Los Angeles Times
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, ev en 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 tax es 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 … 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?