{"id":2568,"date":"2009-08-04T16:54:04","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T20:54:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=2568"},"modified":"2009-08-28T11:40:55","modified_gmt":"2009-08-28T15:40:55","slug":"wsj-obama-advisers-set-groundwork-to-raise-taxes-on-middle-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/04\/wsj-obama-advisers-set-groundwork-to-raise-taxes-on-middle-class\/","title":{"rendered":"WSJ: Obama Advisers Set Groundwork to Raise Taxes on Middle Class"},"content":{"rendered":"

You don’t have to be an economist to realize the Obama Administration’s budget numbers don’t add up and that he’s going to have raise taxes on more than just those earning more than $250,000.00 to pay for his agenda. With that in mind it’s not surprising that White House economist Larry Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner essentially floated the idea of a middle class tax hike<\/a> on last weekend’s political talk shows:<\/p>\n

Few of President Obama\u2019s 2008 campaign pledges were more definitive than his vow that anyone making less than $250,000 a year \u201cwill not see their taxes increase by a single dime\u201d if he was elected. And he was right, very strictly speaking: It\u2019s going to be many, many, many billions of dimes.<\/p>\n

Asked about raising taxes on the middle class on Sunday on CBS\u2019s \u201cFace the Nation,\u201d White House economist Larry Summers wouldn\u2019t repeat Mr. Obama\u2019s pre-election promise. \u201cIt is never a good idea to absolutely rule things out no matter what,\u201d Mr. Summers said\u2014except, apparently, when his boss is running for office. Meanwhile, on ABC\u2019s \u201cThis Week,\u201d Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also slid around Mr. Obama\u2019s vow and said, \u201cWe have to bring these deficits down very dramatically. And that\u2019s going to require some very hard choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

These aren\u2019t even nondenial denials. The Obama advisers are laying the groundwork for taxing the middle class while claiming the deficit made them do it.<\/p>\n

The liberal establishment is even further along in finally admitting that Mr. Obama wasn\u2019t, er, telling the truth. A piece in the New York Times over the weekend declared in a headline that \u201cthe Rich Can\u2019t Pay for Everything, Analysts Say.\u201d And it quoted Leonard Burman, a veteran of the Clinton Treasury who now runs the Brookings Tax Policy Center, as saying that \u201cThis idea that everything new that government provides ought to be paid for by the top 5%, that\u2019s a basically unstable way of governing.\u201d They\u2019re right, but where were they during the campaign?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Federal Government now borrows nearly 50 cents of every dollar it spends, that’s just not sustainable… The Obama Administration is going to have to radically scale back it’s agenda or raise taxes on broad swath of American tax payers. They’ve already floated the idea of a European style Value Added Tax<\/a> and now they’re setting the table for a “the deficit made it necessary” defense of a middle class tax hike.<\/p>\n

After all as the as Wall Street Journal concludes:<\/p>\n

The undeniable reality is that you can\u2019t run a European-style welfare-entitlement state without European-style levels of taxation on the middle class (and eventually without low European-style growth and high jobless rates). It\u2019s looking more and more like Mr. Obama\u2019s no-middle-class-tax pledge was one of the greatest confidence tricks in American political history.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Related<\/strong><\/p>\n