Bill Clinton’s repudiation of his own 1993 tax increase, and then his semi- repudiation of his repudiation, again reveal his increasingly bizarre weakness for the unnecessary lie. Faced with a roomful of rich people in Texas last week, the president decided, as is his wont, to demonstrate his empathy with his audience. “I raised your axes more than I wanted to” is “I feel your pain” for rich people. It is a lie of many layers; it is almost baroque. During the 1993 budget battles, he invariably defended the tax hike as a judicious way of correcting the favor-the-rich tax policies of the 1980s. He was targeting, quite explicitly, the very people to whom” he now apologizes. Still better: He wanted to raise taxes even more than he did – – and raise them on everyone. Remember the $ 71 billion BTU tax that “Capitol Hill’s Democrats — not Republicans, Democrats — had to get rid of back in ’93? “My mother once said I should never give a talk after 7:00 at night?” the president said in extenuation, “especially if I’m tired.” We would agree with the president’s mother, except he’s probably making it up.
