Today’s Washington Post provides the
latest evidence that the Obama Administration is laying the ground work
for a middle-class tax hike:
During last year’s campaign, President Obama vowed to
enact a bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a
pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a severe
recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is swelling toward
a 50-year high have only made his promise harder to keep.
The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will stand.
But the president’s top economic advisers have refused to rule out
broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap between federal
revenue and government spending and are warning of tough choices ahead.
(…)
Obama, meanwhile, has vowed to pay for any new initiatives and to
draft an overhaul of the health-care system that eventually would save
the government money, driving deficits down. But effective health
reforms would take decades to produce savings. In the meantime, White
House budget director Peter R. Orszag acknowledged, “there are
additional steps that will be necessary.”
“The administration is very concerned about these [future]
deficits,
and getting those deficits under control is a top priority of the
administration,” Orszag told reporters this week as he rolled out a new
economic forecast that added $2 trillion to deficit projections from
2010 to 2019.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and White House economic
adviser Lawrence H. Summers have both delicately sidestepped the tax
question on Sunday talk shows. Orszag has also refused to discuss what
steps Obama might take to reduce the deficit in the budget blueprint he
will present to Congress in February. But budget analysts say he has
few real options.
“If you rule out inflating our way out of the problem and
defaulting
on the debt, there are two ways: Cut spending or raise taxes,” said
William G. Gale, an expert on fiscal policy at the Brookings
Institution. With more than 80 percent of federal spending devoted to
politically untouchable programs such as Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid, he said, “it’s going to be really hard to make significant
headway on the spending side. So that means you’ve got to think about
taxes.”
And, it won’t necessarily take a new piece of legislation for the
tax hikes to occur:
Obama could raise taxes without taking any legislative
action. If he let all the Bush tax cuts expire next year and refused to
enact legislation to restrain the alternative minimum tax, deficits
would be about $200 billion a year lower and the debt would stop
growing as a percentage of the economy, according to Gale’s analysis of
new data from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But that
would mean big tax increases for most American families, violating
Obama’s pledge.
Just in time for the 2012 elections, interestingly enough……..
Much like George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama could come to regret his
“Read My Lips” Moment.
Update: Welcome Instapundit
readers !
August 29th, 2009 at 10:50 am
[...] MATACONIS: Yes, American Middle Class, Barack Obama Will Raise Your Taxes. “Much like George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama could come to regret his ‘Read My Lips’ [...]
August 29th, 2009 at 11:26 am
“If he let all the Bush tax cuts expire next year…”
And this will result in one more “don’t blame me, this is W’s fault” moment.
August 29th, 2009 at 11:56 am
If (actually, when) Obama raises taxes via this stealthy “letting Bush cuts expire” manner, deficits will rise and tax income will (continue to) fall.
When productive people are punished, the government gets less.
August 29th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“If he let all the Bush tax cuts expire next year and refused to enact legislation to restrain the alternative minimum tax, deficits would be about $200 billion a year lower and the debt would stop growing as a percentage of the economy…”
This defective assumptive analysis always assumes nothing else changes. It assumes everyone still has the same job, makes the same money or more and will continue to pay taxes.
This downturn has clearly shown that tax receipts go down when people are unemployed. Duh.
When taxes go up, people will spend less, more businesses will fail, more unemployment will happen, fewer people will be paid, less taxes will be collected, more people will be on unemployment insurance, causing deficits to rise.
The only answer is to let businesses prosper. But to Obama those entities are greedy and evil. It’s not in Obama’s DNA to be pro-business.
August 29th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Only a total retard could believe that taxes would not have go up to finance Obama’s reckless spending, and yet……
August 29th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Question: What will be U.S. national sport in 2012?
Answer: Tax evasion.
I hope President Zero is already scouting around for “that perfect retirement villa” in Cannes because, if he’s actually stupid enough to break his middle-class tax pledge, he’s political D.E.A.D.M.E.A.T.
August 29th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
The real enjoyable tax event that will happen if President Obama elects to allow the Bush tax changes to simply retire…
The ‘Marriage Penalty’ will be reinstated.
That WILL BE a MASSIVE TAX INCREASE on the middle class.
August 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Obama has already raised more than at least 10 billion in new taxes on the middle and lower class with his new increased federal cigarette tax … so promise broken already …
Jeff Carlson
http://www.harlemghost.blogspot.com
August 29th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Obama’s Read My Lips moment is on its way…
It seems that someone at CNN has finally done that math on our Dear Leader’s programs and figured out what the rest of us did before the election.
He’s going to jack taxes through the roof.
Ace points out some highlights of the article:
……