http://slate.msn.com/id/2093858/Finally, there's the tax problem. Wes Clark, John Edwards, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Dennis Kucinich propose to repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich but keep the Bush tax cuts that went to the middle class. (Some would offer additional tax cuts.) Dean and Dick Gephardt propose to repeal all the Bush tax cuts. the Dean-Gephardt position would lose the election, plain and simple. Three months ago, the Democracy Corps, a Democratic polling outfit, asked respondents, in separate samples, to choose a) between keeping the whole Bush tax cut and repealing it; and b) between keeping the whole Bush tax cut and repealing just the part that went to the richest 1 percent of Americans. The Clark-Edwards-Kerry-Lieberman-Kucinich position beat the Bush position 55 percent to 37 percent. The Bush position beat the Dean-Gephardt position 49 percent to 44 percent.
We saw how the raise-your-taxes argument ended in 1984, with Mondale's crushing defeat. This year, we're seeing it again. I've watched Dean defend his position in numerous debates over the past four months. Here's how it goes every time: Dean's opponents say he'd raise taxes on the middle class. He says there was no middle-class tax cut. His opponents point out that, in fact, there was. Dean says it all went to the rich. Then he says that in order to balance the budget, he needs to take back the part that went to the middle class. Then he says the tax cut was really a "tax" because it led to higher local property taxes, college tuitions, and health-insurance premiums. If you buy that definition of "tax," you're probably one of the 15 Americans who bought Clinton's definition of "is."
In Sunday's debate, Dean said that after repealing Bush's middle-class tax cuts, he would introduce his own, but not until he balanced the federal budget—which, by his reckoning, wouldn't come until well into his second term. According to the Washington Post, Dean's aides promised a vague interim tax reform plan "dramatic enough to keep the shape of the tax system front-and-center in the general election." A Dean aide told the New York Times Dean would announce this magic plan "after President Bush unveiled his budget." That means after Feb. 2. By that time, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, and four other states will have voted. If things go according to plan, Dean will have effectively locked up the nomination. He's asking you to nominate him first in the hope that afterward he'll somehow get voters to accept a bitter pill they've never accepted in a presidential election.
I say it's the other way around. In a democracy, the candidate is supposed to satisfy you before he gets your vote. Dean has tremendous virtues as a nominee, and his flaws are fixable. But at least two of those flaws are demonstrably lethal, and Dean has refused to fix them. If he doesn't fix them by the time your state votes, my advice is to vote against him. It's the only way he'll learn.
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