The NY Times' Thomas Friedman does his limited best to help out the Democrats in Read My Lips:
Democrats have been groping for a way to counter George Bush's maniacal tax cuts, which are designed to shrink government and shift as many things as possible to the market. May I make a suggestion? When you shrink government, what you do, over time, is shrink the services provided by federal, state and local governments to the vast American middle class. I would suggest that henceforth Democrats simply ask voters to substitute the word "services" for the word "taxes" every time they hear President Bush speak.Apparently Tommy has ingested so much Kool-Aid that he has failed to notice that the taxpayers are justly suspicious of the utility of government "services". To help Tommy with this novel concept, I suggest we substitute the word "boondoggles" for the word "services" every time we hear Tommy and his pals speak.
That is, when the president says he wants yet another round of reckless "tax cuts," which will shift huge burdens to our children, Democrats should simply refer to them as "service cuts," because that is the only way these tax cuts will be paid for — by cuts in services. Indeed, the Democrats' bumper sticker in 2004 should be: "Read my lips, no new services. Thank you, President Bush."
Say it with me now: "Read my lips, no new services — or old ones."
Say it with me now: "Read my lips, no new boondoggles — or old ones."
