{"id":2321,"date":"2004-08-12T11:55:17","date_gmt":"2004-08-12T16:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2321.html"},"modified":"2004-08-12T11:55:17","modified_gmt":"2004-08-12T16:55:17","slug":"either-its-an-interesting-idea-that-we-ought-to-explore-seriously-or-it-isnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/either-its-an-interesting-idea-that-we-ought-to-explore-seriously-or-it-isnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Either it’s an ‘interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously’ or it isn’t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bush, on Tuesday<\/a>, in response to a question from a voter about a national sales tax:<\/p>\n

“He’s talking about getting rid of the current tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax,” Bush told his audience. “It’s an interesting idea. You know, I’m not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is going to have to be, but it’s the kind of interesting idea that we ought to explore seriously.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The White House, 24 hours later<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[T]wo administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Bush was not considering a national sales tax.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Three quick observations. One, which is the candidate known for flip-flopping?<\/p>\n

Two, as a substantive matter, a national sales tax strikes me as a truly horrible idea<\/a> and Bush has every reason to be embarrassed by his own comments.<\/p>\n

And three, there seems to be some question as to whether Bush actually said what everyone heard him say.<\/p>\n

According to the “official” White House transcript<\/a>, Bush said the national sales tax is an issue we “ought to explore.” But every major news outlet who was on hand for the speech — including the New York Times<\/a>, CNN<\/a>, Reuters<\/a>, AP<\/a>, and even the far-right Washington Times<\/a> — heard Bush say that this is a proposal that “ought to explore seriously<\/i>.” Either all of these reporters mysteriously heard Bush say a word he didn’t say, or the White House transcript of the event left off the word — either intentionally or accidentally, depending on whether you’re inclined to give the Bush gang the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n

[Update 8\/13<\/i>: Looks the White House has corrected its transcript; it now reflects Bush’s desire to explore the issue “seriously.”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bush, on Tuesday, in response to a question from a voter about a national sales tax: “He’s talking about getting rid of the current tax system and replacing it with a national sales tax,” Bush told his audience. “It’s an interesting idea. You know, I’m not exactly sure how big the national sales tax is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}