will be affected by 2010. But the politicians aren’t talking about it.”
Peace hopes to change that. Kicking off a national campaign against the AMT on, appropriately enough, April 15, he plans to publish a detailed research paper on the tax and launch several Web sites–catoday.com, altmintax.com and stealthtax.com. To consolidate opposition, he also wants to personally visit the offices of every California member of Congress, for starters, and eventually representatives from various other states hit hardest by the AMT, including New York and Nevada.
“We hope to make a big splash. We’ve got all the domain names secured now, and we’re also looking to get into radio,” he says. “Our first priority was getting our white paper out. We’ve been working on it with tax experts and economists, who illustrate why this tax is such a bad idea. It’s the creeping crud.”
Peace, a sometimes controversial pro-business Democrat who was first elected to the California Assembly in 1982, made his mark as one of the notorious “Gang of Five,” a group of Dems who challenged former speaker Willie Brown’s leadership and were stripped of their power in retaliation. Peace is also known for his sometimes confrontational style and for being the point man behind the now-infamous California utility deregulation in 1996.
He’s also produced a number of Hollywood films, including the camp classic “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.” He says he may return to producing movies in the future. But in his latest role as tax crusader, Peace is working closely–and amicably, it appears–with accountants, economists, professors and politicians on both sides of the aisle.
“We’re not a partisan organization,” says Peace, who insists that neither Democrats nor Republicans in Congress really want to touch this issue. “It’s Congress’s little secret,” he says. “They can say all they want about cutting taxes, but they know the actual revenue impact is far less with the AMT in place. It’s like an insurance policy for politicians. The Republicans will criticize us by saying that they’re already doing tax cuts, and the Democrats will criticize us because they’ll worry about the potential loss of revenue.”
Some have suggested the AMT is a GOP conspiracy because it disproportionately hits people in states that tend to vote for Democratic presidential candidates, like New York and California, where high tax rates and therefore refunds bump up income levels. Peace dismisses that notion. “Most of that came from the [Howard] Dean camp,” says Peace, adding that two well-known California Republicans have in fact joined his crusade: Greg Cox, a member of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors and president-elect of the California State Association of Counties, and Bev Hansen, a member of the California Assembly from 1986-1992. Says Cox, “The AMT is deceptive, unfair and subjects taxpayers to an unnecessary level of complexity. It must be changed.”
But Peace thinks that change can come more effectively by lobbying Congress than the executive branch. “The rubber will meet the road on this issue in Congress, not the White House,” he says. “If we solicit John Kerry’s support, people will think we’re partisan, which we’re not.”
But what does Kerry think of the AMT? Back in May 2001, Kerry in fact put forward his own amendment that would have exempted individual taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes below $100,000 from the AMT and modify the reduction in the top marginal tax bracket rate; it failed 46-53.
“The president was in such an ideological rush to pass his tax giveaways for the wealthy that he ended up dumping the AMT burden on more and more [on the] hard-working middle class,” Kerry tells NEWSWEEK. “It’s just another reason why tax reform and tax fairness is needed in our country.”
Peace could probably use Kerry’s clout, but he’s steadfast about this nonpartisan thing. And even without Kerry in his corner, he’s optimistic he can convince enough Americans of both parties that the AMT is a bad idea. Once that job is done, Peace says, he wants to address other economic inequities. And if that doesn’t pan out, he can always produce another “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” flick.
