Dean finds religion on taxes

For months Dean has made a virtue of his steadfast insistence on the complete repeal of the Bush tax cuts, even those provisions that benefit working families and the middle class.

Indeed, that's been one of the ways the self-appointed tribune of "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party" has distinguished himself from the pack. "What I want to know is why are Democratic Party leaders supporting tax cuts?" Dean said last February in the speech that electrified the winter meeting of the Democratic National Committee. "The question is not how big the tax cut should be; the question should be: Can we afford a tax cut at all at the time of the largest deficit in the history of this country?"

Asked in October about the tax relief program Senator Joseph Lieberman had proposed, Dean replied: "That's the problem with Washington politicians. They promise you everything."

But now, thanks to the reporting of the Globe's Michael Kranish, we know that Dean's political team has told the Democratic front-runner exactly what electorally savvy Democrats have long said: To advocate complete repeal of the tax cuts is to put a tax hike target on your back for the general election. Thus Dean's team wants him to propose tax relief of his own.

And now Dean is saying he will, at least for working families, and possibly for the middle class as well.

The way Dean has previously dealt with the issue is to portray the Bush tax cuts as a massive giveaway to "Ken Lay and the boys" and to take refuge in statistical sleight of hand to deny that people of more moderate means got any real benefit. Sixty percent of the American people got a tax cut of only $304, he has said again and again.

But an honest look at the Bush tax cuts shows that they delivered significant benefits to working- and middle-class families, particularly those with children.

Here are figures from the well-respected Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center: 31.5 percent of joint filers -- that is, married couples -- got a tax break of between $2,001 and $5,000. Another 18 percent got a break of between $1,201 and $2,000. In all, 54 percent of married couples got a tax break of $1,001 to $5,000.

Because some tax relief was targeted to families with children, they got a larger benefit: 40 percent saw a tax break of between $2,001 and $5,000, another 30 percent got a cut of $1,201 to $2,000.

When Dean was at the Globe on Dec. 10, I read him those last figures to make the point that despite his rhetoric, the Bush tax cuts had also delivered real benefit to people who weren't rich.

That data didn't faze Dean. "I've heard those numbers because John Kerry uses those numbers when he goes after me," he said.

Although Dean's Wednesday statement made it seem as though he had always planned to offer a tax relief plan during the presidential campaign, that isn't the way the Vermonter sounded when he was at the Globe.

After Dean mentioned that "in the end, we're going to have some approach" to middle-class tax relief, he was asked when. "Not for a long time," he replied. "You need to balance the budget. You can't be giving tax cuts if you can't balance the budget."

When it was pointed out that Al Gore, who had just endorsed him, had called for a tax cut of $500 billion to $600 billion in his 2000 campaign, Dean said it would be hypocritical of him to propose a tax cut of that magnitude while "I'm going to be lambasting the president over his incredible lack of anything resembling fiscal responsibility." (According to Len Burman, codirector of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a rough estimate for the working- and middle-class provisions of the Bush tax cuts would be $700 billion over 10 years.)

With the word out that Dean is now working on a tax relief plan, the governor is in an awkward position. Proposing such a program means flip-flopping on one of his principal themes -- and in the face of his own caustic rhetoric about tax cut advocates.

For now, Dean is temporizing. Or rather, ducking. On Wednesday he told reporters that his staff wouldn't let him address the issue.

But Dean is going to have to take a clear stand -- and soon. For if there's one basic reality of presidential politics, it's this: When you run, you can't hide.

Scot Lehigh's e-mail address is lehigh@globe.com.