‘Read my lips, no new taxes’ — the GOP should remember what happens when lawmakers break that pledge.

I t’s clear that history lessons painfully learned are often forgotten a generation later unless endlessly repeated. As the philosopher Georges Santayana famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

In 1992, as the Soviet Empire was collapsing, it seemed obvious that socialism had failed. That same year, two years after GOP President George H. W. Bush had broken his solemn pledge of “Read my lips: no new taxes,” he was wounded by a primary challenge from Pat Buchanan, who benefitted from a recession caused in part by the Bush tax hikes. Bush then lost reelection to Bill Clinton, winning only 37 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

The conclusions appeared obvious: Central planning doesn’t work and erodes freedom, and Republicans violate pledges against higher taxes at their peril. Since 1990, no Republican in the House or Senate has voted for a tax-rate increase.

It’s clear that a generation of public school educators who have ignored the transmission of rigorous economic and civic education have helped make many young people sympathetic to government control — as witnessed in the thousands who cheered Bernie Sanders at the Coachella rock festival last weekend. It’s also clear that some Republican members of Congress have forgotten that a vote for higher taxes is dangerous to both the economy and their political health. GOP Senator Jon Husted of Ohio and GOP Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, head of the House Freedom Caucus, have signaled they may be willing to raise taxes on higher-income earners so that, in Husted’s words, “we can benefit working-class Americans” by ending taxes on tips.

Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow, who was President Trump’s head of the National Economic Council during Trump’s first term, also reports that Vice President JD Vance is sympathetic to such a tax hike and that Trump may not oppose an increase in the top income tax rate — to 39.6 percent from 37 percent.

Newt Gingrich, the man who led GOP opposition to Bush’s tax increase in 1990 and who also just four years later led Republicans to their first control of the House in 40 years, says that any such effort would be harmful economically and would needlessly divide congressional Republicans. GOP leaders “must remain vigilant against any effort by misguided members to raise taxes in the final bill,” Gingrich wrote on his blog. “This is historically important and could have huge political consequences.” He didn’t have to say those could include loss of both the House and Senate in 2026.

It would also damage President Trump, who as recently as March, in his address to Congress, repeated his campaign call for “tax cuts for everybody” and reminded Americans that the tax bill he signed into law in 2017 led to one of the strongest economies in history — until Covid-19 hit. Inserting a tax hike into this year’s bill would jeopardize passage of the entire package.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned of “economic calamity” if the 2017 tax cuts are not extended.

At a minimum, higher taxes on upper-income Americans would hurt the economy, if for no other reason than the fact that many Americans in that tax bracket are actually owners of small businesses who are already being squeezed by tariff hikes.

Four states have so-called “millionaire’s taxes” at the state level: New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California. Earlier this year, the U-Haul company reported its ranked list of “2024 U-Haul Growth States.” It’s no  coincidence that these four states were the bottom four, with people moving out in droves.

Even middle-class people know that when lawmakers say they will target only upper-income people for tax hikes, then the middle class will be the next target.

Grover Norquist, who was asked in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan to establish Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) so the tax reforms of the Reagan era could be preserved, is under no illusions about the political danger Republicans face if they try to throw a tax increase into the bill they are currently debating.

“A full 85 percent of Republican House members and senators have signed the ATR pledge against net tax hikes and against tax rate increases for individuals and businesses,” he told me. “If even a few Republicans violate that pledge, it will create a firestorm of criticism and depress turnout among the base in 2026.” Indeed, every Republican in a marginal district or state would be targeted for defeat by gleeful Democrats who remember how much Americans hate being played for suckers.

There would also be disastrous fiscal effects. A presumption that tax rates cannot be cut while spending programs are cut would set up an informal “rule” in Congress similar to the one that has required all military spending increases to be matched dollar for dollar with spending increases in domestic welfare. That budget formula has hampered efforts to adequately fund the military. Adding a new “rule” linking any spending cuts to tax increases would make it all the harder to reduce out-of-control domestic spending programs. And that would truly weaken an economy already $37 trillion in debt.