Rahm Emanuel is a Great Member of Congress

Finally got hold of Rep. Rahm Emanuel's WSJ op-ed, "The Democrats Can Win on Taxes," mentioned below.
It's right on: "The candidates should stop rearranging the Bush tax cuts and start proposing fundamental reform of the tax code." It concludes that, "A tax code that respects the values and intersts of the middle class should be the Democratic Party's battle cry in 2004."

And he makes a point that I wanted to make in my piece (and did make in an earlier memo): "Elections are about the future not the past. An argument about the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts...would forfeit the mantel of owning the future and would mire us in an argument about the past." True.

His argument differs from mine only a little bit: He wants the Democrats to call attention to specific outrages, such as corporate inversions, the employee life insurance scam, and the $18 billion in unneeded tax giveaways in the energy bill, which apparently are one of the only things the conferees could agree on, so far. I'd prefer to see fewer specifics and more a statement of principles from the Democrats, much as Bush offered mostly broad principles (which were a lie) in 2000.

Interestingly, not only doesn't he mention that he's supporting/advising General Clark, as The Note pointed out, the article also singles out for praise Lieberman's tax proposal. Perhaps that's only because it's just the news peg for this week, but it seems to me that it is still Edwards who comes closest to the right idea on taxes. It's Edwards who understood that the preference for taxing work income over investment income is "the most radical idea since Socialism." But perhaps all the candidates are slowly stumbling toward the right message.

Emanuel is going to be great to have in Congress. Where plenty of freshman Democrats would be frustrated by their utter powerlessness -- and he in particular must feel he has less influence than at any time in the previous decade -- he has so much energy and creativity that he is going to find a way, inside the institution or out, to make a difference.