I guess a job as Nixon speechwriter can leave you with emotional scars that last a lifetime. At least that`s the impression you get when you watch ex-Nixonite William Safire attacking the other party`s candidate for president (”Taxing, spending and the Dukakis dodge,” June 28).
First, Safire rips Michael Dukakis as a ”tax-and-spend liberal” for resolving the Massachusetts deficit with a combination of spending cuts and a tax increase. Would Safire prefer that Dukakis handle the problem the way the current administration has-by not resolving it at all? One wonders what names Safire would call Dukakis then.
Then Safire accuses the Democrat of telling the big lie that his more courageous opponent, George ”No New Taxes” Bush, is really just as big a spender as he is. Of course, Safire essentially admits to Dukakis` point:
that the Reagan/Bush team has tried to make up for its own ill-advised 1981 tax cuts by raising our taxes four times in the past six years. But Safire still tries to defend Bush by making this amazing claim:
”The federal deficit is not the result of the Reagan tax cuts . . . (but) was caused by the shameful, bipartisan unwillingness to curb spending.”
First, isn`t a ”deficit” simply any occasion where taxes don`t equal spending? If so, how can a cut in tax revenue have no effect on a deficit?
And second, the big spending was mostly on the giant military build-up that the Reagan/Bush team asked for-which makes it exactly as ”bipartisan” as they are.
The shame of all this is that George Bush does offer the country some pretty good reasons to vote for him. He`s an experienced, professional politician who was smart enough to know ”voodoo economics” when he saw it eight years ago. As a former coworker, William Safire could be providing us with a lot of useful information on Mr. Bush. Too bad he`s so busy flinging mud on other people instead.
