The Mistake McCain Need Not Make

The Mistake McCain Need Not Make
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Fiscal Policy: Reneging on his no-new-taxes pledge cost President George H.W. Bush a second term. Will John McCain play into Barack Obama's hands by making the same mistake on Social Security taxes?

In describing the elder President Bush's colossal blunder in 1990, no one is more cogent than Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. "The man who won his election promising never to raise taxes announced that this principle was negotiable and his word meant nothing," Norquist writes in the newly published "Leave Us Alone: Getting the Government's Hands Off Our Money, Our Guns, Our Lives."

Sen. McCain made his own "read my lips" pledge. Interviewed on Fox News in March, McCain was asked by Sean Hannity: "You have said three times in the last week or week and a half that you promised no new taxes. You mean none?"

McCain answered, "None." He added that "Americans are hurting" and asked, "Do we want to raise their taxes and have the government take more of their money right now when they are facing these challenges?"

In that context, McCain told Hannity: "I look forward to this debate between myself and Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama" because taxes would be a big difference between the two nominees.

But McCain will not at all be looking forward to debating Obama if his Democratic counterpart is able to turn to him in front of millions of TV viewers and gloat that McCain espoused the right-wing ideology of refusing to raise taxes — until he was smacked upside the head by reality and had to move closer to the Obama position.

That, unfortunately, is exactly what Obama will be able to say if the pending Republican nominee continues on his present course toward breaking his no-new-taxes pledge.

Asked Sunday by George Stephanopoulos on ABC about Social Security payroll-tax increases, McCain replied: "Nothing is off the table. I don't want tax increases. Of course, I'd like to have young Americans have some of their money put into an account with their name on it, but that doesn't mean that anything is off the table."

Washington's anti-tax Club for Growth called it "shocking," and Norquist's tax-reform group is rallying its members to "Tell Sen. McCain to rule out tax hikes on the American people."

The repercussions of McCain backpedaling on his commitment are serious. One of the keys to his success has been his mastery of town hall meetings, where he paints the stark difference between himself and his opponent.

"Sen. Obama will raise your taxes," McCain has said to attendees. "I won't." To switch that to "everything is on the table" — a stereotypical Washingtonian hedge — just doesn't have the same power with voters.

Meanwhile, top McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin has publicly stated that a President McCain would not consider an increase in Social Security taxes "under any imaginable circumstance." To renege on such a commitment will take away from McCain's ability to call Obama to task on the Democrat's flip-flops and vacillations.

Fortunately, it's not too late for McCain to regain his footing from this misstep. No one has more credibility as a spending hawk. Instead of talking about payroll tax hikes, he should use this presidential campaign to talk up the country's impending entitlement crisis and embrace the fundamental reforms necessary to prevent fiscal disaster.

The solutions to the catastrophes that lie ahead for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are not new taxes that only delay the day of reckoning by a few more years. The answers are innovations like personal retirement accounts controlled by the individual and the expansion of tax-free health savings accounts to help pay private insurance costs.

Voters appreciate being told the facts. They will elect a straight talker with the guts to fix our biggest fiscal challenge.

Right now John McCain is missing an opportunity that seems tailor-made for him — which could mean the election of a president whose socialistic intentions will only shorten the fuse on America's entitlement time bomb.