Posted on 12/05/2018 11:37:27 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson on Wednesday used his eulogy of George H.W. Bush as an opportunity to praise the former president for agreeing to raise taxes despite campaigning against it as a candidate.
Simpson, who co-chaired a 2010 commission aimed at reducing the debt through a combination of spending cuts and tax increases, recounted how Bush came to support a 1990 budget deal that raised taxes.
“Congressional participants drafted a remarkable bill that dealt with two-year budgeting, entitlement reform, comprehensive and catastrophic healthcare, Social Security solvency, and much more,” he said. “But it required a critical ingredient called 'revenue,' translated into the word 'taxes,' translated into the words ‘read my lips.’”
Simpson was referencing Bush’s famous pledge during the 1988 campaign, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”
He continued, “The group went to George and said, ‘Look, we can get this package done, but we must have some revenue.’ And he said — and I'll never forget it — he said, 'What I have said on that subject sure puts a hell of a lot of heat on me.’ And then they all said, ‘Yes, but we can get it done, and it will be bipartisan.’ And George said, 'OK, go for it, but it will be a real punch in the gut.’”
Simpson went on to explain, “Bob Dole, then a loyal warrior for George, took it back to the Senate, and we won a very strong bipartisan vote. And it went over to the House where his own party turned on him — surely one of the factors ensuring his return to private life. But he often said, ‘When the really tough choices come, it’s the country, not me. It’s not about Democrats or Republicans, it’s for our country that I fought for.’”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
We have a two party system but some people on the other side are (purposefully?) wearing the wrong jersey.
We have the Conservatives, all of whom wear the GOP jersey; and
We have the democrat party that has the following wings:
-The radical wing. A wing that is radical today but whose members become mainstream tomorrow as a newer more radical wing is ever emerging thanks to our institutions of Higher Indoctrination.
-The moderate wing. See above, they were formally the radical wing.
-The conservative wing. Democrats wearing Republican jerseys who think that what they democrats believe isn’t so bad but that they would make the change to a statist, socialist state gradual and that they can manage it better. They also just want to fit in with the elites. Some of their members are:
The Bushes, Rove, Kasich, Romney, Ryan, Kristol, Flake, Collins, Corker, Collins, Stierwalt, Murkowski, the McCain’s, etc.
Fantastic episode. The Simpsons (particularly the first ten seasons) will stand the test of time.
President Reagan had a good run of prosperity and then we had Bush I/Clinton/Bush II/Obama swamp. President Trump will probably get re-elected and then we are going to head back to the same garbage but much worse.
And then at the end Gerald Ford moves in and Homer becomes friends with him.
So he praised Bush for being a typical politician that lies to his constituents? Got it.
“He rose taxes”
Really? That’s how you eulogize someone?
How’s that balanced budget thing working out now? Hell, how was it working out in 1994?!
IT DIDNT.
A Democrat is never praised for lying to their base.
Al Franken taught there too.
I wonder if Bush 41 felt real good about that deal on the night he nearly finished in 3rd place, November 1992? I wonder how happy the Democrats were that such a gullible, naive, easily rolled man had been elected President?
I have a brother who writes an obscure one-man blog. I’m guessing it is probably read by up to a dozen people.
He wrote some piece a few years back that was mildly critical of Alan Simpson for something or other he had done.
He was shocked to shortly afterwards get a call from Simpson, who berated him and claimed that the things he had written about him were inaccurate.
A former US Senator who is pushing 90 yrs. old was paranoid enough to track down the home phone number of a small-time blogger for criticizing him. That’s the kind of power trip the D.C. elite goes on I suppose.
Sigh. I will not eviscerate GHWB like many do here, I view the man as a product of his times, but...to have him praised for raising taxes after he said he wouldn’t is beyond my ken.
That says as much about Alan Simpson as it does about George H.W. Bush.
He deliberately blew it.
He was promised both his idiot sons would get the presidency if he threw it to BJ Clinton in 92.
Have always enjoyed Alan Simpson. He has always struck me as a man of character. His eulogy today was awesome.
Thank you for pointing this out. I read some of the posts on boards elsewhere by lefties and am really astonished by some of their rhetoric. Then I come on FR (long time member) and I read the same type of vitriol posted by “conservatives”. Sadly, very sadly, a sign of the times and doesn’t bode well for our Republic.
Ohhhh, he was SO BRAVE to stick it to the American people once again.
Liberals love liberal actions.
Bush said A and did B.
Perhaps for good reasons.
And, he was - of course - lied to by liberals, who used this to defeat him.
Evidently, Repubs cannot learn that a liberal is sleazy, untrustworthy, most probably a criminal, and deserving of the guillotine.
Bush got sandbagged by the sleazy dishonest greasy dog squeeze George Mitchell who promised serious spending cuts in return. Never cut a penny and publicly laughed at Bush.
Ya.
They “bi-partisan-ed” him right out of office. basically “de-partisan-ed” him.
(Perot notwithstanding)
This really IS the definition of “Bipartisanship”. Where a republican caves to the Dems. The Dems then turn around and use that as a club to destroy the bipartisan person and replace them with an unswerving democrat partisan.
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The only way to fix our issues is to cut entitlement and...
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You misspelled ELIMINATE in the early part of your post.
What *NEEDS* to happen is to return to a Constitutional Republic again.
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As long as policymakers get seduced by Keynesian stimulus policies our deficit is going to get worse until we are gripped by debt service.
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Another (easy) ‘fix’ would be eliminating the Fed Reserve (no authority was granted Fedzilla to bequeath their power over monetary policy/minting).
No more funny-money, no more reckless spending.
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We’ve collected a record amount revenue after the Trump tax cuts. There is no need to raise taxes. We have an ample amount of revenue.
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Fedzilla’s got TOO much damn ‘revenue’
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