Mark Shields: Republicans Haven't Raised Taxes in 21 Years 'And That Is Irresponsible'

July 7th, 2012 9:38 AM

Liberal media's love for higher taxes is a thing of legends.

On Inside Washington Friday, PBS's perpetually pandering pundit Mark Shields told viewers that since 1991, "21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Obama has to defend the policies he’s instituted. Five trillion dollars of debt added leaving us with a 1.7 percent economic expansion. That is a disaster. I think, yes, the Romney argument is not lies. The argument is…

NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: [Laughs]

KRAUTHAMMER: ...you conducted a Keynesian experiment – here’s the argument - and it did not succeed, because it sprinkled all this money on programs, crony capitalism and government jobs, which is not the key to growth, and that’s the major distinction between the policies of the Left and the Right, Democrats and Conservatives.

MARK SHIELDS, PBS: Well we do all of this equal time of who’s at fault, I just point out one thing: George Herbert Walker Bush dared to raise taxes in 1991. Since that action, 21 years, Republicans have not voted for a single broad-based tax increase, and that’s become the theology of the party, the ideology of the party, the definition of the party, and that is irresponsible.

First off, Bush 41 didn't raise taxes in 1991. He did it in 1990.

Liberal media members can't even get their facts straight about their beloved tax hikes.

Not surprisingly, Shields also ignored Bush lost the two years later almost exclusively because he went against his campaign promise to not raise taxes.

Even more disgraceful, media members such as Shields who publicly bludgeoned Bush into raising taxes hammered him the following year for doing so thereby assisting Bill Clinton's effort to unseat him.

Such inconvenient truths always seem to get left out of press discussions concerning the 1991 tax hike.


Also missing was how Walter Mondale in 1984 for all intents and purposes lost the election that year the day he told the nation during a debate with President Reagan that he was going to raise taxes.

The fact of the matter is that only the Left and their media minions want higher taxes; the vast majority of Americans don't.

But that doesn't prevent folks such as Shields from calling it irresponsible.