Clearing the Tax Minefield
EmailIn his last appearance on This Week, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner seemed to open the door to future tax increases when he said that President Obama would do "whatever it takes" to deal with long-term deficits — even if that meant going back on his campaign pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.
He was responding to Roger Altman's argument that moving to a VAT is all but inevitable over time — an opinion seconded by Alan Greenspan.
Now, the Obama Administration's go-to outside guy — John Podesta of the Center for American Progress — is weighing in on their side. In his new report, "Deal With It," he makes the progressive case for a middle class tax increase: "those who believe that government investments and spending are central to our economic and social well-being and favor progressive taxation recognize that tax increases on the wealthiest and corporations are not going to solve the whole problem."
Hardly ideal timing for the White House. But a CAP official tells me: "Our role is to mine the tough political/policy minefields ahead of the pols — maybe step on a landmine or two that helps them deal with this in the long run."
The big question: how much time does Obama have?
No way the White House can put new taxes on next year's agenda — not after health care and before the midterms. George H.W. Bush showed what happens to a President who breaks a core tax pledge heading into his own re-election fight. But will the Chinese and other US creditors force the issue?
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The “no increased taxes on the middle class” was unquestionably a blatant lie. Everyone knows it, and even Obama’s own people know it.
His budget simply isn’t workable without it.
If he lies about this, how many other things does he lie about? many, I suspect.
In politics, there are no ethics, morals, and absolutely, no truth.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | September 30, 2009, 11:39 am 11:39 am
Podesta answers the way one might expect. The trouble is that the middle class is already shrinking in size in this “jobless” recovery. Most of us didn’t ask the government to make everyone a homeowner, even those that couldn’t afford it, most of us expected that corruption among bankers, money changers and politicians would be taken care of by regulators and most of us don’t want the government taking on health insurance when they have a total mess to deal with in social security and medicare, the wars and tyrants building bombs. I say slow down, stop spending, revise the tax code to spur private investment and do what governments are suppose to do which is to provide a safe environment for people to make a living and care for themselves and their families.
Posted by: david | September 30, 2009, 12:04 pm 12:04 pm
Obama’s never going to lower taxes. His agenda has no room for anything of the sort at all. His revolutionary Marxist agenda is going to cost trillions and he’s already started burning through our money for that with promises of burning through far more of our money to enable his Marxist plans.
Posted by: TexBork009 | September 30, 2009, 1:14 pm 1:14 pm
As a small non-union business owner, I would appreciate a level playing field in business. It is criminal to use tax dollars as a slush fund to repay electoral debts for union loyalties. When GM falters again, which it will, given leadership that can’t even manage their own pension fund, what happens then? More deficit spending? Let natural selection weed out the failures, so the rest of us have a chance to thrive under these circumstances–this will put the good ship USA back on course.
Posted by: Dana | September 30, 2009, 2:39 pm 2:39 pm
Dems are or want to increase taxes on cigars, cigarettes, guns, alcohol, stocks, bonds, candy, soda, sugar, oil, gas and anything else that moves. These are regressive taxes – hurt the poor more than anyone. Taxes are out of control, why is the media only looking at income taxes? More visibility needs to be given to these other taxes and the typical “tax & spend” liberals. Anyone ever heard of cutting spending (either party)?
Posted by: Gwen | September 30, 2009, 3:45 pm 3:45 pm
We would not be talking a Tax increase if Obama had not gone spend crazy,just because he was elected. He should have read the stimulis and the budget bill. Bush refused to sign the Budget bill,last October,because it had too much Pork in it. Obama did not read it he just signed it.
Posted by: marion | September 30, 2009, 6:30 pm 6:30 pm
please raise taxes on the middle class! please! the republicans will save so much money in the 2012 election. we will just play obama’s campaign speeches over and over and over again as we laugh all the way to the voting booth. i still remember “read my lips, no new taxes”. i think that was clinton’s campaign slogan. right, george?
i’m not surprised by this. read an interesting article today in the ny post. the article stated that geithner and volker have little input into economic policy. the administration asks for information and then ignores it. it claimed that obama was getting economic advice from valerie jarrett. the article was vague on specifics so who knows. the press is not always trustworthy these days. however, considering ms. jarrett has a psychology degree from stanford and a law degree from michigan, it scares me to death to think for even a minute that this lady is involved in the economic policy for the world’s largest economy. i sorta feel like i have awoken in an alternate universe. can this really be happening? is this legal? at what point in this nightmare do we say enough is enough and refuse the re-entry of air force once into US airspace? and, yes, i am being extreme in my rhetoric. however, the complexity of our economy is not something mr. obama or ms. jarrett are equipped to understand.
Posted by: robin | October 1, 2009, 3:38 am 3:38 am