Sunday, February 22, 2009

Schwarzenegger's truthfulness

I was just watching California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on This Week with George Stephanopoulos talk about the budget deal just reached in Sacremento which involves tax increases and spending cuts. George reminded Arnold that when he ran for governor he promised never to raise taxes and asked, "Were you wrong to make that pledge?" "No," replied the governor, "because I really hate raising taxes, but this is an emergency."

So when a Republican says "never raise taxes" do they really mean "only raise taxes when the situation demands?" It seems that Republicans are using different standards of truthfulness than the Democrats. Democrats are much less likely than Republicans to say they would 'never raise taxes," not because they hate taxes any less but because they are aware that in an emergency raising taxes may be necessary. Is their different attitude toward saying what they mean and meaning what they say putting Democrats at a disadvantage when campaigning?

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