Palin Was No Tax Cutter

The choice of Sarah Palin shows the influence of the religious right on McCain’s campaign, but neither he or Palinl offer very much to fiscal conservatives. Her record on por-barrel spending is so bad that even Fox News has criticized her on this point. The Cato Institute has reviewed her record on taxation and it is not very good from a fiscal conservative stand point. They report that she offered some “narrow or minor tax breaks” but the author writes, “I see no evidence that Palin offered any major tax cuts.” The overal impression is that, “On tax policy, Alaska governor Sarah Palin has a rather uninspiring, albeit brief, record.” (Hat tip to Andrew Sullivan.)

Overall the McCain/Palin ticket has a lot to offer the hyper-nationalists and neo-conservatives on foreign policy and the religious right on social issues. They have little to offer more traditional conservatives who might be interested in issues such as small government or civil liberties. As Andrew Sullivan writes, “The selling of Sarah Palin has been about as reliable as the vetting.”

2 Comments

  1. 1
    MsJoanne says:

    From what I read, she offered tax cuts to corporations while raising things like food and car registrations – property taxes, too, in some cases – which really hurt the families of Wasilla.  McCain is already talking about billions in “tax relief” for the poor mega-corporations.

    Who is going to pay for the war?  The deficit?  The second major bailout in a year?  Print more money?  Further devalue the dollar.

    She is into borrowing and spending, big time, too.

    Palin and McCain are going to put our country into the latest and greatest Depression.  We are already part way there now.

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    We already knew that McCain was offering a continuation of the economic and foreign policy disasters of George Bush, along with even bigger tax cuts for the rich and health care policies which will increase out of pocket costs for most people. At least there was hope that going from Bush to McCain would reduce the influence of the religious right. The choice of Palin sure dashed those hopes.

    There does remain hope that Palin was a token gift to the religious right and that he will ignore her views once in office. The Republican Party does have a long history of pandering to the religious right during elections and then giving them as little as they could get away with once in office.

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