[Mb-civic] JONATHAN CHAIT George Bush, Tax Hiker LATimes

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-chait15oct15.story

JONATHAN CHAIT

George Bush, Tax Hiker

Kerry raised taxes 98 times over 20 years? That's nothing. Bush is about to
do the same 63 times in a single day.
 Jonathan Chait

 October 15, 2004

He voted 98 times to raise taxes. I mean, these aren't make-up figures. ‹
George W. Bush

*

If there's a single piece of data President Bush wants to bring to your
attention, it's that John Kerry, during his 20 years in the Senate, voted to
raise taxes 98 times. Bush repeats this often, usually in a tone of
incredulity. But Kerry is a piker. When Bush signs the big corporate tax
bill passed this week by the Republican Congress, he will be approving 63
different tax increases with a single stroke of the pen.

 Revenue provision B 8, for example ‹ "Disallowance of certain partnership
loss transfers with partner loss limits for transfer of interest in electing
investment partnerships" ‹ might not be great fodder for a Kerry campaign
commercial, but a tax increase it most definitely is.

 You may be thinking, "Wait. I thought that bill was a huge giveaway of tax
cuts to special interests." And you're right ‹ it is. The point is that any
tax bill, even a big giveaway, is going to be a rococo combination of tax
increases and decreases. That's one reason Bush's "98 tax increases" jab at
Kerry is so dishonest.

 Just last spring, Bush was claiming Kerry had voted for higher taxes 350
times. That number has now been scaled back to 98. In fact, depending on how
you define it, you can come up with almost any number you want.

 The 350 included different tax increases in the same bill. Today's 98
figure avoids that trick, but still counts each of the many procedural votes
on any bill as a separate hike.

 What precisely is the import of Kerry's 98 tax increases supposed to be?

 Scanning through newspaper articles and television transcripts, I have yet
to find a member of the Bush campaign explain the meaning of this number
they keep repeating. The closest thing I could find was a line from Bush
himself. I will reprint here his argument in toto, with all relevant context
included: "He's voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes 98
times. That's a lot." So there you have it.

 The Bush campaign gleefully sends out an annotated list of all 98 votes.
You know, just in case you forgot his "1993 Vote To Raise Taxes By $790
Million By Taxing Diesel Fuel Used By Barges." Or his "1987 Vote To Increase
Taxes by $300 Million on Poultry Industry and Cattle Feeding Companies." Or
the fact that "In 1985, Kerry Voted To Limit Amount of Farm Losses That
Could Be Deducted From Non-Farm Income." I doubt diesel barge owners, the
poultry industry or extremely unprofitable part-time farmers need reminding.

 One of the tricks of the methodology is that it not only counts even tiny
or undeniably beneficent tax hikes, it counts any vote that could
conceivably lead to higher taxes. That includes the procedural votes ‹
cloture votes, motions to proceed and other arcane hurdles ‹ often required
to pass a single tax hike. Kerry's support for Bill Clinton's 1993 tax hike
alone accounted for 16 of the 98 votes. Another 43 were merely Kerry
approving a broad goal to reduce the deficit to a given level. Three more of
Kerry's votes came from his opposition to imposing a requirement that tax
hikes receive a three-fifths supermajority.

 If Republicans really believe in the strategy of saddling their opponents
with huge numbers of anti-tax-cut votes, they could start holding votes on
tax cuts, or tax cut-related procedural motions, multiple times a day, every
day. (George P. Bush, in 2044: "My opponent voted to increase your taxes 3
million times! That's a lot.")

 But let us take the 98 votes at face value. Does this prove Bush's
contention that Kerry sits far outside the mainstream? You can't answer that
without some basis of comparison. In 1992, George H.W. Bush painted Bill
Clinton as a hopeless liberal, the primary evidence for this claim being the
fact that Clinton allegedly raised taxes 128 times as governor of Arkansas.
So that would make Kerry, with his 98 tax hikes, some Š let's see, 23% less
liberal than Clinton, who is viewed (outside conservative circles) as a
moderate.

 Meanwhile, Kerry's campaign has a detailed list of 642 Kerry votes to
reduce taxes. (Maybe Bush should be painting Kerry as a crazed tax-cutting
zealot totally unconcerned about fiscal responsibility.)

 Meanwhile, Dick Cheney as a member of Congress from Wyoming voted to raise
taxes 144 times. If 98 tax-hike votes make Kerry a far-out liberal, than
Cheney would have to be placed somewhere in the ideological vicinity of Che
Guevara.

 If Bush had merely said that Kerry was more likely to raise your taxes, at
least the accusation would be meaningful and plausible. After all, Kerry did
vote for the last two major tax increases, in 1990 and 1993, and he openly
plans to restore the top tax bracket to where it stood under Clinton.

 But the Bush philosophy seems to be: Why level an honest accusation when a
dishonest one is nearer to hand?


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