Posted on 02/11/2010 1:28:30 PM PST by jessduntno
By JACKIE CALMES
President Obama, still seeking to get Congressional Republicans to join in a bipartisan commission to reduce the federal debt, suggested he would be willing to break his campaign promise against raising taxes on households with less than $250,000 annual income.
“The whole point of it is to make sure that all ideas are on the table,” the president said in the interview on Tuesday with Bloomberg BusinessWeek that the publication released online today. That included not only tax increases, he added, but also spending on the popular government health programs, Medicare and Medicaid, whose fast-growing costs are driving the projections of unsustainable annual deficits in coming years.
“What I can’t do is to set the thing up where a whole bunch of things are off the table,” Mr. Obama said. “Some would say we can’t look at entitlements. There are going to be some that say we can’t look at taxes, and pretty soon, you just can’t solve the problem.”
Budget experts from conservative to liberal have long agreed that future deficits can only be brought under control by a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, especially in the benefit programs. Many of them criticized Mr. Obama during the campaign for promising in effect to exempt 95 percent of Americans from any tax increase; the wealthiest 5 percent, the critics said, cannot shoulder the likely load without harming investment and economic growth.
Last summer, with the recession’s costs having forced deficits above $1 trillion annually on average, Mr. Obama’s spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said the president stood by his campaign promise after the top economic advisers — Lawrence H. Summers and Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury secretary — suggested the administration was reconsidering in light of the worsened fiscal forecasts.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com ...
all ideas on the table.
uhh
how about resign and take Joe with you
0bama comes off like an arsonist who offers to use a squirt gun to put a fire out.
Not exactly a surprise. It is difficult to “spread the wealth around” without raising taxes. He is doing what he said he was going to do when he was running for election.
Uh, uh . . .
That’s bipartisanship?
Offer to break your pledge, raise taxes on everyone, give your union friends more pork, and then blame it all on the Republicans? And they’ll gladly reach across the aisle and take the blame for it?
This guy is insane.
this should be good for another few point drop in approval rating
Raise taxes on the middle class! Why ever would the GOP turn down a chance to be part of that?
sarc
Hey,a $10 additional tax on a pack of cigs could raise upto 90Billion a year.
There was someone on the radio advocating a 1 dollar tax to raise 9 Billion to help out foreclosed people or somesuch.
This on top of the states piling on already.
If he will agree to cutting medicare, medicaid, and social security, decrease the number of federal programs by at least a third, and will raise taxes so that those who are paying ZERO taxes now will pay at least something-— I’m open to paying a little more. Better yet, agree to an ironclad balanced budget plus 10 percent to pay down debt, I’ll pay MORE than a little bit more. It’s immoral to keep robbing from the future of those who can’t even vote and I want no part of it.
I’d laugh out loud at this except that it confirms what I’d been fearing — Less paycheck in my pocket.
Spend, tax, redistribute....
Just yet another broken pledge. Employment won’t go above 8%. Gitmo to close by Jan. 2010. No lobbyists in my administration. Iraq war to end by 2010. Iran will not be allowed to become a nuclear state. I’m going to cut the deficit in half. Stimulus money will create jobs.
“Miss me yet?”
So he wants REPUBLICANS to stand up and say-—YES!!! Let’s tax everybody!!!!! Incredible. Even some of our senate republicans couldn’t be THAT stupid.
Even some of our senate republicans couldn’t be THAT stupid.
From your lips...
You left out total transparency, bills on the internet, everything on See SPAM...
Egads man, that would leave of with Queen Nancy!
Are you FReep'n NUTS!
Notice when
spending exceeds receipts
they never look to see what they can do to reduce spending, except on those things that the Constitution DOES require them to spend on.
“Not exactly a surprise.”
Precisely. Obama thinks that somehow Americans will be fooled into believing he has been “forced” to raise taxes against his will rather than simply breaking a promise he never had any intention of actually keeping. Obama went on his spending spree in full expectation that it would create a gigantic fiscal hole that he could plug with higher taxes. Unlike Kennedy, who had a supply-sider’s appreciation that the economy would grow faster by REDUCING marginal tax rates on the rich, Obama has no understanding of how the economy really works. He’s certainly no Jack Kennedy.
Thank God this guy is a fool or idiot. This will be his “read my lips” moment and will destroy his hopes of getting the Independents back in 2012.
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