Remember the estate tax demolition plan*? It's in the House tax "reform" bill, but not in the Senate tax "reform" bill. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) favors repealing it. This is what he told the Des Moines Register:
“I think not having the estate tax recognizes the people that are investing, as opposed to those that are just spending every darn penny they have, whether it’s on booze or women or movies," Grassley told the newspaper.
And there we go again! See how the three things "people" are spending every darn penny on are booze (a commodity), movies (a commodity) and women (not a commodity, but turned into one here). See how "people" exclude the category of "women," or at least heterosexual "women." See how what the list of items that all the money is spent on also excludes gay men from the group "people."
This is a lot like the joke about someone spending all their moneys on hookers and blow. Doing that is pretty hard for women, especially hard for heterosexual women, given that there are very few hookers willing to service them. Rather, heterosexual women are the largest percentage of hookers.
So old Chuck objectifies women in that comment. I don't particularly mind that bit, because I do mind this so much more:
Grassley's comment tells us that he has an image of "people" which equals the image of "heterosexual men." Grassley is a politician supposed to care for our common concerns. How can he do it if his image of the "people" does not include the vast majority of women? Does he ever even consider how his policies affect half of his constituency?
There Echidne goes again, nattering on about something utterly trivial, you might mutter. After all, listing things one is supposed to consume, such as entertainment, alcohol and sex, is just a traditional way to make a point. Write about real problems, will you!
It is trivial on one level, sure. But it's not trivial to realize that powerful people have a certain view of the world and that you are not a default human being in that view. I get the benefit of belonging to the racial default in this country, but not getting the benefit of belonging to the biological sex default in this country has made me more aware of when the former kind of treatment happens, too.
Then those kinds of statements simply are something that the not-in-the-default-category people would never make, because they see the world as it really is. Being in the default category blinds one from the fact that there IS one (or several, really). Just imagine a female politician saying something about "people" spending all their money on Jimmy Choo shoes, movies and booze. That signals something quite different.
***
This post didn't even get to criticizing the common conservative assumption that rich people, every single one of them, deserve their wealth, because they work hard for it while poor people, every single one of them, lie drunk and lazy next to the government's teats. But then that view cannot explain why someone deserves to inherit the wealth they did not work for.
---------
* As an aside, the Hill article is dreadful in the way it defines the estate tax:
The estate tax, often derided as the “death tax,” is a 40-percent tax on the wealth of a person after he or she dies. The future of the estate tax is one of the key differences between the House and Senate bills that will need to be reconciled in a joint committee.The true definition is something very different, because the first $5.49 million left are exempt from any tax. The tax is only collected on the dollars in excess of that exemption in the estate:
For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual, up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49 million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax. A married couple will be able to shield just shy of $11 million ($10.98 million) from federal estate and gift taxes.