The GOP's most promising 2012 presidential contenders—Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Haley Barbour, Mitch Daniels, and Mike Huckabee—have a lot in common. They are all white. They are all middle-aged. They were all governors at one point. And despite a shared tendency to denounce Democrats as inveterate, immoral tax hikers, they all have the exact same skeleton in their closet: a rather inconvenient history of raising taxes themselves. Surprised? It's no wonder. Until now, Romney & Co. have done a good job of hiding their tax-raising records from the rest of the Republican Party—with good reason. In a perfect world, according to GOP orthodoxy, taxes would always be lower than they are right now, no matter how low they currently happen to be. In 2009, for example, U.S. taxes shrank to their smallest share of personal income since 1950. Conservatives still complained. And in the unlikely instance that taxes cannot possibly be reduced any further—like, say, when revenue plummets to a record-low 14.9 percent of GDP, which is where they are today—right-thinking Republicans are required to do the next best thing: Refuse, at all costs, to raise them.
The 2012 budget blueprint that Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled this month is only the latest example of the GOP's taxophobia. Ryan claims the purpose of the proposal is to eradicate the national debt. But his "Path to Prosperity" puts America an extra $4 trillion in the hole before it even attempts to accomplish this worthy goal. How? By slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans—forever. As a result, the rest of Ryan's cuts—to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, the FBI, highways, environmental protection, the Coast Guard, and so on—are trillions of dollars larger than they'd otherwise have to be. The message is clear, if contradictory: For Republicans, the only thing more important than reducing the deficit is increasing it—via massive tax cuts.
Which is why it's so curious that all the party's would-be standard-bearers did precisely the opposite when they were actually tasked with balancing a budget. Some, like Daniels, raised taxes in a relatively straightforward manner. When the former Office of Management and Budget director took control of Indiana in 2005, the state was $200 million in the hole. Digging out was his first priority—and one of his first proposals was a sizable tax hike on all individuals and entities earning over $100,000. The legislature blocked the plan, but Daniels eventually passed a handful of new taxes: one on liquor, one on rental cars, and one that increased the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent. Indiana soon had a $1.3 billion surplus.
