Obama’s advisers set groundwork for raising taxes on the middle class.
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Few of President Obamas 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year will not see their taxes increase by a single dime if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: Its going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.
Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBSs Face the Nation, White House economist Larry Summers wouldnt repeat Mr. Obamas pre-election promise. It is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what, Mr. Summers saidexcept, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABCs This Week, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obamas vow and said, We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And thats going to require some very hard choices.
These arent even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it.
The liberal establishment is even further along in finally admitting that Mr. Obama wasnt, er, telling the truth. A piece in the New York Times over the weekend declared in a headline that the Rich Cant Pay for Everything, Analysts Say. And it quoted Leonard Burman, a veteran of the Clinton Treasury who now runs the Brookings Tax Policy Center, as saying that This idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5%, thats a basically unstable way of governing. Theyre right, but where were they during the campaign?
One election cry should be “Eight Hours!” For if the top 1% of earners were taxed 100%, all their money would run the federal government for eight hours.