Orrin Hatch once more invites us to play America’s favorite parlor game: Dishonest or Genuinely Stupid? The self-aggrandizing Utah senator is getting really fed up with the way he has exactly nothing substantive to say when people point out that the tax bill is a money-grab for the upper class and a kick in the teeth to everyone else.
So he reached for that last refuge of the scoundrel — personal anecdotes!
I grew up in a shack with a Meadow Gold Dairy sign for a wall. I worked as a janitor to pay for law school. I believe in opportunity because I’ve lived it.
And that’s what we’re going to deliver with #TaxReform.
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When Hatch was out there becoming the Good Will Hunting of Torts, the top tax bracket was 91 percent, so it’s not clear how his story would be a warrant for a tax cut, but I digress. Let’s get back to “Dishonest or Genuinely Stupid?”
My immediate response when I saw Hatch’s Tweet was:
I’m thinking he doesn’t know (a) how much janitors get paid today or (b) how much law school costs today, but cool story, bro.
Some people thought I was demeaning the effort of those who successfully work their way through school. Quite the contrary. The problem is Hatch’s tale is increasingly inaccessible to the average American and there’s nothing in this tax bill that would make it any easier to attain — in fact, it will make it decidedly more difficult. When Hatch attended Pitt Law in the early 60s, tuition ranged between $1,100 to $1,300 a year. Meanwhile, a janitor earning minimum wage in 1960 would pull down $2,000 a year. Contrast that with the median salary of a janitor today — roughly $28,000 — trying to buy a law degree at Pitt — $38,500. And while Pitt’s numbers are higher than some state programs, the reality is a janitor would need to commit more than their annual gross income to afford law school, something Hatch never had to deal with.
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Maybe Hatch is just genuinely clueless about wages and tuition. That’s probably a damning indictment for someone charged with running the Finance Committee, but at least an elected official isn’t being shamefully duplicitous.
But wait, there’s more!
Hatch didn’t even pay his full tuition! As The Intercept points out, Hatch himself speaks warmly of the law professor who set him up with a scholarship. That’s a critical detail to leave out of his little “rags to riches” story about working himself through school as a janitor.
Speaking of that scholarship that got Hatch out of paying tuition, the tax bill that Hatch proclaims will deliver opportunities like his law school story would have forced him to pay taxes on that. The Intercept estimates that, if Hatch’s preferred tax regime held sway in the 60s, Hatch would have been on the hook for $780/year instead of the ZERO that he paid. That’s a lot of money when minimum wage was $1/hour. He’d probably have to take out some loans to afford school in that case… but don’t worry, the tax bill under consideration kills the student loan interest deduction. [UPDATE: A Senate Finance Committee spokesperson notes that this deduction is not being eliminated in the version advanced out of Hatch’s Committee. So… maybe this one wouldn’t make it into the final overall plan.]
That pushes this Tweet safely into the dishonesty camp.
But above and beyond this particular instance, these bullshit Horatio Alger narratives about law school don’t do anyone any favors. The experience of paying for law school 50 years ago is entirely divorced from the modern experience, and basking in these sepia-toned tales only feeds the apathy of Americans who want to stick their heads in the sand and pretend janitors still make an “honest dollar for an honest day’s work” and law schools are still reasonably priced.
A fair assessment of opportunities in education probably begins with a survey of prevailing conditions from, at least, this millennium. Sadly, I don’t think we can count on Hatch to spearhead that assessment.
UNDER THE GOP TAX PLAN, TOP REPUBLICAN ORRIN HATCH’S OWN AMERICAN DREAM WOULD HAVE BEEN OUT OF REACH [The Intercept]