Forget President Barack Obama's pledge of no increase in taxes
for most of us. Taxes will be going skyward.
Reports the Washington Post:
During last year's campaign, President Obama vowed to enact a
bold agenda without raising taxes for the middle class, a
pledge budget experts viewed with skepticism. Since then, a
severe recession, massive deficits and a national debt that is
swelling toward a 50-year high have only made his promise
harder to keep.
The Obama administration has insisted that the pledge will
stand. But the president's top economic advisers have refused
to rule out broad-based tax increases to close the yawning gap
between federal revenue and government spending and are warning
of tough choices ahead.
Republicans are already on the attack, accusing Obama of
plotting to break his no-tax vow, the same political
transgression that cost Democrats control of Congress under
former president Bill Clinton and may have cost president
George H.W. Bush his job. Democrats say Obama is highly
unlikely to break the pledge before next year's congressional
election and observe that it would be safer to wait until his
second term if a tax increase becomes unavoidable.
Some lawmakers are focused instead on setting up an independent
commission to solve the deficit problem. Senate Budget
Committee chairman Kent
Conrad (D-N.D.) plans to hold hearings on the topic when
Congress returns to Washington this fall.
Obama, meanwhile, has vowed to pay for any new initiatives and
to draft an overhaul of the health-care system that eventually
would save the government money, driving deficits down. But
effective health reforms would take decades to produce savings.
In the meantime, White House budget director Peter R. Orszag
acknowledged, "there are additional steps that will be
necessary."
The president hasn't been straight with us. But so what
else is new?
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and the Senior Fellow in International Religious Persecution at the Institute on Religion and Public Policy. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).
