Cleland, Wellstone Won't Answer
Senators Split on Human Events No-Tax Pledge
In any federal election it may be the most basic question a voter can ask of a candidate: Will this person vote to take more of my money?
The question is so obvious and fundamental that campaigns often put much thought and energy into devising strategies to obscure their candidate’s true answer to it. Establishment journalists with ready access to politicians often neglect to ask it—or implicitly conspire with the politicians to ensure the question never becomes a featured issue.
But thanks to the 1st Amendment and offices located on Capitol Hill, the editors of Human Events are able to at least partially fill this news vacuum by putting the question in person to incumbent lawmakers seeking reelection.
To give our questioning added impact, we focused on the 30 sitting senators who are on the ballot for re-election in November, and put the inquiry in the form of a pledge: "If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?"
Last week, HE Associate Editor Joseph A. D’Agostino and Assistant Editor David Freddoso were able to pose the question to 13 of these senators. We hope to question the other 17 soon. Stay tuned.
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If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Wayne Allard (R.-Colo.): I’m never one that votes for tax increases, and I don’t plan on voting for any tax increases. That’s right. I’ll take that pledge. The reason I won’t vote for any tax increases is that taxes are high enough. As a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, they are at the highest level they’ve ever been since World War II.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Larry Craig (R.-Id.): Oh, yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever voted for a tax increase in my life.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Tim Hutchinson (R.-Ark.): Yes, I will.
Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. James Inhofe (R.-Okla.): I’ve always done that. Sometimes there are questions about what is a tax increase, such as allowing taxes over the Internet. Is that a tax increase? But our problem has never been too low taxes.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Gordon Smith (R.-Ore.): Yes.
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Senator, if re-elected, will—
Sen. Max Cleland (D.-Ga.): Who are you with again?
Human Events.
Cleland: No, I’m sorry. Thank you!
Thank you.
Senator Cleland's office did not respond to requests for comment.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Dick Durbin (D.-Ill.): Of course not. I don’t make those kinds of promises.
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If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against any tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.): I certainly pledge to vote against any income tax increases.
You might go for other taxes—maybe?
Kerry: I don’t have a clue about any of this. But I would never raise income taxes. I think that they’re fine. I haven’t made any judgments.
You wouldn’t want to put yourself on the record saying—
Kerry: Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen. You know, someone will call a fee [a tax] or something and I just don’t want to get into that sort of a trap. But I’m not going to raise income taxes, which are the important ones.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Carl Levin (D.-Mich.): Why do you ask?
Our readers are conservative and for low taxes, and I know that you’re running and I think they would like it if you would pledge to vote against tax increases.
Levin: I’m sure they would. I don’t think so. We got that big tax cut for some of your wealthiest readers and I don’t think that was wise. I would freeze the [Bush] tax cut at $150,000.
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If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against any tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.): Well, how do you define tax increases?
Uh, raising the rates of payroll, income, capital gains or estate taxes, I guess, unless you can think of any others.
McConnell: The only increase in fees that I can envision might be related to a particular Kentucky issue, which is the possibility of buying out our tobacco farmers, which is a very localized issue. It might require some kind of levy on our tobacco products in order to provide the revenue to buy out our tobacco farmers and move beyond the current program. But if you’re talking about the kind of taxes you listed, barring some extraordinary occurrence, it would be my hope not to raise any taxes, but to cut additional taxes.
So with the exception of that tobacco tax, you wouldn’t raise any other taxes?
McConnell: Now look, I’m highly unlikely. I didn’t come here to raise taxes. I came here to cut taxes. I’m highly unlikely to support tax increases of the kind you enumerated.
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If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Pat Roberts (R.-Kan.): No. . . . I don’t intend on voting it, but if you say it as just a blank promise, regardless—the war could expand, you could have a war tax. But I’d probably be the last person that would vote for a tax increase.
Barring a presidential request for a tax to fund the war, would you be willing to take that pledge?
Roberts: Well, there are other things as well that can get you into an emergency situation. We just had one with farmers, for instance. So I just don’t like to sign pledges, but I’ll be the last guy in the place to be voting for [tax increases].
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If re-elected, will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.): I expect to be voting for tax reductions, not tax increases.
And you won’t vote for tax increases?
Sessions: Well, sometimes a tax increase is. . . . Well, that’s my answer, I guess.
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Will you pledge to vote against all tax increases in your next Senate term?
Sen. Paul Wellstone (D.-Minn.): I don’t do interviews on the fly.
Senator Wellstone's office did not respond to requests for comment. |
