The Wall Street Journal-20080214-The McCain Fiscal Record

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The McCain Fiscal Record

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After sweeping the Potomac primary, John McCain is now the de facto Republican nominee for president. But while Mr. McCain's fight for the nomination is all but over, Mike Huckabee's strong showing in Virginia suggests that Mr. McCain's battle to unify the Republican Party is just beginning. One major task is to secure the GOP's right flank, which remains cool to Mr. McCain over issues including taxes and economics.

The support of supply-siders Jack Kemp and Phil Gramm has not been enough to reassure some economic conservatives about the direction of economic policy in a McCain administration. Yet a look at Mr. McCain's record in Congress over the past 25 years demonstrates a tax-cutting pedigree at least as strong as, if not stronger than, Mitt Romney's or Mike Huckabee's (they both raised taxes as governors).

Mr. McCain calls himself a proud foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution. He joined the House of Representatives too late to vote on President Reagan's historic package of tax-rate cuts, but in 1983, the year he arrived in the House, Mr. McCain joined supply-siders by voting against legislation to place a "cap" on the third year of the Reagan tax cuts. (All votes come from the American Conservative Union's list of "key votes," used to compile its annual congressional rankings.)

A year later, Mr. McCain voted against a Democrat-sponsored tax reform bill that included $250 billion in tax increases and a deficit- reduction plan that contained another $51 billion in tax hikes. While serving in the House, Mr. McCain's pro-tax cut votes helped him earn ACU rankings as high as conservative stalwarts such as Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich, Henry Hyde and Vin Weber.

Mr. McCain took over Barry Goldwater's Senate seat in 1987. In 1989 -- in the face of rising deficits -- Mr. McCain voted for a pro-growth cut in the capital-gains tax to 35% and to expand tax-advantaged Individual Retirement Accounts.

In 1990, those rising deficits led President George H.W. Bush to abandon his "no new taxes" pledge and seek out a budget deal with Senate Democrats. The negotiations were so politically sensitive that Office of Management and Budget Director Richard Darman and congressional leaders decamped to Andrews Air Force base. They ultimately brought back a deal that included a trade-off: supposedly binding budget levels in exchange for what was then the largest tax increase in history.

Many Republican budget hawks in the Senate -- including Bob Dole, Pete Domenici, Warren Rudman, Alan Simpson, Strom Thurmond and Orin Hatch -- strongly pushed this package. Yet Mr. McCain and other supply-siders such as Connie Mack, Trent Lott and Phil Gramm broke ranks with George H.W. Bush and the GOP leadership to vote "no."

Throughout the 1990s, Mr. McCain was a reliable, down-the-line tax cutter. In 1992, he voted for an amendment by supply-side hero Sen. Bob Kasten to require a super-majority in Congress to raise taxes. That same year, he joined just 37 other senators in pushing for Sen. Connie Mack's proposal to cut the capital gains tax to 15%.

Like every other Republican, Mr. McCain voted against President Clinton's 1994 budget that shattered George H.W. Bush's record for the largest tax increase in history. In 1995, he was one of just 31 senators to vote for a bill to establish a $500 per child tax credit, reduce the capital gains tax, expand IRAs and eliminate the tax penalty on married couples. He also voted for the Balanced Budget Act, which would have reduced spending by $894 billion while cutting taxes by $245 billion.

In 1996, Mr. McCain voted in favor of establishing Medical Savings Accounts, allowing Americans to save tax-free to pay for medical expenses -- a proposal long-championed by supply-sider Steve Forbes. He also voted for another amendment to require a super-majority vote in Congress to raise taxes. In 1997, Mr. McCain voted on various tax cut bills that would have indexed the capital gains to inflation and allowed parents to invest up to $2,500 per year tax free in education savings accounts.

On April 1, 1998, Mr. McCain voted in favor of lifting income thresholds for the 15% and 28% tax brackets, which would have generated a tax cut of $195 billion over five years. In 2000, he again voted to eliminate the federal marriage penalty and to repeal the "death" tax by 2010. He also supported a bill to reduce the percentage of Social Security benefits taxed to 50% from 85%, restoring them to pre-Clinton levels.

In 2001, with the bitter primary battle still fresh, Mr. McCain voted against the final Bush tax-cut package. Why would he deviate from a pro-growth, tax-cutting position, built up over 17 years in Congress and dozens of votes, even after running on a tax-cut plan himself in 2000?

Mr. McCain's protest that he wanted spending cuts to accompany the Bush tax cuts has persuaded few conservatives. But what is not remembered is that, two weeks earlier, Mr. McCain voted to approve the final version of the Budget Resolution -- the blueprint used by congressional committees for spending and tax bills -- which included $1.35 trillion in tax cuts (the Bush proposal) coupled with a $661 billion cap on discretionary spending. When the promised spending cap never materialized, Mr. McCain denounced the wasteful earmarks and pork-barrel spending that he felt jeopardized the budget, and lodged the now famous protest vote against the tax cuts.

By 2004, Mr. McCain was back on track. That year, he voted against rescinding portions of the Bush tax cut, voted in favor of extending the moratorium on Internet taxation, and voted against raising the top marginal tax rate to 36% from 35%. In 2006, Mr. McCain voted to extend AMT relief for millions of middle-class tax payers and to extend the cuts in dividend and capital-gains taxes. He also voted to end a filibuster that prevented a vote on a bill to permanently repeal the death tax.

Mr. McCain has tried to reassure economic conservatives by pledging to make permanent the tax cuts he initially opposed. Whether Mr. McCain can ultimately convince them remains to be seen, although his 25-year record of supporting pro-growth tax cuts weighs in his favor. If that's not enough, they might consider that the Bush tax cuts are on auto-pilot to expire -- and neither a President Clinton nor a President Obama will have to lift a finger to impose a crushing tax hike on America's economy.

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Mr. Stach is senior director of the White House Writers Group, Inc.