Giuliani Rips Democrats on Taxes

Aug. 25, 2007 — -- In a speech on taxes in Manchester, N.H., today, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani depicted himself as the tax-cutting heir to President Bush.

Avoiding any mention of his GOP rivals, Giuliani instead mocked Democratic frontrunner Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and argued any nominee from her party would hurt the economy.

"The Republican Party is the party of the people," Giuliani said. "The Democratic Party is the party of the government."

Giuliani made the remarks at a town-hall meeting where he unveiled another one of his "12 commitments" to voters (LINK), this one being, "I will cut taxes and reform the tax code."

Giuliani was joined by flat-tax proponent and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes and former Gov. Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts.

The former mayor, who leads his GOP rivals in national polls, said he would make President Bush's tax cuts permanent, would make the child tax credit permanent, link the alternative minimum tax to inflation, and push to repeal the estate tax -- or, as Giuliani put it, "give the death tax the death penalty."

Through legislative quirks, the current rate on inherited wealth is set at 45 percent through 2009, but it will drop to zero in 2010. In 2011, the rate returns to 55 percent.

"The only thing I can think of is that they wanted to create an incentive for death in 2010," Giuliani joked.

Giuliani, as is his style, did not attack any of his Republican opponents -- but rather focused on lambasting the Democratic White House candidates.

Most directly, he quoted remarks Sen. Clinton made in San Francisco in June 2004, when she said, "Many of you are well enough off that [President Bush's] tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to have to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." (LINK)

"'We must take things away from you for the common good,'" Giuliani paraphrased Clinton today. "Do you understand what that implies? No, it's not Karl Marx. What she's saying in that is that 'We know better, the government knows better.'"