FLASHBACK: In 1990, McConnell Said ‘I Think Everyone Should Pay Their Fair Share, Including The Rich

[Jefferson23]

By Pat Garofalo on Aug 10, 2011 at 6:50 pm

Today, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) named three Republicans to the fiscal super committee that was created by the debt ceiling deal. All three have taken the Americans for Tax Reform anti-tax pledge and support a cockamamie constitutional balanced budget amendment. “What I can pretty certainly say to the American people, the chances of any kind of tax increase passing with this, with the appointees that John Boehner and I are going to put on there, are pretty low,” McConnell has said.

But McConnell has not always been so virulently anti-tax. In fact, in a 1990 campaign ad, McConnell said that “everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,” prompting the Associated Press to say that he sounded like a “populist Democrat”:

“Many Republican candidates are, in fact, holding fast to the no-new-taxes position that Bush embraced and then abandoned, even as they try to portray themselves as friends of senior citizens and the disadvantaged. Others are sounding more and more like populist Democrats. ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich,’ Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says in a campaign ad.”

“A twist of untraditional Republicanism is added to McConnell’s message when he says, ‘Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich. We need to protect seniors from Medicare cuts too,’” wrote Roll Call reporter Steve Lilienthal. “After proclaiming his independence from the President and Congressional leaders, McConnell reassures voters that he will back a ‘fair deal for the working families of Kentucky.’” <"Democrats Flood Airwaves Charging GOP Party of Rich," Roll Call, 11/5/1990>

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/10/293153/mcconnell-tax-the-rich-flashback/

[valerief]

1. I'm sure the M$M will share this tidbit about McTurtle.

When pigs fly.

[liberal N proud]

2. That was before his biggest contributors had a chat with him

It was also before Obama was in the White House and McConnell's primary goal in life became getting Obama out of the White House.

[OHdem10]

3. But what does he see as a fair share.