No New Taxes?

The New York Post is reporting that while campaigning in Iowa that Fred "refused repeated requests yesterday to rule out raising taxes." They followed that statement with a refrain that FDT has said several times in the past:

"We are in the process of gradually bankrupting future generations in this country," Thompson said of Social Security and other entitlement programs that will plunge the federal government deeply into debt over the next decade.

The implication is that since Fred sees some programs bankrupting the budget and that he will not "rule out" raising taxes that he intends on pursuing a policy of raising taxes to pay for these programs.

The problem is that this concept is inconsistent with the other things that Fred has said. Fred has written at least twice regarding the Bush tax cuts. The first was an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal and the second was on the ABC opinion site that Fred started posting on. In both he was strongly in favor of the Bush tax cuts and the economic boom that they have created. He has also indicated to the Fair Tax folk that he wants to address the issue of tax reform.

Here is my take: First, FDT is not for making government larger. Second, he is not for higher taxes. Third, he is for fixing our tax system. By the way, in order to fix the tax system, it will REQUIRE raising some tax while another is lowered. If you look at any of the Fair tax proposals, they include raising sales taxes in order to lower or eliminate income taxes. If he were to promise not to raise taxes and then implement some reform, the "promise" would then come back to haunt him in the future.