Meg: Stop lying about Jerry and taxes

John Seiler:

Meg Whitman continues running commercials based on disproved assertions about Jerry Brown and taxes. It’s especially grating that she is using a Bill Clinton quote attacking Jerry from the 1992 presidential campaign.

First, Clinton is a notorious liar. That’s why he’s called Slick Willie. And if Meg had been paying attention to politics and voting, instead of making billions, she might have noticed that Bill Clinton said, “I have not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky” — when he had.

Second, whatever Jerry’s other many faults — and I could fill a phone book with them — he always has been open to tax reform and reduction. In 1992, his flat-tax proposal was designed by none other than Art Laffer, the supply-side guru who helped design both Prop. 13 and President Reagan’s tax cuts. In fact, the flat-tax idea was Jerry’s main one back in 92, and the only thing anyone remembers about his campaign that year. Meg might remember that if she weren’t a rank amateur about politics.

Come to think of it, what of substance does anyone remember about Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign? Only his proposed “middle class tax cut.” Another lie. Once in office, he promptly raised middle-class taxes.

Oh, and who is Meg’s campaign charman? None other than Pete “Record State Increase in 1992” Wilson. And from where did many of her top campaign aides come? From the regime of Arnold “Record State Tax Increase in 2009” Schwarzenegger-Shriver Kennedy.

And although Meg took a “no new taxes” pledge, after swamping Poizner in the June primary, she started trimming:

One of the first actions that Republican Meg Whitman took upon declaring her candidacy for governor was signing a pledge never to raise taxes — but on Tuesday she added a hedge to that vow.

The candidate suggested that she might consider a tax hike in the event of an extreme natural disaster. It seemed a subtle step back, but among the anti-tax crusaders who have persuaded almost every GOP state officeholder and top-ticket candidate to sign the pledge, there is no hedging allowed.

Right. That’s because the hedgers end up being like Wilson, Schwarzenegger-Shriver-Kennedy, and George H.W. “Read MyLips: No New Taxes!!!!!” Bush, and driving a pick-axe into the backs of taxpayers.