The White House seems to be retreating from President Barack Obama’s campaign promise that he would not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000. Under persistent questioning from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Sunday, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declined to restate the vow and left open the possibility that the president might sign health care reform legislation that taxes high-cost, employer-provided insurance plans which some middle-class families currently receive tax free.

Axelrod waffles on Obama no-middle-class-tax-hike vow - POLITICO Live - POLITICO.com

This isn’t just yet another promise that’s likely to be broken … it’s much worse.  During the campaign, Obama attacked McCain mercilessly for proposing essentially the same thing:

[Obama] devoted at least half his speech to criticizing McCain. The Republican nominee has proposed to tax the health benefits that 156 million people get through the workplace as income. In exchange, McCain would give tax credits to help pay for insurance — $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families, paid directly to the insurer they choose.

The criticisms that Obama made here are echoed by his campaign in four new television ads, four separate mailers targeted to swing state voters, radio commercials and events in every battleground state.

“On health care, John McCain promises a tax credit,” an announcer says in one of Obama’s new ads, over images of families examining their bills. “But here’s what he won’t tell you: McCain would make you pay taxes on your health benefits, taxing your health care for the first time ever, raising costs for employers who offer health care so your coverage could be reduced or dropped completely. You won’t find one word about it on his website.”

“The time has come,” Obama said, “to solve this problem, to cut health care costs for families and businesses, and provide affordable, accessible health insurance for every American.”

It’s true that McCain doesn’t mention that he would tax health benefits on the section of his website where he describes his plan. But the Obama ad omits some important context — the tax credit McCain plans to offer would be more generous than the current tax break, at least for most families for the first several years, according to an analysis by the Tax Policy Center.

What’s amazing about this is that McCain was at least going to give you a tax credit to purchase your own health insurance.  So what Obama is proposing is far more punitive towards the middle class.

When Obama attacked McCain, he knew it was a dishonest attack.  He knew that economists were supportive of the idea of taxing insurance benefits in order to sever the employment/insurance connection.  He even knew, I suspect, that he would likely have to consider doing the same thing.  But instead of having an open and honest debate, he demagogued the issue.

The standard line on the left these days is something like, “Duh, of course he lied during the campaign.  He’s a politician.  That’s what you have to do.  We’re just playing the game Rove started.”  Baloney.  Your guy was supposed to be better than that.  And he’s not.  Maybe he’s worse.

(via jeffmiller)

(via hilker)

Maryland couldn’t balance its budget last year, so the state tried to close the shortfall by…creating a millionaire tax bracket…One year later…[o]ne-third of the millionaires have disappeared from Maryland tax rolls… Instead of the state coffers gaining the extra $106 million the politicians predicted, millionaires paid $100 million less in taxes than they did last year…No doubt the majority of that loss in millionaire filings results from the recession…But no one disputes that some rich filers did leave…[I]t’s easy for them to change their residency…Thanks to the futility of soaking the rich, these working families will now pay Mr. O’Malley’s ‘fair share.’

Millionaires Go Missing - WSJ.com (via jeffmiller) (via adriantumble)

Those Scrooge McDuck Moneybags are just un-patriotic jerks, refusing to pay their fair share, right?

Right?

The food police are closing in on their next target: a soda tax. New York City’s health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, is leading the way. He’s the guy who purged trans fats from the city’s restaurants and made them post calorie counts for menu items. Lately he’s been pressuring food companies to remove salt from their products.
Now he’s going after soda. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, Frieden and Kelly Brownell, the director of Yale’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, propose a penny-per-ounce excise tax on “sugared beverages.” That’s nearly $3 per case. Why so much? Because this tax, unlike the petty junk-food taxes of yesteryear, is designed to hurt. Its purpose is to discourage you from buying soda, on the grounds that soda, like smoking, is bad for you.

Taxing soda to make you stop drinking it. - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

Drugs.  Cigarettes.  Trans fat.  Salt. Soda.  Candy.  Cheese.  Bacon.  Alcohol.  …   SUVs.  Planes.  Yachts.  Golf.  … TV.  Books.  Music.  Dance.  Sex.  Love.  Life.

There are people out there who will gladly let each of these dominos fall.  Will you only care when they hit your vice of choice?

(via jeffmiller)

In February, Obama signed into law a large tax hike on cigarette consumers. The federal tax on cigarette consumers is jumping from 39 cents per pack to $1.01 per pack — a huge 159 percent increase. If you smoke two packs per day, President Obama has raised your taxes by a $453 annually. Next on the Obama low-income tax hike agenda: global warming taxes of about $80 billion per year, as revealed in the Obama budget, which equals an annual tax boost of $700 for every household in the United States.