DOLE SETS A TAX-CUT TRAP
BARNES, FRED
DOLE SETS A TAX-CUT TRAP by Fred Barnes LUCKY BOB DOLE. Since President Clinton has just published a campaign book, Between Hope and History, Dole’s new book on his plan to cut taxes is sure to...
...He’s a hypocrite...
...This has been true in the last four presidential elections...
...We can have one, but we have to have one we can afford...
...That’s my attitude about this tax cut issue...
...The book cheerleads for big tax cuts...
...Then Restoring the American Dream, a popular slogan in speeches at the Republican convention, was chosen, only to be tossed aside later as unoriginal...
...The strategy is simple: Propose a large tax cut for individuals, then hope Clinton not only opposes the cut but engages the issue aggressively...
...The Clinton campaign takes daily jabs at Dole on taxes...
...BY ATTACKING DOLE’S PLAN, CLINTON HAS CREATED A NEW FAULT LINE: ONE PARTY IS FOR CUTTING TAXES, THE OTHER ISN’T...
...And Clinton captured the tax issue in 1992 with his talk of a middle-class tax cut and Bush’s failure to live up to his pledge...
...Maybe not, but the White House and the Clinton campaign have done their part to keep the tax issue alive...
...Oh no, the Clinton campaign responded...
...Now there’s Dole with his proposal for cutting personal tax rates 15 percent, halving the capital-gains rate, trimming the tax bite on Social Security benefits, and providing a $500 tax credit for each child under 18...
...There’s more to the Dole trap...
...Then, Stephanopoulos says, they’ll fear a bloated deficit or deep new cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs that the Dole tax cut would require...
...But it’s targeted to the middle class...
...Clintonites are sure to disagree...
...Clintonites claim they haven’t slipped inadvertently into full-blown criticism of Dole’s tax cut...
...The Dole camp hadn’t counted on an assist from Clinton...
...So was The 15% Tax Cut...
...By attacking Dole’s plan, he has created a new fault line in the campaign: One party is for cutting taxes, the other isn’t...
...No doubt they’ll tell us why...
...The more Clinton and his allies criticize the Dole tax cut, the harder it will be for Clinton to propose a large tax reduction of his own—or at least propose one credibly...
...In pushing a big tax cut, “I think they’re making a huge error,” says Stephanopoulos...
...The other is that Clinton corners himself in the position of disparaging tax cuts and defending austerity...
...It defends supply-side economics and the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s, and argues that only the Dole plan is broad and sweeping enough to spur stronger economic growth and end wage stagnation for middle-class workers...
...It’s a chicken in every pot...
...Since President Clinton has just published a campaign book, Between Hope and History, Dole’s new book on his plan to cut taxes is sure to get prominent display in bookstores, right next to Clinton’s...
...That’s a big “if...
...In any case, there’s “absolutely no pressure” on Clinton to match Dole on taxes, says White House press secretary Mike McCurry...
...One is that it ensures conflict on the tax issue, which keeps the media interested...
...When Dole aides began work on Trusting the People in late July, they didn’t know Clinton was coming out with his own book...
...The president and his aides have gone along, bashing Dole daily on taxes...
...This has kept the tax issue as the centerpiece of the campaign...
...And in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, Clinton is expected to announce tax breaks for inner-city job development...
...The Dole campaign is considering new television spots on taxes, including one with snippets from Dole’s and Jack Kemp’s speeches from the GOP convention and another with man-on-the-street interviews on taxes and the economy...
...The trouble is Clinton’s tax cuts appear insignificant compared with Dole’s...
...Ronald Reagan won twice as the anti-tax candidate...
...The tentative title: Trusting the People...
...He recalled a bakery around the corner from his house in Little Rock...
...George Stephanopoulos has used every TV appearance to denounce Dole for backing “tax giveaways” that aren’t “paid for...
...The Dole ad says taxes are at their peak, which is true—the ad does not single out federal taxes...
...That claim, it turns out, is misleading...
...That’s the view of Dole strategists, anyway...
...The biggest problems for Dole advisers were deciding whether to publish the book as a paperback or a hardcover and what to name it...
...Hardcover won, with a first printing from HarperCollins of 250,000 copies...
...He infuriated liberals by signing a conservative welfare reform bill on August 22, making him all the more averse to angering them on taxes...
...Harold Ickes, the deputy White House chief of staff, has attacked Dole’s tax cut in background sessions with reporters...
...This is misleading...
...No doubt, the Clinton camp would respond to those, too...
...At his birthday party in New York on August 18, Clinton offered a fresh analogy for a large tax cut...
...Stephanopoulos qualifies his insistence that the tax issue aids Clinton: “As long as it’s our tax cut versus their tax cut and not their tax cut versus our pain, then the president gains...
...It’s where they want to be, since they insist the tax issue helps Clinton, not Dole...
...Every one of them was good, but if you bought them all and ate them all at once you’d get sick...
...Austerity doesn’t sell,” says David Smick, a Dole adviser...
...Tax Cut was considered and rejected...
...It’s targeted to education and to childbearing...
...Today, taxes are the highest in American history,” the ad said...
...The average federal tax rate for the typical family is lower now than when President Clinton took office...
...Dole, famous as a deficit hawk, ruins his credibility by suddenly embracing tax cuts, according to Stephanopoulos...
...The Clinton book, by the way, also trashes the Dole tax cut...
...I am for a tax cut,” he declared August 18 in a 60 Minutes interview...
...The premise is that the candidate who’s for cutting taxes has a better chance of winning the White House...
...But the battle of the books fits perfectly with the Dole strategy of trapping Clinton on the big issue of the campaign, cutting taxes...
...Clinton’s first reaction when Dole unveiled his plan August 5 was to declare himself “unalterably opposed...
...So is the tax relief for small business that was tied to the increase in the minimum wage...
...And Trusting the People, the Dole book, casts the Clinton approach as entirely inadequate to cope with current economic problems...
...George Bush, with “read my lips, no new taxes,” won in 1988...
...Clinton belabors the same point...
...Clinton’s noisy opposition is essential to the Dole strategy for two reasons...
...Instinctively,” McCurry says, “the American people love Bob Dole’s tax cut, but in their hearts they know they won’t get it...
...The day after the first Dole TV ad was aired, the campaign issued a statement disputing virtually everything in the commercial...
...The result of all this is that Clinton has taken the bait on taxes...
...Clinton has another reason for shying away from a sweeping tax cut...
...The Clintonites don’t really sound all that confident the tax debate will play out their way...
...It’s change versus the status quo...
...Book titles came and went...
...There were cookies, bagels, donuts, fruit tarts,” he said...
...But it’s worse for Dole if people believe he really will cut taxes...
Vol. 1 • September 1996 • No. 49
