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It’s the summer of 1988 and, for some reason, you’re at the Republican National Convention. You decide to watch the nomination speech of George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan’s Vice-President. He speaks at length about many things but one line sticks out in your head, “Read my lips,” he says, “no new taxes.”
Much has been written about that one line. Analysis often recalls that many of his top staffers and speechwriters didn’t want him to say it, how breaking that promise likely cost him the 1992 Presidential Election, and how it might not have even been all that necessary to begin with.
I thought about this moment recently when listening to Senator Elizabeth Warren. Okay, she doesn’t say “no new taxes.” But she does always make sure to say “no new taxes for the middle class.”
Warren is very good at strategy, even if her ideas are awful. She knows, unlike someone like Senator Bernie Sanders, that most Americans do not want to pay more taxes. However, most Americans also don’t have much an issue with the rich paying more taxes if it means they get more gimmes.
This is one of the reasons Warren keeps pushing her “wealth tax,” an idea she came up with that can basically be her scapegoat anytime anyone worries about how she’d pay for her plans.
Mind you, her plan could not survive under this wealth tax. The left-wing website Vox says such a tax would have raised $200 Billion in 2016. Meanwhile, Reason magazine suggests that Warren’s plans would involve a spending increase of $4 Trillion. For the record, that’s about how much the federal government spent in 2018.
This is where Warren’s “read my lips,” problem comes in. Just recently, Warren said she would not raise taxes on anyone making less than, I kid you not, $1 Billion a year! However, even seizing the wealth from every billionaire in the United States would only fund the federal government for less than eight months.
In order for Warren’s plan to be enacted, she must raise taxes on the middle class. Her refusal to admit this may make victory in 2020 more likely. But I warn her that such a victory would be short-lived. She would either have to oversee the largest increase in the national debt in history (not that she seems to care about debt anyway) or her she would have to raise taxes and allow her empty promises to be revealed.
And if that’s the case, then I’ll just ask her to look at history to learn what comes next.
Ephrom Josine is a libertarian political blogger/commentator, and a frequent contributor to The Liberty Hawk. You can find him on Twitter @EphromJosine1, writing near-daily on Medium @ephromjosine or weekly on Freedom First Blog.
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