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Political Hay
Obama’s GOP Tax Collectors
Bob Dole in 1982: “We’re just trying to avoid going over the cliff”: Reagan, Kemp, and “tax the rich.”
“I didn’t come to Washington to raise
taxes.”
— Congressman Jack Kemp to President
Ronald Reagan
Jack Kemp was furious.
Summoned to the White House in 1982 for a one-on-one with President Ronald Reagan — Reagan not only his longtime ideological and political ally but his old boss (as an off-season football quarterback for the Buffalo Bills Kemp had served an internship as a special assistant to the fledgling California Governor Reagan in 1967), now-Congressman Kemp was adamant.
Reagan was being told by all manner of GOP Establishment leadership types like Kansas Senator Bob Dole, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, that taxes had to be raised as Democrats insisted. The Reagan economic policy was a failure, Reagan was being told. And the Democrats had a deal — a spending reduction of $3 for every $1 in tax cuts. After trying mightily to get Reagan to give up on the third-year of his tax cuts — which Reagan flatly refused — Dole made his pitch for an increase in business and excise taxes. Based on the idea of those corresponding budget cuts, Reagan reluctantly went along.
“My heart isn’t in it,” he wrote in his diary. It wasn’t — and it decidedly wasn’t in Kemp’s either.
Reagan was frustrated, Kemp incensed. Neither man saw increasing taxes as anything more than the umpteenth excuse to grow government as opposed to the economy.
Be that as it were, the Reagan White House was sent out there full bore to raise business and excise taxes. The House Republican leadership, including a GOP Congressman from Wyoming named Dick Cheney, pressed the case that working with House Speaker Tip O’Neill and his majority was the way to solve the problem.
So too was Reagan’s Budget Director David Stockman — a close Kemp ally when Stockman served in the House as a young Michigan congressman — pressing the case. Stockman had been an early behind-the-scenes deserter on the President’s tax cuts, coming close to getting fired when it was revealed he had been covertly making all manner of wild accusations about the economics of tax cutting.
Yet Jack Kemp was refusing to go along. He simply didn’t buy the pitch. If taxes rose, he was convinced — and this was in the aftermath of the first round of Reagan tax-rate and budget cuts a year earlier in 1981 — not only would ground be lost in the fight for economic growth. More to the point the budget cuts would never occur — and Democrats would soon be back demanding even more spending.
So, fresh from his tense meeting with Reagan, Kemp returned to Capitol Hill and rounded up some 61 House Republicans to say what he was saying quite publicly:
I did not come to Washington to raise taxes.
In a speech on the House floor Kemp took direct aim at the story Dole and other Republicans, not to mention O’Neill and his Democrats, were spreading: that the business and excise tax increases were really not such a big deal. To which Kemp replied by running down an itemized list of the proposed tax increases, mocking the promise that the tax increases wouldn’t really affect middle-class Americans. This was correct, said Kemp sarcastically, if
…you don’t use the telephone, don’t pay medical insurance premiums, don’t suffer losses due to theft or casualty, don’t smoke, don’t ride in airplanes, or don’t have a savings account.
Sending his formal letter of protest to the President that was signed by those 61 House Republicans, Kemp pointedly added:
Quietly, without debate, the Republican Party is in danger of making a U-turn back to its familiar role of tax collector for Democratic spending programs.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (26) | Leave a comment
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c. j. acworth| 12.27.12 @ 8:15AM
I seem to remember that after being defeated for his senate seat, George McGovern tried running a small business, a Bed-and-Breakfast inn or something. When it went bust, I remember him saying that a large part of the reason were the taxes and regulations he had to comply with, and that he wished he had a better appreciation for the burdens he and his fellows were imposing on small businesses when he was still a senator. I wonder if we should make it a requirement that all legislators work as at least middle management before being considered for office.
Quartermaster| 12.27.12 @ 9:19AM
He also had problems with legal costs as well. I got onboard for tort reform, until, that is, he saw that the "little guy" would get locked out as a result.
The "little guy" has often been the reason for Dimocrats pushing, or refusing to push, anything that makes sense. McGovern, in the end, was just a hypocrite.
Trish Trotter.| 12.27.12 @ 10:38AM
Does anybody know what Honey Boo Boo got for Christmas?
My neighbor told me she got a puppy. Well, if she did, I feel sorry for that puppy. I have searched the WEB, and I cannot find anything about her getting a puppy.
My neighbor is a jerk and likes to worry me. Honey Boo Boo is a little nitwit, and her parents are garbage. I do hope to God that a puppy is not in that child's control.
Ronsch| 12.27.12 @ 12:33PM
I must be completely dense, but what the hell is a "Honey Boo Boo?"
RCV| 12.27.12 @ 12:36PM
Honey Boo only exists because people like you, for some reason I cannot fathom, care what she got for Christmas.
Occam's Tool| 12.27.12 @ 9:20PM
RCV: it is not about Honey Boo Boo for Trish. It is about the care of the DOG.
And I will NEVER forgive you for making me write Honey Boo Boo in a sentence. :-)
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 8:32AM
Democrats and the Left use taxes as punishment for success. Somehow, those who discover the path to the American Dream deserve to have that taken from them so a favored group of others, as identified by government, may enjoy life at others expense.
None of this makes any sense. Government should through its policies encourage enterprise, thrift, entreprenuership and success. Those who do achieve serve as as example to others that they too may find success. The poor are not poor because others have "too much" for a growing economy benefits all.
The insistence of some that others must pay more is standing in the way of rational debate and action on the nations fiscal issues. All dollars should be treated the same if taxed at all. The Reid Senate has refused to pass a budget for four years. It is about time they go.
Derek Leaberry| 12.27.12 @ 8:51AM
The Republicans have failed miserably in explaining that the major cause of the trillion dollar plus deficits is the 2009 Obama spending spree of $ 800 billion that is now part of the base line budget. To my knowledge, no Republican has even uttered a whimper on the issue. Could it be that most Republicans, and certainly folks like Mitch McConnell, actually approve pork barrel spending, the more the better? One would have to think this is the case.
Von Mises Jr| 12.27.12 @ 9:25AM
G.H.W. Bush lying on his death bed is probably wishing for a few more days to see the GOP Keynote Speaker pass Agenda21 in New Jersey by Executive Order. The "Development and Redevelopment Plan will re-distribute tax dollars from suburban and rural areas to Mao-like Chinese factory complexes where our children will live in 700 sq/ft government apartments, take light rail to their GM or GE crony capitalist job never seeing the country except with travel papers. The plan clearly states that "decisions take place at levels above the State's authority" and claims that stakeholders such as NJ Transit and Port Authority of NY & NJ are co-owners in our property.
Are you kidding me does "Mitch McConnell, actually approve of pork barrel spending, or more the better?" Mitch, Johnny Boner and Christie simply prefer the fascist model of Mussolini " making the trains run on time" with central planning while the Obama, Ron Bloom, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, Thomas "Loopy" Friedman and Immelt prefer the Mao or Stalin dictatorship.
Check out the NJ Draft Plan: http://www.state.nj.us/state/p.....inal.html, and then watch Agenda21 YouTube 'for dummies" and you have your answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzEEgtOFFlM
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 10:31AM
Republicans, The GOP, continue to allow the opposition to define the terms of the debate rather than themselves making their case. As long as they continue to fight on the enemy ground (and they are the enemy of freedom) Leipzig not Austerlitz is the likely outcome.
Von Mises Jr| 12.27.12 @ 11:05AM
The GOP are Paul Newman while the Democraps are Robert Redford in "The Sting."
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 5:40PM
Never saw it but it could be the entry for tomorrows contest.
pogybait| 12.27.12 @ 12:47PM
Judging by the way the GOP has worked it’s magic, it's a wonder Democrats have anything left to run on. One day soon the Democrats will be able to say with pride that the big tent is full of open minded Republicans that also believe that the world will be saved once they fine tune their act.
And in the meantime, if things are just a little uncomfortable it’s just the price we have to pay for having government serve as the social mechanism to correctly perfect the human condition.
Larry E| 12.27.12 @ 8:54AM
Well written piece Mr. Lord ... an unwelcomed perspective, however, within the GOP.
The War of Roses was a brief affair compared to the more than century old intraparty fratricide between authentic conservatives and the Establishment.
I cannot help but wonder if the energy invested in this perennial war wouldn't be better spent in forming a new conservative party, given that the "New Republican Party" for which Reagan fought seems to last no longer than the two terms of a genuinely conservative President (Harding/Coolidge and Reagan).
I would have ridiculed such an effort only a few years ago, but at age 50 after having witnessed the efforts of Conservatives rolled back again and again by the Establishment, I'm now quite prepared to acknowledge the obvious ... namely that conservatives are an unwelcomed though essential (might I add single largest) and constituency within the Republican Party. We are, at varying moments, hailed, ridiculed, embraced (at arm’s length) and abused by the Party we are forever told is our home.
Again, our efforts and energy might now be better invested in an effort to construct a viable third Party ... allowing conservatives an opportunity to not only run conservative candidates in a Presidential election (rather than watch them cannibalize the conservative vote in the primaries) but provide a clear alternative for a center right electorate.
Meanwhile, the GOP and DNC could compete between each other for the remaining votes.
.
Bob K| 12.27.12 @ 11:05AM
"The War of Roses was a brief affair ...... "
Right! The 30 Years War is a more apt analogy especially if you want to include the damage the internecine fighting in the Republican Party has caused to the country and it could end up with a permanent division in/of (?) the Republican Party!
Al Adab| 12.27.12 @ 5:44PM
Lets see. The three parties would be the Social Democrats, The Christian Democrats and the Constituional Conservatives. The first gets 42% while the two others split the remainder.
While sympathetic to the cause it is not the road to victory.
Rhoetus| 12.30.12 @ 3:24PM
Al: Did George H W Bush kill Reaganism or castrate the Republican Party?
PolishKnight| 12.27.12 @ 10:04AM
Before we get into the 1980's Hot Tub Time Machine, keep in mind: Percentage of whites in 1982: 80%. Percentage in 2012: 64% and falling. In 1983, 95% of white children were born into two parent families. In 2012, it has fallen to 66%.
Yeah yeah yeah, good luck with primaries and getting rid of those moderate Republicans and discussing new ways to keep rape illegal even for rape victims provided that the whole S.C. is replaced AND a constitutional amendment passed. Yeah, right. In the meantime, the rich are going to have to pay higher taxes and perhaps even mow their own lawns. It's the end of the world as we know it, I feel fine.
Pecos Pete| 12.27.12 @ 10:19AM
Mr. Lord: Well said. And short too. See, you don't have to write a 7 page comment.
RJ| 12.27.12 @ 10:35AM
Thanks, Jeff. I wish the GOP leadership could express the issues like you do.
We know that raising tax rates is not about raising revenue. Even Obama admitted this in 2008 regarding capital gains rates. Raising rates on some Americans is all about the politics of revenge (Obama's own words) and envy; not economics.
We have seen this act too many times; raising tax rates in a deal to cut spending: 1) does not lead to more revenue; 2) spending cuts never happen; and 3) Republicans who join the tax rate raisers seriously undercut the GOP tax policy position and enhance the Democratic one. America needs a political party that offers a contrast to the ideas of more government spending and control; not a party of "Democratic-lite."
Petronius| 12.27.12 @ 11:15AM
Taxes are about one thing: preventing ordinary people from accumulating enough wealth to quit working and paying them.
Bob K| 12.27.12 @ 1:48PM
Jeff,
Re your quote: "My opponent in this Republican Primary is serving as the tax collector for Barrack Obama's Welfare State."
Wrong, Jeff, wrong! All this will get is bad press for the opponent of the incumbent as attacking the "neediest" peoples of our society.
This is what should be said and pounded home:
MY OPPONENT HAS COOPERATED WITH BARRACK OBAMA IN SADDLING THE MIDDLE CLASS WITH OPPRESSIVE TAXES!
You have to identify your constituency and address it when running for public office. To that end the entire focus of this tax reform for the Republican party should be on the relief for the Middle Class. It has to own this issue. It has to keep putting this relief forward. Even at the expense of forgetting about tax relief for the "rich," however they are defined.
It's too bad, because this issue is not even a blip on the Republican leadership's radar screen and without doing something about it 2014 will be another disaster.
Hell, Obama might even co-opt it after the current bill is passed!
cicero| 12.27.12 @ 4:42PM
Even the so called conservative Reps refused to state the obvious. You can't take in 2.4 trillion dollars, and spend 3.4 trillion dollars every year without running out of credit. Base line budgeting is fraud of the first water. In order to buy re-election for your lifetime, you have to tax the bejesus out of the middle class. If they had actually stated those truths, they would not have been reelected.
I suggest that we change the Constitution to make the age for Senators 75 years and older. For Congressmen, the age should be 65 and older. For Pres, while the age can stay the same, but they must have held a job, other than elective office, for at least 10 years. The age limitations would insure that they didn't stay around too long. Senility may actually be a benefit over what we get now. The work requitement for the top job may help the qualified candidate realize that, in the real world, you don't get 50 weeks of paid vacation per year.
Rhoetus| 12.27.12 @ 6:44PM
Just kick the incumbents out by holding a convention to: 1. Repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments. 2. Eliminate all Federal power inside State boundaries. 3. Resign from the United Nations. Then and only then can we start to eliminate all the laws and regulations that conflict with limits set in our Constitution.
air max en france | 12.28.12 @ 2:05AM
Dole made his pitch for an increase in business and excise taxes. Based on the idea of those corresponding budget cuts, Reagan reluctantly went along.
sdfhlk | 12.28.12 @ 8:37PM
Merry Christmas,NBA ,NFL 2012