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.<\/p>\n
Last summer, Dean was asked how he’d pay for this expansion of government spending. As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported<\/a>, 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.”<\/p>\n In the subsequent months, however, Dean, who likes to position himself as a “straight talking” candidate, began to equivocate a bit.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.”<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Worse, Dean changed the policy again yesterday. Now he’s back to repealing every penny of Bush’s tax cuts.<\/p>\n “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<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n