McCain may come to regret promises

Carl Leubsdorf

McCain

may come

to regret

promises

As he received former President George H.W. Bush’s endorsement in Houston, John McCain noted that they had two things in common: Both were naval pilots, and both were shot down.

A day earlier, however, the presumptive Republican nominee added a third similarity, when he echoed Bush’s most ill-fated 1988 campaign promise: “No new taxes.”

On ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos,” McCain pledged that under “no” circumstances would he increase taxes. He reiterated his support to make permanent the 2001 Bush tax cuts he once opposed, adding that he’d also like to eliminate the Alternate Minimum Tax.

It’s a multibillion-dollar promise that McCain could rue if he wins the White House — and one more example of how appeals to various groups in primary campaigns can create problems down the road for a winning candidate.

The problem is not confined to the Republicans. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have promised to increase federal programs beyond what they may be able to deliver. Obama also says he’d withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.

But McCain’s latest bid to woo conservatives carries a special burden because it all happened before.

Elder Bush’s pledge

In his 1988 acceptance speech, Bush, then vice president, made the pledge that created untold political problems when events forced him to renege.

“My opponent won’t rule out raising taxes,” he told cheering GOP delegates. “But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no. And they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: No new taxes.”’

Two years later, facing a budget deficit bequeathed him by Ronald Reagan, Bush acceded to demands from a Democratic-controlled Congress that any deficit reduction package include tax increases.

That capitulation prompted a conservative outcry that helped lead to Bush’s re-election defeat in 1992.

Fast-forward 16 years. Just 17 days ago, the current President Bush presented a budget that illustrated, despite rosy rhetoric, the difficult fiscal situation he will bequeath to his successor.

It forecast a balanced budget by 2012 but only by leaving out most post-Bush spending for Iraq and Afghanistan, which will continue even if his successor pulls most troops out. It also omitted the post-2009 cost of protecting middle-class taxpayers from the AMT, designed initially to ensure that the wealthy paid their fair share.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, making permanent both the Bush tax cuts and the AMT fix would cost the government $3.6 trillion in revenues over the next decade. Repealing the AMT would cost even more.

Upper-income taxpayers would be prime beneficiaries of both moves.

Still, just as Bush encountered congressional resistance when trying to extend his tax cuts, a President Mc-Cain would hit a similar roadblock from Democrats, who almost certainly will keep and probably will expand their majorities in November.

McCain’s task would be further complicated by the fact that action will be needed to extend the tax cuts past the 2010 cutoff that was included to make their overall cost look lower.

That will keep Congress from its frequent tactic of avoiding tough choices. Both parties want to extend the tax cuts for lower- and middle-income Americans.

Compromise

So when the next Congress and administration come to grips with this, it’s hard to see the debate ending without a compromise that limits some tax breaks for wealthier taxpayers.

To be sure, the degree to which Republicans still believe in the economic and political appeal of tax cuts was clear from the rousing GOP cheers when Bush called on Congress to extend the tax cuts in his State of the Union speech.

The public is less supportive.

Reciting the tax-cut mantra may help McCain overcome some GOP doubts about his fealty to conservative principles, but it could cause him grief if he wins.

X Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.