"Revenue Enhancemets"

Funny. I've asked several conservative friends of mine why they'll vote for McCain over Obama, and the answer, invariably, has been "because in our experience, Obama, a Democrate will raise taxes, and McCain, a Republican won't and Democrats have a track record of raising taxes while Republicans always cut them."

What a stupid, un-researched, idiotic answer.

Here's what's happened. In the last 28 years, we've had (alas) twenty years of Republican catastrophes and eight years of Democratic rule. I don't care what Clinton did in his personal life, who he did and where. He WAS a good president who was hounded day and night by assholes like Ken Starr, who was hired and paid WAY too much money to go after Clinton for anything and everything. And Clinton did NOT raise taxes. In fact, part of the reason he got elected to office was because Bush 41 (the dad) actually BROKE his campaign promise and DID raise taxes. Bush 

reneged on his promise not to raise taxes (see below).

Clinton, on the other hand, 

signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses,^[44] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers.^[45] Additionally, through the implementation of spending restraints, it mandated the budget be balanced over a number of years.

expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, a subsidy for low income workers ^{[24] and passed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 in August 1993, which passed Congress without a Republican vote. and passed the It cut taxes for fifteen million low-income families, made tax cuts available to 90% of small businesses,[44] and raised taxes on the wealthiest 1.2% of taxpayers.[45]} 

In fact, part of that bill was to actually balance the budget BY SPENDING LESS!!!

Reagan, on the other hand, did INDEED raise taxes, despite popular belief. It's just that HE called them "REVENUE ENHANCEMENT," not tax hikes.

And now it's McLiar's turn:

Now comes Republican candidate John McCain, eager to reassure conservatives he's no tax raiser, yet also intent on letting voters know he will "do the hard things," as he often said in the primaries.

"I don't want tax increases. But that doesn't mean that anything is off the table" when it comes to Social Security, he said over the weekend.

*SNIP* (And don't worry, I'm not taking anything here out of context or tailoring it to my own purporses.)

"We hope you will clarify where you stand on this important issue and reaffirm your commitment to eschew all tax increases," wrote Pat Toomey, the group's president.

McCain provided his answer in Sparks, Nev., on Tuesday, when a girl asked him whether he would ever raise taxes.

"No" was the answer, a paragon of simplicity in contrast to the parsing by aides seeking to explain his earlier remarks.

Regardless of his answer, McCain's underlying problem is a lack of trust among economic conservatives in his own party. There's no surprise in that. Citing deficit concerns, he voted against the tax cuts the current President Bush pushed through Congress in 2001.

Now, with red ink headed into record territory, he favors a permanent extension of the same cuts he once opposed, saying anything else would be a tax increase.

Democrats call that a politically motivated flip-flop. By any name, it seems to make Toomey nervous.

And the more the campaign denies it, my dear conservative friends, the more there is to fear:

Challenging Reagan for the presidential nomination in 1980, Bush had deemed it "voodoo economics" to claim taxes could be cut without increasing the deficit. It was at the core of the supply-side economics Reagan championed and, not surprisingly, conservatives were slow to warm to the vice president.

Eight years later, he was still trying to make amends when he delivered his speech accepting the nomination at the party convention.

"The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say to them, 'Read my lips: No new taxes,'" Bush said to applause that night.

He won the White House but, within two years, Congress pushed him to raise taxes and he said yes as part of a deal with Democrats to reduce deficits. Without the support Reagan could fall back on, Bush then lost at the polls in 1992, in part because conservatives abandoned him out of anger at his reversal.

Fearful of the same treatment, McCain's aides worked overtime to contain the damage.

"He's said again and again that he's not going to raise taxes," spokesman Tucker Bounds told Fox News, a statement of fact that stopped short of a promise not to do so in the future.

Bounds also said Social Security was a different kind of debate and to "really take this challenge on, we're going to have to be honest."

In conclusion, he added: "There is no imaginable circumstance where John McCain would raise payroll taxes. It's absolutely out of the question."

Anyone ever hear the phrase "methinks thou doth protest too much?" And there's an awful lot of protesting going on here. Especially considering the Republican Party's anti-Republican Party Big Government and Lots of Spending policies, the money's going to have to come from SOMEWHERE. Where's it going to come from? The poor and working class? How much longer, in this depressed economy (yes, folks, despite numerous protestation and rosy outlooks, it IS a depression, and the Federal Reserve HAS admitted it, at least internally), do they think that'll work before a real revolution gets underway? You can only stamp and stomp on people so far, you know...

So, I'm not exactly sure why my conservative friends insist that Democrats ALWAYS raise taxes, and Republican NEVER do. It's just a lie, pure and simple.

And again, when Obama talks about raising taxes, it's for the wealthy, who SHOULD be taxed more. He has stated again and again (and we have no reason to doubt him as he has ALWAYS championed the working, poorer classes) he will lower taxes for the less privileged and raise them for the rich.

My heart goes out to the rich. Those poor, suffering souls. They had it so good under Reaganomics' "trickle down" because NOTHING EVER TRICKLED DOWN!!