t just came to me what the ''W'' stands for in George W. Bush: ''Wheeeeeeee!!!''
That's the sound of a politician who's just promised everyone a tax cut. Any hedge or qualification of that, Gov'nor? No? ''Everybody gets a tax cut,'' says Boy George. Whee!
Promise-them-anything-but-give-them-a-tax-tantalizer is a strand of DNA that runs deep in the Bush dynasty gene pool. Remember ''Read my lips, no new taxes''? Ring a bell? Breaking that pledge cost George Sr. heavily eight years ago; he lost New Hampshire and New England to the Clinton-Gore Express. Ex-President Read-My-Lips is now back campaigning for his eldest son. And the apple doesn't fall far from the tax talk tree.
Crowded from the right by antitaxer Steve Forbes, Bush Jr. whistled up a huge tax giveaway. Right, said his Texas brain trust. Tax cuts for everybody. Coming right up. We take $483 billion in tax revenue the government will take over the next five years and give it back as tax cuts. Over 10 years, that'd be $1.3 trillion. We run by promising everybody money! Is that great or what? Who can say no to free money?
The Stop Boy George crowd reacted predictably. Forbes, who has an MO of knocking GOP rivals with late-stage TV ads, runs spots accusing Bush Jr. of breaking a no-tax-hike pledge in Texas, which pledge George W. did break, sort of, en route to signing some different tax cuts passed by his taxphobic Legislature. Bush's tax cut giveaway is slammed by Senator John McCain, who's neck-and-neck with Bush in New Hampshire, as irresponsible and titled unfairly to reward the rich.
The gutsy McCain had the temerity to point out that Bush's scheme is a giveaway to the wealthy. That leaves Governor `Dubbaya' scratching his noggin, muttering ''What's wrong with that?'' The Bush camp is trying to smash McCain's campaign with New Hampshire TV spots claiming that the Arizonan would tax your fringe benefits at work. False, shouts McCain and allies like former senator Warren Rudman, a New Hampshire icon.
When it gets down to the final strokes in New Hampshire, the Bush Gang has a track record of low blows on the tax issue. Twelve years ago, Bush Sr. staged a come-from-behind surge against Bob Dole with some misleading TV attack ads castigating Dole as ''Senator Straddle.'' High times often follow low blows in politics. As Bush Sr. savored his make-or-break New Hampshire victory over the crestfallen Dole on NBC, Tom Brokaw mischeviously inquired if Dole had any word for Bush. ''Yeah,'' snarled Dole. ''Tell him to stop lying about my record.''
This time it's a different Bush locked in a close tussle in New Hampshire, but the tactic is the same. ''Governor Bush is purposely misrepresenting my tax plan,'' says McCain, whose scheme would cut taxes by half of Bush's target, tilt the breaks to low and middle-income people, and use the remaining budget surplus to save Social Security.
''Class warfare,'' snorts Bush, and his cheerleaders in the right wing media combine. If only the proles would stop squirming, the rich could simply put their boot on the proletariat's neck and we could get on with it in the natural order of things. ''Class warfare'' is what Bush grumbles when debate turns to how come the rich get the gravy in the Bush scheme of things.
There's also a generational tug here. McCain is 63; his hair has gone white, thanks to a little assist from those crazy guys at the Hanoi Hilton, and John gets more of the vote of veterans and the oldsters than Bush, the Boomer Boy candidate, who came to cherish tax breaks for box seats as a baseball owner. Bush gets a younger, more affluent vote; his boomers like tax breaks for box seats.
New Hampshire is used to seducers dangling tax cuts under the noses of primary voters. Bill Clinton dangled $300 per year per middle-income family in '88, prompting Paul Tsongas to waggle his finger at ''Pander Bear,'' an election year tax cut pleader.
Tax cuts have actually diminished as a vote trigger if you accept the polls. This Clinton-Gore economy is so strong, incomes so high, that the economic insecurity that destroyed Bush Sr. in 1988 now barely flickers. Old houses clad in peeling paint eight years ago have two fresh coats of latex now. Banks are not failing, they are flailing, trying to sell new products to a newly prosperous New Hampshire.
But there remains a core of bottom-line voters to whom the promise of tax cuts is as seductive as gin to a toper. It is so much hogwash, natch. Bush vows spending billions more on the military, pricey new Star Wars gizmos, to make schools better, bolster Social Security and Medicare, and do all this while forgoing a trillion bucks in revenue.
Use your bean: Can that be done? Of course not. There's nothing like a trillion or a half-trillion in ''waste, fraud, and corruption,'' the usual suspects cited by tax-cutters when their numbers don't add up. But read their lips: As Bush & Bush learned early, just because you don't mean it doesn't mean you can't say it, as long as it works.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
