George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

ensue, and the voters would hold George responsible for the consequences. Bush's
Byzantine response was to issue a low-profile White House press statement.
It is clear to me that both the size of the defecit problem and the need for a package that
can be enacted require all of the following: entitlement and mandatory program reform;
tax revenue increases; growth incentives; discretionary spending reductions; orderly
reductions in defense expenditures; and budget process reform.
"Tax revenue increases" was the big one. June 26 is remembered by the GOP right wing
as a Day of Infamy; Bush cannot forget it either, since it was on that day that his poll
ratings began to fall, and kept falling until late November, when war hysteria bailed him
out. Many Congressional Republicans who for years had had no other talking point than
taxes were on a collision course with the nominal head of their party; a back-benchers'
revolt was in full swing. Fitzwater and a few others still argued that "tax revenue
increases" did not mean "new taxes", but this sophistry was received with scorn.
Fitzwater argued in doublethink:
We feel [Bush] said the right thing then and he's saying the right thing now.....Everything
we said was true then and it's true now. No regrets, no backing off.
Nixon's spokesman Ron Nessen had been more candid when he once announced, "All
previous statements are inoperative." When Fitzwater was asked if he would agree that
Bush had now formally broken his no tax pledge, Fitzwater replied: "No. Are you crazy?"
On July 11, Congressional Democrats blocked Bush's favorite economic panacea, the
reduction of the capital gains tax rate, by demanding that any such cut be combined with
an overall increase of income tax rates on the wealthy. This yielded a deadlock which
lasted until the last days of September.
Bush hid out in the White House for a few days, but then he had to face the press. There
would be only one topic: his tax pledge. Bush affected a breezy and cavalier manner that
could not disguise his seething internal rage at the thought of being nailed as a liar. The
internal turmoil was expressed in the frequent incoherence of verbal expression. Bush
started off with an evasive and rambling introduction in which he portrayed himself as
fighting to prevent the suffering that an automatic sequester under the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings law would entail. The first question: "I'd like to ask you about your reversal on
'no new taxes.'" occasioned more evasive verbiage. Other questions were all on the same
point. Bush attempted to pull himself together:
I'll say I take a look at a new situation. I see an enormous defecit. I see a savings and loan
problem out there that has to be resolved. And like Abraham Lincoln said, "I'll think
anew." I'm not -- but I'm not violating or getting away from my fundamental conviction
on taxes or anything of that nature. Not in the least. But what I have said is on the table,
and let's see where we go. But we've got a different-- we've got a very important national
problem, and I think the president owes the people his --his judgment at the moment he
has to address the problem. And that's exactly what I'm trying to do.