Economy Alarm: Obama Opens Door to More Tax-Hikes on Struggling Middle-Class Families
Obama Opens Door to More Tax-Hikes on Struggling Middle-Class Families
Once Again, President Backpedals on His Campaign Promises
President Obama Has Repeatedly Promised Middle-Class Families Would be Expempt from Tax-Hikes
“Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and households earning less than $250,000 a year.” (Rich Miller, “Obama ‘Agnostic’ on Deficit Cuts, Won’t Prejudge Tax Increases,” Bloomberg, 2/11/2010)
“He went on to say that the initiatives would ‘focus on easing the burdens on middle-class families who are struggling in this economy, and providing the help they need to get ahead.’ Well, they would ease them a little bit, perhaps, but not much.’” (Michelle Singletary, “President Obama proposals offer modest help to the middle-class,” Washington Post, 1/28/2010)
Credibility Crash: Once Again, Obama Opens the Doors to More Tax-Hikes on Hurting Middle-Class Families
President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.
Obama, in a Feb. 9 Oval Office interview, said that a presidential commission on the budget needs to consider all options for reducing the deficit, including tax increases and cuts in spending on entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
“The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “So what I want to do is to be completely agnostic, in terms of solutions.”
Obama repeatedly vowed during the 2008 presidential election campaign that he would not raise taxes on individuals making less than $200,000 and households earning less than $250,000 a year. When senior White House economic adviser Lawrence H. Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner suggested in August that the administration might be open to going back on that pledge, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs quickly reiterated the president’s promise.
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The Obama administration’s budget already takes that route with its proposed $970 billion tax increase over the next decade on Americans earning more than $200,000 a year, largely by not extending former President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy beyond 2010.
Even with those revenues — and a proposed three-year freeze on some discretionary spending by the government — the administration still projects a deficit of $752 billion in 2015, equivalent to 3.9 percent of gross domestic product.
That’s above the 3 percent mark that White House budget director Peter Orszag has said is necessary to stop the rise in government debt as a proportion of the economy.
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Going back on his campaign pledge would be fraught with risks for Obama. (Rich Miller, “Obama ‘Agnostic’ on Deficit Cuts, Won’t Prejudge Tax Increases,” Bloomberg, 2/11/2010)
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