The National Committee

Although the President has the main focus of his attention in the public sphere, his party must be his concern at all times, particularly if he is to be reelected. The President is always in close communication with the National Chairman. In addition, he always delegates to one of his closest staff the responsibility to inspect politically his anticipated moves. Although it may seem crass, nevertheless in a democracy the politics of a move are considered to be of equal importance with the economic and technical effects.

Once in a while when the political dominates the technical, there is disaster, but, with acute political sensitivity, the President can usually turn aside from a disastrous technical course without serious consequences. Were the press as keenly attuned to scientific matters, such as thermodynamics, as they are to human foibles, the press would spot such glitches, but the press isn't.

However, human foibles are usually the cause of most political failings, so perhaps the system of a watch-guard press--ignorant though it may be--is as good as mankind-sorry, person-kind-deserves.

Although it is not the specific duty of the National Committee to look upon the actions of its various elected officials and determine ideological purity or conformity to party platforms, it does rarely happen. Generally, these exceptions come when there is a sudden decline in monetary support for the party. In fact, it is generally recognized that the most outstanding Presidents have scrapped their platform rather quickly upon plunging into the icy waters of reality that accompany transition from the campaign trail to the Oval Office.

This wordy preamble to the following was just a short course in politics for those who many years ago had a class in high school civics and who under the stress of daily existence may not have had occasion to reflect upon such matters in recent years. The above discourse is by no means intended for recent graduates, not that they have no need for it, but that they are most unlikely to be able to read and understand it, if one can judge from the recent accounts of reading skill tests.

At any rate, the national party functionaries became rather concerned, since the majority party was, in the opinion of their liberal voter segment, becoming reactionary. The Sex Tax was obviously a regressive tax. The idea that everyone should pay the same tax for the same privileges was, to liberals, abhorrent. Not only did such a scheme resolve all the tax complexities that people have become accustomed to, complexities that have provided so lucrative a business for those who may be classed as auxiliaries to the tax gatherers, but the Sex Tax concept was inherently dangerous.

Liberal concepts required a tax group that could be attacked, a group somewhere between the middle class and the old. The old must be cosseted, whilst the inflation generated by political infidelity is robbing their savings; their vast voting power must not be lost. The middle class, which has generation after generation borne the burden of society, is unlikely to be sympathetic to any diversion of their meager resources to do-gooder causes even after intensive conditioning during student and young adult years,

This class, mainly the professionals, were the ones who had in the interests of education eschewed early marriage and sex to pursue what had been pointed out to them as, and were indeed, worthy educational objectives. There were the ones who had fought the good educational fight against academe and had been successful.

These were the ones who, with the training and knowledge given them by august institutions and with the tempering by experience in the real world, were now carrying the burdens of the skilled in a proletarian world. These were the ones who, cognizant of their heritage and sensitive to their social responsibilities, would endow those institutions that, free from government and political strings, would forge the intellectual path of the future.

This middle professional class, hated by the politicians for purely intellectual reasons, had been the target of liberal moves in recent years. True, the politicians had succeeded in subverting a fraction of their progeny, as evidenced by the terrorist organization membership, though the fraction was not large in comparison with the noise the radical extremists aroused.

There still remained that large middle class reservoir of the highly intelligent, highly directed who were a threat to any equalitarian movement that would render into the hands of the politician that which he most desired, power.

The majority party National Committee saw that the Sex Tax was a danger to their liberal wing. How many had battled and how many years had been invested in convincing people that any equal tax was regressive? Even the economic texts had been carefully written to show that income should be equal, despite evidence that efforts to earn income were not equal even among those who had equal need.

The Sex Tax was a particular danger because it was obvious that sexual prowess was inversely distributed. Those with money were almost inevitably those of greater age. It would be a wild statistician who would attempt to prove that the older males were more sexually blessed. For many years it had been proven that the male peak was at an unforgivably young age, and society had been battling that urge until recently, when the pill resolved the battle decisively on the side of the young.

So now the politicians were faced with a retreat from the concept of non-regressive taxation. This didn't go down well with a significant fraction of the party, and the National Committee was worried.

The President would have to make the decision, and he was ill prepared. He retired with a yellow pad, since this was the sort of a decision that could not be "open government," as was the press ideal. (They didn't mind making things easy on themselves.)

Ordinarily the author would sympathize with the President. A decision between nuclear alternatives would be awe-inspiring and worthy of a presidential salary. But here he was faced with a much less than existential decision. On the other hand, unknowingly, he was faced with a landmark decision that, as events later showed, would determine the vitality of the political state for years, even decades, to come.

At stake were the liberal traditions of nearly five decades. The sacrifices of those who led labor to a fair bargaining position; those who suffered for women’s rights; to say nothing of those who battled against child labor exploitation. Yet the President sensed that times had changed. All these martyrs had been justified by a technology that could produce and had produced miracles.

This berated technology was now vigorously attacked by the liberals in the current anti-intellectual movement, those who would go back to the good old days of clean air, horse transportation (I wonder how New York smelled in a traffic jam) and the winter pneumonia that kept parents of the infantile population terrorized.

The author will spare the reader the details of the President's travail, though he has not spared us in the voluminous biography that has put an end to any financial worries the now ex-President might have. The President came down on the right side. The liberals were wrong; the Sex Tax prevailed.

The President's decision to sign the bill, which was promulgated through the White House staff in a matter of hours by Xeroxed directive and by secretarial telegraph in a matter of seconds, set things afire. The various bureaucracies were now free to range widely in search of programs. Though the President deplored it later, there was nothing he could do to stop the torrent of reports that landed on his desk.

HEW (Health Education, and Welfare) led all the rest, as would be expected. What could be more important to America than good sex! At first the organizational response of HEW was rather subdued. This was the homosexual element in the forefront. However, the basic (heterosexual) element was soon to assume dominance. Anita Bryant triumphant! Since the President had embraced the Sex Tax, HEW was strongly behind the effort, as it should have been.

The academic community was prorogued to come up with papers and projects bearing on the new sexual situation, married sex. This, of course, confused those in the wilderness, e.g., those who lived beyond Greater New York, in Delaware, for example, who had always thought in terms of married sex.

The National Committee picked up the challenge, when the bill had been signed by the President, to make it a showpiece of his administrative record. In this they were prescient or just lucky, for, though they sensed the public mood to accept this new concept, the National Committee was no more prepared than others for the cultural change that was to result from the Sex Tax legislation.