A White House memo was uncovered that reveals how President Obama would raise taxes on middle class Americans if he is reelected. So much for his claims of being a champion of the middle class.
The Daily Beast has the scoop.
Should Barack Obama win re-election this fall, he’ll almost immediately face one of the biggest issues of his second term: the looming expiration of the Bush tax cuts. George W. Bush originally passed the tax breaks in two quick bursts — slashing income taxes in 2001, and lowering taxes on investment income in 2003. Then, just before these cuts were set to expire on January 1, 2011, Obama struck a deal with congressional Republicans to extend them for two more years. [...]
In the fall of 2009, Obama’s chief congressional lobbyist, Phil Schiliro, touted a clever idea for dealing with the tax cuts: introduce a bill that would extend the middle-class cuts for two years while allowing the upper-income portions to expire. After two years, the middle-class cuts would also expire unless Congress paid for them with off-setting savings or tax increases.
By November 2009, Orszag had become so fond of the idea that he insisted on presenting it to the president in the Oval Office. Orszag’s fellow wonks were cool to the plan, having heard him and Schiliro sing its praises repeatedly. But the administration’s chief wonk — Barack Obama — was intrigued. He asked a series of encouraging questions about how the proposal would work. According to two sources in the room, he was taken with both the political merits — that is, putting Republicans on the defensive — and the policy rationale of lopping trillions off the deficit. He gave no indication that he was troubled by the plan’s most explosive feature: that it would likely break a central campaign promise — not raising taxes on the middle class — one Republicans would surely wrap around his neck with populist glee.
Via Weasel Zippers, via Fox Nation
Update: Linked by Lady Liberty – thanks!
Tags: memo, middle class, obama, plan, tax increase
Color me surprised.
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People on the left will have a cow when anything is said about cutting expenses and refroming entitlements.
People on the right will have a cow if anything is said about raising taxes.
People in the center that are left to hold their nose and vote for one or the other provided by the parties know that the future of this country lies in a fiscal plicy the will raise taxes and cut spending. And that is about a 50-50 split to a balanced budget.
We can begin to do it now under a controlled strategic plan over a period of years that will cuase little pain to everyone or we can continue to argue until the “Greece Day” comes to America and the balanced budget will be cast upon us in a non planned way that wil cause pain for everyone.
You can pay me now or pay me later, but you will pay!
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There is a reason Conservatives as myself loathe to raise taxes. We know it will result in more spending and that includes the parties on both sides of the aisle.
Do some serious cuts to spending and then maybe we can talk about taxes.
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Exactly. They never stop spending, they just spend more, and more, and more. They could tax us at 100% and it would never be enough.
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Just like Obama with his deficit reduction committee. They had a plan that would begin to reduce the deficit with equal amounts of spending cuts and tax increases. He ran from the spending cuts as fast as he could.
But it will happen, either while we are alive or when our kids have to burden the depression due to our out of control spending habits now.
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[...] President Occupy: White House Memo Details Obama Plan to Raise Taxes on Middle Class in Second Term [...]
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