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Tax in the cradle | page 1, 2
Bush tried to slough off Forbes' charges. Bush's media advisor, Mark McKinnon, called the ad "ludicrous," though it is accurate in asserting that Bush supported a sales tax increase, even if the ad is misleading and incomplete about the final bill that Bush actually ended up signing thanks to the conservative Texas Senate. "It was a tax cut on day one, and a tax cut on the final day," Bush said of the process. Bush said that Forbes was resorting to attack ads because his campaign is getting desperate. "There's a tendency in politics when things aren't going well in the positive side, to resort to the negative," Bush said. McKinnon said that the Bush campaign had anticipated Forbes' attack, and had already cut ads to respond, though a decision won't be made on whether or not to run the ads for a couple days. What was most telling at the press conference, held in a conference room at Cabletron Systems, wasn't just Bush's lack of forthrightness about his past willingness to support some tax increases. After all, by now it should be pretty clear that the man is evasive and doesn't feel like he has to answer legitimate questions, even ones that are not cocaine related. What was most fascinating was the fact that, as "Cat's in the cradle" faded out, Bush displayed an incomprehension that anyone would even question the previous night's pledge, despite the fact that his father is the most notorious tax-pledge breaker in history. "I'm committed to the plan," an indignant Bush said. "That's why I said last night, when I was asked about my tax cut, that this is a pledge. I'm amazed that anybody would even wonder why somebody running for office doesn't intend to do what they say they're going to do in a campaign. I guess people are used to broken promises out of Washington, D.C." When a reporter noted the pedigree of one of Washington, D.C.'s most infamous "broken promises," Bush said, "My dad will go down in history as a really good president. And his record can stand for itself. I'm the person running for president." You could almost hear the Chapin song taking on new lyrics. "... and the tax in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy Dub ..." The subject of taxes was first raised by Bush, who has forsaken his campaign's previous emphasis on education in favor of tax cuts in an attempt to contrast himself with Arizona Sen. John McCain. Bush has proposed a five-year, $483 billion tax cut, to be paid for by the current budget surplus as well as projected future surpluses. Those in the highest income tax bracket would see their tax rate reduced from 39.6 percent to 33 percent. Middle-income earners would see their 31 percent rate reduced to 25 percent; the lowest income individuals would see their rate drop from 15 percent to 10 percent. Bush calls this "smashing the toll booths on the road to the middle class." McCain favors using the budget surplus to shore up Social Security and Medicare, to pay down the debt, as well as to offer a modicum of tax relief to those in lower three-fifths of the income scale. "John McCain focuses his tax cuts on working families," a McCain press release said, while Bush "would use 60 percent of surplus for top 10 percent of wage earners, like most of his top contributors." Bush and his surrogates have intimated that McCain's plan and his criticisms of Bush's recall the rhetoric of Vice President Al Gore. "If he says I'm like Al Gore, then he's spinning like Bill Clinton," McCain countered after Thursday night's debate. According to an analysis by Richard Keil of Bloomberg Business News, both men are right. "In terms of actual money," Keil says, "McCain is right in saying that 60 percent of the money goes to the top 10 percent of taxpayers. Whereas Bush is right in saying -- on a percentage basis -- that most of the cuts go to lower-middle class people. Both are being more or less honest in their claims." Honest or not, Bush at Friday's news conference was nothing short of irritable. What he thought would be a home-run issue for his campaign has become mired, at least temporarily, in a round of quibbling. Instead of talking about his plans for the future, reporters were more interested in discussing the past. And not just his past, either.
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