Boris Johnson Makes the Conservative Case for Tax Hikes
The prime minister’s Conservative election manifesto was written long before Covid. But the key test is whether he'll deliver value for the money he's raising.
Promises, promises.
Photographer: Dan Kitwood/AFP
Britain’s Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson has now done something U.S. Republicans have regarded as unthinkable for more than three decades: break a solemn tax pledge. Speaking in Parliament Tuesday, Johnson announced he was reneging on his campaign vow not to raise headline tax rates in order to fulfill another, arguably more important, promise — to reform Britain’s dysfunctional social care system, something Johnson swore to fix “once and for all” during his first speech as prime minister.
The risk he runs isn’t so much in raising taxes, though that is never to be taken lightly, but in failing to provide real value in exchange for what he’s demanding of taxpayers.