At a White House press conference the day after the November elections, a reporter asked the president, “Nancy Pelosi has been quite clear about her agenda for the first 100 hours. She mentions things like raising minimum wage, cutting interest rates on student loans, broadening stem cell research, and rolling back tax cuts. Which of those can you support, sir?” The president specifically mentioned a minimum-wage increase as “an area where I believe we can … find common ground.”
When the reporter tried to follow up, asking, “What about tax cuts?” the president ignored the question and moved on to another journalist.
I assumed, at the time, it was because Bush doesn’t much care for follow-up questions, not because he’s wavering on tax cuts. Nevertheless, there’s apparently widespread concern among conservative activists that 2007 is going to look like 1991 — with a President Bush accepting tax increases from a Democratic Congress.
The Bush administration has sent signals since last month’s elections that the president is prepared to accept some tax increases on upper-income families, worrying congressional Republicans and fiscal conservative watchdogs who say he will compromise with Democrats to win a legacy accomplishment. […]
The watchdog groups have been demanding that the president repeat his earlier pledges not to raise taxes in order to reform Social Security. But the White House has refused, with officials saying everything is on the table, including tax increases.
“So far, no one in the administration has simply stood up and said, ‘We will not raise payroll taxes in any way, shape or form,’ ” said Pete Sepp, a vice president for the National Taxpayers Union, which led a coalition of several dozen groups to write a letter asking for such an assurance.
At first I thought this was just a few fringe activist groups complaining for no reason. After all, this is George W. Bush, the first president to ever put national security on the national charge card and cut taxes during a time of war. Why on earth would they be worried about Bush supporting a tax increase now?
But the more I read the Washington Times article, the more it appears there may be something to this.
Outgoing Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.) warned last week that “the White House has hinted that it will accept a tax increase on higher-income families in order to win accommodations from Democrats.”
Thomas told an AEI gathering, “I wish I were a bit more comfortable in listening to some of the noises that are currently being made…. Based upon some statements made by people in prominent positions who deal with money within the administration, comments about the individual top tax rate make me a little nervous.”
Most of this seems to be part of a broader effort on Social Security. Apparently, the idea is that Bush would agree to some tax increases in exchange for some yet-to-be-determined sacrifice on the part of Democrats. Indeed, asked twice in recent weeks about possible tax increases in the context of Social Security, Tony Snow has said, “I’m not ruling it up and I’m not ruling it down, because you know what, as you and I have seen in the past, definitions of these things can be very squirrelly.”
My suspicion is that all of the right’s worrying is for naught. This president considers a tax cut a policy goal in and of itself, and it’s very difficult to imagine him changing his mind on the subject. Maybe this is some kind of trial balloon to make the president appear more reasonable and open to negotiations.
That said, it’s kind of amusing seeing all of these far-right activists panicking a bit.