Leadership Quote by Pete du Pont

Du Pont’s line is a small masterclass in political self-presentation: plainspoken, rhythmic, and strategically incomplete. “We didn’t think...” is the key move. It casts ideology as common sense rather than doctrine, as if the speaker is merely reporting the obvious conclusions of reasonable people. The repetition turns policy into instinct. Taxes “ought” to go down not because of a detailed fiscal argument, but because the moral direction is preloaded into the verb. “Ought” is a scold in Sunday clothes.

The subtext is coalition management. By framing tax cuts as a default good, du Pont aligns with the late-20th-century Republican project: shrink the perceived legitimacy of government spending without having to name the cuts, the tradeoffs, or who bears them. The vagueness is the point. It invites listeners to project their own grievances into “taxes,” whether they’re corporate, suburban, or working-class.

Then comes the pivot: “We didn’t think the census ought to be weakened.” That’s not an obvious pairing, and it reveals intent. A politician fluent in business-friendly conservatism still needs the machinery of the state when it supports order, representation, and market certainty. The census isn’t sentimental; it’s infrastructure. It allocates seats, dollars, data, and legitimacy. Protecting it signals seriousness and competence, a “responsible” conservatism that wants government smaller in ambition, not broken in function.

Contextually, the quote sits at the intersection of Reagan-era tax politics and ongoing fights over administrative capacity: argue for less, while insisting the core measuring tools remain intact, because power depends on counts.