Democrats' Ads Take Swipes At Bush Tax Cuts

Author: Howard Kurtz

Published: December 8, 2003

Howard Dean's strategists say it's a fight he is itching to have. "He's the real fiscal conservative in this race," said spokesman Jay Carson.

Republicans say that by vowing to repeal President Bush's tax cuts, Dean has indelibly branded himself as a raid-your-pocketbook liberal. "Somehow campaigning as Herbert Hoover is not something I thought I'd ever see a Democratic candidate do," said GOP consultant Alex Castellanos.

As the advertising wars heat up, no target looms larger for Democrats than the Bush tax cuts. The major presidential candidates have taken a calculated risk of being pinned with the tax-raising label by running ads either vowing to make better use of the money or trumpeting the fairness issue:

"As president, I'll get rid of the Bush tax cuts to guarantee health insurance for every American," says Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.).

"My plan . . . raises rates for those who can afford it and cuts taxes for the middle class," says Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.).

"Roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to invest in health care and education," says an ad for Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).

"I opposed the Bush tax cuts because they are bad for the economy, and they are costing us jobs," Dean says.

But it is Dean who has come under assault on the airwaves, because he leads the polls in states such as New Hampshire and because he, like Gephardt, would eliminate the $1.7 trillion in tax relief that Bush pushed through in 2001 and this year.

The Club for Growth, a free-market advocacy group in Washington, aired an attack spot last week declaring: "Howard Dean says he'll raise taxes on the average family by more than $1,900 a year." Dean responded with a commercial accusing Bush of "hiding behind negative ads that falsely attack Howard Dean," who, it says, "balanced 11 budgets in a row." Although the former Vermont governor was required to balance those budgets, the ad reminds viewers that Bush "created the largest deficit in our country's history," now pegged at $480 billion.

Just how repealing the tax cuts would affect the much-courted "middle class" invoked by Democrats is a matter of dispute.

Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, said he is "very confident" in the numbers supplied by a Treasury Department study. "Howard Dean is leading politically with his chin," Moore said. "Republicans are going to be able to pummel him over and over again." He acknowledged, however, that families without children "didn't get much of a tax cut."

The Dean camp dismisses the $1,900 figure. "Most people got around 400 bucks," Carson said. "The Bush Treasury Department is trying to make the Bush tax cuts look as favorable as possible. Unfortunately, that doesn't pass the smell test."

If the tax cuts were repealed, the Treasury study says, an average married couple with two children and $40,000 in income would see their taxes rise from $45 to $1,978.

Dean says he would put the money from the tax cuts into providing health insurance for all Americans -- a figure he puts at $87 billion, or what Bush got from Congress for security and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Dean camp, citing an Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center report, says the bottom 60 percent of taxpayers (those earning less than $40,000) will get a $304 tax cut this year, while the top 1 percent will receive an average break of $26,335. Carson said it is pointless to provide an average figure for all taxpayers because "you're factoring in what Bill Gates's family got also."

"In the primary, that kind of message works," said Republican strategist Mike Murphy. "People in a Democratic primary are far more liberal and far more anti-anything with the word Bush attached." A tax hike will be a much harder sell in a general election, he said.

Democratic consultant Jenny Backus said candidates in her party "are vulnerable on the tax-raising issue if Republicans use it as synonymous with values. Republicans have made it a buzz word, a catch phrase, to make Democrats look out of touch and elite."

In the language of Democratic commercials, the tax cuts are cast as part of a larger argument between wealthy special interests, represented by Bush, and the average folks the candidates want to champion. It is a more aggressive version of the "people versus the powerful" theme that Al Gore tried against Bush in 2000.

Kerry, for example, says in one spot that Bush is fighting for "the drug companies and insurance industries," while Kerry cares about "your family's health care." Another Kerry ad ties the president to "oil companies," "corporate lobbyists" and "polluters."

Lieberman argues in an ad that he would shut down "the outrageous loopholes for corporations" but cut taxes "for the middle class."

Sen. John Edwards (N.C.) is even more explicit, saying that Bush is allowing "a multimillionaire sitting beside his swimming pool" to pay "a lower tax rate than a teacher, than a police officer, than a secretary." Multimillionaires actually pay a higher income tax rate, but the Edwards camp says the ad refers only to those who live off investment income, and therefore pay a 15 percent capital gains rate.

Beyond the numbers debate, Dean tries to capitalize on the fact that most people don't feel any richer, especially when state and local taxes are considered. At a recent town hall meeting in New Hampshire, he said:

"Some of my opponents are saying, 'Oh, Dean wants to get rid of the middle-class tax cut.' How much did your property tax go up in the last three years? How much did your kids' college tuition go up? There was no such thing as a middle-class tax cut."