He didn't say, "Read my lips," but John McCain still made the same mistake George H.W. Bush did:
Republican John McCain says there will be no new taxes during his administration if he is elected president.
"No new taxes," the likely GOP presidential nominee said during a taped interview broadcast Sunday.
McCain told ABC's "This Week" that under no circumstances would he increase taxes, and added that he could "see an argument, if our economy continues to deteriorate, for lower interest rates, lower tax rates, and certainly decreasing corporate tax rates," as well as giving people the ability to write off depreciation and eliminating the alternative minimum tax.
The problem with the "under no circumstances" argument is that we can never predict the exact circumstances we will actually face, whether it involves taxation, foreign policy or what color to paint the Lincoln bedroom. I don't believe this pledge from McCain anymore than I would one from Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama that, "Under no circumstances will I ever take preemptive action against Iran." The tax increase Bush 41 went along with would have been no more or less right or wrong without the "Read my lips" nonsense, but that pledge left him vulnerable to the "lack of core principles" argument and helped Ross Perot get 19 percent of the vote and put Bill Clinton in the White House.
