Local suburban Democrats may have won on social issues, but they’re governing with tax hikes

At the 1984 Democratic National Convention, the party’s presidential nominee, Walter Mondale, made a bold claim: “Let’s tell the truth,” he said. “Mr. Reagan will raise taxes, and so will I. He won’t tell you. I just did.”

Give Mondale points for honesty. Sure, it didn’t work as an electoral matter, but no one was going to beat the wildly popular incumbent that year. Democrats took the wrong message from that election, though. The modern tactic is now, don’t worry about honesty — win your election, then raise taxes anyway.

At least that’s the lesson Democrats in Montgomery and Delaware Counties seem to have learned.

The county council in Delco was reelected after a campaign that was mostly powered by abortion, school board fights, and residual anti-Trump sentiment — none of which are really within the county council’s power to do anything about one way or the other. They juiced turnout by talking about social issues and then — surprise! — announced a 5% tax hike as soon as they were sworn in.

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Councilmember Christine Reuther’s platform says nothing about raising taxes. Her campaign website calls for “financial accountability” and, ironically, a call “to improve transparency in our county government.” But give credit where it’s due: Some of her running mates didn’t even publish a platform, just a few sporadic Facebook posts.

In Montgomery County, the story was similar. Democrats ran on “a spirit of unity and inclusivity,” and other vague but pleasant-sounding sentiments. But aside from one mention of “fiscal responsibility” on Commissioner Jamila Winder’s website, she said nothing about raising taxes. But, wouldn’t you know, almost the first thing Winder and outgoing commissioner Ken Lawrence did after the election was propose a lame-duck tax hike.

Is it any wonder people don’t trust politicians?

There used to be a concept of a mandate in politics. A candidate or party would announce their plans, win the election, and then say that the people had spoken, empowering them to do what they said they would do. It might not be the most strategic way to run for office if all you care about is winning, but it is the most honest and the most democratic.

When Democrats won control of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners in 2011 for the first time since the 1870s, they did so with the promise that they would not be the tax-and-spend liberals of left-wing caricature. And those commissioners, Josh Shapiro and Leslie S. Richards, largely did what they promised. That built trust, trust that their successors are now burning through faster than they burn through the taxpayers’ money.

Consider one counterexample from the recent past, where a winning candidate tried to claim a mandate that the voters had not granted him: In 2004, George W. Bush was reelected in a campaign that mostly focused on the Global War on Terror. Economic issues played a role, as did the debates over abortion and gay marriage. Bush won on that ground but then announced a plan to privatize Social Security less than a month after being sworn in.

Almost nobody had voted for him on that basis, and the plan was instantly unpopular. Had Bush spent the previous year campaigning on the issue, he might have had the mandate to cajole Congress into going along with him on the plan. But he hadn’t, so Congress and the people felt completely justified in saying, effectively, “Yes, we just reelected you, but not to do that.”

The plan failed. Social Security is still headed toward bankruptcy, but we did at least establish that fixing it in the way Bush proposed would not make the people happy.

Just because people agreed with Bush on the war and other matters did not mean they were with him on Social Security. It is the same with our local suburban Democrats. The voters in their counties may agree with them on abortion, but that has nothing to do with tax hikes. Our party coalitions are what they are, but abortion and taxes are unrelated issues. Voters sold on one might not like the bait and switch to the other.

Democrats in Montgomery and Delaware Counties used social issues to drive turnout while ignoring the economic issues over which they actually have some control. Now people squeezed by the economic dislocation of the pandemic and inflation will get another source of pain in increased taxes. Given that both counties’ budgets draw down reserve funds, too, it is likely we’ll be doing this again in next year’s budgets.

Will they get away with it? In the short term, they will. Democrats have a 5-0 majority on the Delaware County Council and a 2-1 hold on the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners. For the next four years, they can raise taxes as many times as they want. But each time they do, they degrade public trust and weaken public institutions a little bit more.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this column misidentified one of the Montgomery County commissioners who is proposing a tax increase. It is outgoing commissioner Ken Lawrence, not incoming commissioner Neil Makhija.