The Ugly Truth

Stephen Moore lays down the ugly truth on taxes and the GOP:

America's swing voters, especially the suburban "security moms," who abandoned the GOP in droves in 2006 still hold Republicans in very low regard. What has party tacticians especially spooked is that these independents are apparently not much attracted to what the Republicans are saying about taxes. That's a bitter pill for party leaders to swallow, because for 25 years the anti-tax banner has been a political trump card for conservative candidates. A top strategist at the Republican National Committee who attended the meeting told me: "Our tax message has worn thin."

And he's right. Unfortunately, the message of tax cuts cannot in and of itself save the GOP anymore. Not because people want to pay more in taxes; check out Maryland's reaction to Governor O'Malley's attempts to swindle us out of more money and you'll see that. It's because Republicans, particularly in Congress, stopped being about what Republicans have been about. Smaller government and less government spending. Something the American people do understand:

There is another GOP imperative: The anti-tax message must be linked to wasteful government spending. "There's no question that for seven out of 10 American voters, wasteful government spending is one of the largest problems in Washington," says pollster Tony Fabrizio. "For many of these voters it's a bigger issue than taxes." All of the polling consistently finds that voters believe about 40 cents of every dollar spent by Washington is wasted. So this widespread aversion to the way government mishandles money may be the best shield against tax hikes--at all levels of government.

In Mr. Winston's survey, 75% of respondents agreed that, "Taxes should not be increased as long as Congress continues to waste the tax money it already receives." Only 23% did not.

We need to reclaim the Republican Party as the party of small government conservatism, not statism wrapped in a conservative bow. To continue to spend like Democrats only further imperils our current political state...