Business Week interviewed President Obama recently and Obama claimed he has kept his promise not to raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000.
Question: A lot of business leaders consider you to be antibusiness. I was struck when I attended the Aspen Institute Ideas Festival. [Council of Economic Advisers member] Austan Goolsbee was speaking, and he hit a fairly hostile audience. These are wealthy, fairly progressive older people who had tended to support you, but they seemed very upset about corporate taxes, individual taxes, card check, all sorts of things you’re doing that they perceived as not helpful to them. What can you say to those people?
Answer: Let’s look at the record. I’ve been in office six months. So far my only tax policy has been to cut taxes for 95% of working people. I haven’t signed a bill that’s raised taxes yet.
Never mind that one of the first things he did as president was sign a law raising cigarette taxes to fund an expansion of SCHIP. From Hope and Fail:
Yes, let’s look at the record. The president has raised signed a bill that’s raised taxes. The $33 billion expansion of SCHIP, which the president signed on Feb. 4, was funded through an increase in cigarette taxes. From the LA Times:
The measure — funded primarily by increasing the federal tax on cigarettes by 61 cents, to $1 a pack — sailed through the House earlier Wednesday on a largely party-line vote of 290 to 135. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill last week.
What’s more, the cigarette tax broke a campaign promise to not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
Another day, another lie. I wonder if he kept a straight face, or just stuttered through with his typical er’s and ah’s.
Quelle surprise!
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Oomph… this one gets me… I smoke roll your own in the first place to save money. My smokes doubled in price! It’s a good way to get people though, I’ve heard several people who voted for Obama complain about the increase in price and I use it as an opportunity to say “I told you so.” And, I did tell them time and time again. It was like people were in a haze… they heard what I was saying and knew full well I was right, and yet went and voted for the man… go figure.
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Perhaps we should institute a tax on bovine fecal matter, prevarication, and obfuscation, then the dog breath culls could support the government all by themselves.
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You sound a little angry white man… me too.
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Geez…you all must be viewers of FoxNews…I think the only thing that godforsaken cable news channel is good for is that they sure can teach people how to “spin”!!! When Obama said he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making over 250,000, we ALL know that he was referring to income taxes – don’t pretend we didn’t all know that! I’m not suggesting that he WON’T end up taxing income, but stop spinning the facts at hand. Taxes are a fact of life and the reason our country is broke is because of a war, tax breaks given to millionaires who already pay taxes at a lower rate than the middle class, and all those off-shore accounts where wealthy individuals and corporations hide their money doesn’t do much to help either. I do give the administration credit that they are cracking down on that.l…shame that we don’t read more about THAT in the news! As for a cigarette tax……sure it affects people; making under 250,000. But guess what…..maybe a FEW of those people will actually stop smoking and we might save a few lives in the process. The fact is….smoking should be banned! Everyone talks about their “rights” and the “government staying out of their business” — if the government had DONE IT’S JOB when the facts first came out about the dangers of tobacco, we wouldn’t be discussing cigarette taxes right now! Why was tobacco not banned back then and why is it still not banned? To protect your “right” to choose whether you want to expose yourself and those around you to the harmful effects of tobacco? Wrong – to protect the corporations and their profits. So if you’re upset about taxes on cigarettes, maybe you should be grateful to the shameless corporations and their “bought and paid for” congressmen that you even HAVE cigarettes, because it’s a crime that they are even allowed to be sold!
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