Tom Oliphant of the Boston Globe has an online op ed entitled
Bush's eerie silence on tax reform that is well worth the read. I do not have a lot of time for analysis, so that below the fold I will offer a few snippets with the normal caveat that you should go and read the entire piece.
But let me note this -- Oliphant sees this as even further evidence of the continued weakness of Bush. In the piece he reminds us that this was one of the key points Bush promised in his campaign for a second term, and yet another one from which he is walking -- or is it running -- away. Take a gander and see what you thing.
Here's the beginning:
WASHINGTON --KNOWING THAT taxes are among President Bush's favorite topics, I couldn't wait to hear his reaction to the report of the commission he set up this year to recommend sweeping changes in the country's messy system that satisfies no one beyond the lobbyists who do so much to make it so messy.
But I had to wait. And wait some more. Eventually, even a patient soul like myself couldn't avoid realizing that Bush was not going to say anything. Not a word. Not a syllable. Zip. Silence.
It gets better. After noting the lack of verbal support from Treasury Secretary John Snow, Oliphant adds
I may be dumb, but I at least know the brush-off when I see it. The former railroad boss couldn't even bring himself to say "good" starting place
Even Scott McClellan tired to finesse giving an answer showing any support, describing it as
he adroitly escalated the administration's response from brush-off to kiss-off. Said McClellan, with no reference to the commission's recommendations whatsoever "We look forward to moving forward on initiatives that the president will outline later with members of Congress."
The next three short grafs make the point directly:
The sight of a president walking away -- make that running away -- from what he once declared a top priority is never pretty. But lest anyone forget, let's go back to Bush's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention barely a year ago in New York City. At the time, he had been having some difficulty saying just what it was that he wanted to do with a second term, and he and his advisers had pretty much decided that sweeping change in the tax code should be one of them.
So, to great cheers, Bush said the following: "In a new term I will lead a bipartisan effort to reform and simplify the federal tax code."
The key word was "lead." But not only has Bush not led at all, he has been unable to even follow. A commission can be a big help for presidents who don't know much and aren't curious, but rare is the chief who names one to develop a proposal and then hides from it. Only Bush has done it before -- with Social Security in 2001.
Oliphant says that the president had no idea what he wanted on taxes, but that his picks to head his commission were good (although I'm not sure Oliphant would find strong agreement here):
There was a centrist, Democratic deal maker John Breaux of Louisiana, and a conservative, Connie Mack of Florida. Their only important instruction was that this had to be true reform -- meaning that revenue lost from further cuts had to be balanced by provisions that increase it.
Oliphant notes that the panel assumed permanency of Bush's previous tax cuts, and avoided
pies in the sky like flat taxes and national sales levies as income tax substitutes.
But in proposing doing away with the Alternative Minimum Tax the panel had to come up with $1.2 trillion over ten years, which represented a lot of hardship. And this is where it got messy:
Compensating for that was the commission's real challenge. Rather than touch income tax rates, it went for major deductions -- including capping the mortgage interest deduction for very high-income individuals, assaulting the deductibility of employer contributions to health insurance plans, and ending the deduction for state and local taxes paid.
The final short graf says it all, and note where I have used bold for emphasis:
That all but guarantees congressional rejection, especially by pols from large states, and it helps explain the fact that Bush hid from his own commission. But the fact remains that one more element that once loomed large for a second term is moribund. You almost wonder why he ran.
Given all of his current problems, I wonder if Bush is asking himself that question.