In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
...When George H. Bush promised that he wouldn't raise taxes,
and then later broke his promise...

Of course either your bias or your ignorance prevents you from telling
the *whole* story... To wit; Congress attached a bill creating the
new taxes to a package of bills which Bush also supported, and which
had major political mojo attached to them. (IIRC education funding
and Medicare funding.) He was screwed no matter what he did.

However, it wasn't a hard choice, since he clearly *was* going to have to
raise taxes somehow soon. The promise was a really stupid mistake. This
way he at least had an excuse.

(I recall a pre-election analysis of what the new president would face,
and the "Bush wins" half of it said roughly: "He's going to have to raise
taxes no matter what; there's no other way to keep the government solvent.
His smart move would be to wait just long enough to look plausible, tell
the world the mess is much worse than he thought and it's all Reagan's
fault, and ram the increase through right away. If he delays until he
can't plausibly blame Reagan any more, he's in big trouble. But that's
probably what will happen, because he has too much respect for Reagan to
quickly and decisively throw him to the wolves.")
--
"Think outside the box -- the box isn't our friend." | Henry Spencer
-- George Herbert |