Read My Lips

George Santayana said that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But George Bernard Shaw said, more astutely, we think, "We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." As exhibit one to illustrate the latter point, Bostonist offers Attorney General Tom Reilly and his bold promise on Sunday that, if elected governor, he will not raise taxes. Bostonist seems to recall that back in 1988, a certain Republican candidate used a similar line to defeat Massachusetts's last Democratic governor in a bid for the White House. Admittedly, the read-my-lips promise worked, but it kinda came back to bite the guy who made it in the ass when he raised taxes two years later. That makes Bostonist wonder what Reilly's thinking. On the other hand, the only other Democratic contender, Deval Patrick, has already made exactly the kind of qualified promise (he calls it a "no-needless-tax" pledge) that sunk the Duke in '88 (to say nothing of Dukakis's broken promise in 1974 not to raise the sales tax, which cost him the governorship in 1978). Bostonist is no fan of taxes generally, but we must admit that we do like government services (we just don't have the time or resources to build our own roads these days, to say nothing of putting out all the fires we start). So when Reilly and Romney (or whoever) start debating who can cut taxes more, we'll just thank our lucky stars that we don't live in a state where DNA samples in high-profile murder cases take over a year to analyze due to lack of funds.

Contributed by Josh Michtom