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FUDGING ABOUT HIS TAX PLEDGE

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Anonymous

Guest
White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, grilled about Obama’s pledge not to raise middle-class taxes, left the president wiggle room. Lloyd Grove reports.

Remember President Obama’s supposedly inviolable pledge—repeatedly uttered during the 2008 campaign and at countless town meetings since the inauguration—that he would never raise taxes on middle-class citizens who earn $250,000 a year or less?

This morning at a Manhattan breakfast sponsored by Thomson Reuters, White House Budget Director Peter Orszag threw that pledge out the window. Instead, he described Obama’s “read my lips, no new taxes” pledge as a “stance” and a “preference” that is subject to study by the president’s newly formed bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility.

“The president has been very clear about what he prefers,” Orszag said under questioning from Thomson Reuters’ Chrystia Freeland. “That was his stance during the campaign, and he still believes that’s the right course forward. But he has also been very clear that we shall let the commission go do its work.”

“It appears that the president’s ‘promise’ is being morphed into a ‘preference,’ ” Hensarling told me.

Freeland followed up, asking if that means the White House might be open to the idea. “Perhaps here’s some give there?”

“I don’t feel like I’m in a position to say that there will be any give there,” Orszag parried. “But the president has been very clear that the commission should go explore whatever options they all deem to be appropriate.”

Later on during the breakfast, Orszag resisted my attempts to pin him down when I asked if the White House could live with a tax increase on the middle class.

“No, I didn’t say that,” he answered. “What I did say is look, the typical thing that’s going to happen, and it’s already been happening, is everyone is going to come along with this idea—the value added tax, this thing under $250,000, Social Security, Medicare changes, what have you—and you’re looking for us to say no, yes, no, yes, no, yes—which will mean that the commission has absolutely nothing to talk about and nothing to do. The president has been very clear that we’re not going to play that game.”

Commission member Jeb Hensarling, a member of the House Budget Committee and a Republican congressman from Texas, told me this morning that Orszag's refusal to reiterate the president’s commitment is a new wrinkle in the debate—and will likely become “a huge issue” in the 2010 midterm elections.

“It appears that the president’s ‘promise’ is being morphed into a ‘preference,’ ” Hensarling told me. “Peter Orszag has one of the toughest jobs in Washington—defending all the spending and the deficit. I like Peter, but the bottom line is you can’t have a lot of the long-term spending projects of the federal government, and knowing we’re going to drown in debt, and not raise taxes, unless you get serious on the spending side.”

Hensarling predicted his fellow Republicans will hit Obama’s apparent willingness to break his no-new-taxes pledge hard, and it will damage the Democrats as November looms.

Correction: This article originally misstated that Rep. Hensarling is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee.
 

floyd

Well-known member
Shrub said we won't nationbuild. Rebuilding iraq won't cost the American taxpayer one red cent.

Shrub is a politician. Obama is a politician. Often when a politician's mouth moves they are lying. Get used to it.
 

Larrry

Well-known member
floyd said:
Often when a politician's mouth moves they are lying. Get used to it.

I will not get used to it. That kind of attitude got this country to where we are now. I complained about Bush and his many faults, all thew while figuring that America would wake up. So what happened by being quiet and hoping things would get better. We got McCain who was not conservative but he was an idol of the left media until he got the nomination. But the biggest thing we got was oobama who daily give us another shot of socialism all the while we get closer to the brink of collapse.

So no I will not get used to it and refuse to accept the direction we are going.

Back to the original post which is excellent and it has no bearing whatsover on Bush, this is obamas baby. So sit back and accept this behavior of our president but I choose to expect MORE than lies
 
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