Dean switches position on repealing Bush tax cuts, again

Almost a full year ago, I heard Howard Dean have the courage to say he’d repeal all of Bush’s tax cuts passed in 2001. It was a bold and impressive move for an unknown presidential candidate, and more importantly, it was a good policy solution. Dean explained carefully how and why he’d return the country to a tax structure that was more equitable, and in the process, Dean shaped the campaign in a useful, either/or dynamic — we could have health care or Bush’s tax cut, more aid to states or Bush’s tax cut, more money for education or Bush’s tax cut, etc.

Last summer, Dean was asked how he’d pay for this expansion of government spending. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, Dean “doesn’t hem or haw” when answering the question. “‘By getting rid of the President’s tax cut,’ Dean says. Not freezing it, mind you — getting rid of it. All $1.7 trillion worth.”

In the subsequent months, however, Dean, who likes to position himself as a “straight talking” candidate, began to equivocate a bit.

In a Meet the Press appearance on July 21, 2002, Tim Russert asked Dean if he would repeal Bush’s tax cut from 2001. Dean said, “Yes, except there’s a few little things I wouldn’t repeal. There are some retirement investment pieces I wouldn’t repeal, although I would have to add some so that lower-income workers could help pay for their retirement, not just people like me.”

OK, that’s pretty minor. Dean went from saying he’d repeal all of the Bush tax cut to saying he’d repeal just about all of it. Fair enough.

Then, two months ago, Dean was changing his position a bit more. Appearing on Meet the Press again on March 9, Dean said his tax policy would be to “repeal the president’s tax cuts for people that make more than $300,000, with a few exceptions.”

So Dean went from wanting to repeal the entire 2001 tax cut, to repealing almost all of it, to repealing all of it for folks making more than $300,000, “with a few exceptions.”

For a straight talking candidate who is constantly accusing his Democratic rivals of inconsistencies, these “adjustments” on a central feature of the campaign — Bush’s tax policies — are disconcerting.

Worse, Dean changed the policy again yesterday. Now he’s back to repealing every penny of Bush’s tax cuts.

“The time has come to cut off George Bush’s credit card, repeal the President’s reckless tax cuts, and put the priorities of this country back in order,” Dean said yesterday.

The New York Times, which noted that Dean’s position has changed again, asked the candidate for an explanation. “I now realize that the president’s plan is so bad for the country that the right thing to do is just to repeal all the tax cuts,” Dean said.

The problem is he realized this a year ago and made the right call by saying they should be repealed. Then he proceeded to change his mind, a couple of times, offering varying opinions on an issue he claims to have spent a lot of time studying.

I don’t disagree with his position on repealing the tax cuts, in fact I think it’s the right call. But I am troubled by Dean’s tendency to shift with the wind, changing his mind on issues without explanation, and then lambasting other Democrats who he perceives as doing the same thing.