“But let me perfectly clear, because I know you’ll hear the same old claims that rolling back these tax breaks means a massive tax increase on the American people: if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”—Barack Obama State of the Union Address, 2/24/09
“you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”—Barack Obama State of the Union Address, 2/24/09
This obviously was a Clintonian construction. People foolishly interpreted this to mean no increase in taxes, but what Obama actually said was that your taxes won’t go up by a single dime—meaning that if they go up by 10 dimes, 100 dimes or many thousands of dimes, he will (technically) not have lied to anyone. The man is shameless.
Rahm’s brother Zeke now advises OMB Director Peter Orzag. Forget about nickel and dime taxes on soda, cigarettes or alcohol. Zeke’s bright idea is a value-added tax on EVERYTHING, with the proceeds dedicated to health care. Obama hasn’t yet signed onto this idea, but because it generates massive revenue, my guess is that it may well be part of the final package because there simply isn’t enough “sin” to tax to provide the river of annual revenue needed to fund universal health care.