Obama: Never Raise Taxes In A Recession

Mr Obama wants to raise your taxes. And not by just a hair. He wishes to raise taxes by $1 trillion dollars. From The Weekly Standard:

In a 75-minute meeting Sunday night, President Obama once again demanded that more than $1 trillion in tax increases be part of any deficit reduction package attached to a vote on the debt ceiling. In the session, Obama rejected a Republican proposal to seek $2.5 trillion in spending cuts and reforms, and insisted on higher taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals.

Actually, the Associated Press (AP) says no, Mr Obama's tax hike would hurt low- and middle-class families:

Proposals under consideration include raising taxes on small business owners and potentially low- and middle-income families. You won't hear about that from Obama. Instead the president focuses on the very rich, and speaks euphemistically. Here are a few of the phrases the president has used of late to talk about what amounts to raising taxes for some:

-- "What we need to do is to have a balanced approach where everything is on the table."

--"We need to take on spending in the tax code."

--"The tax cuts I'm proposing we get rid of are tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires; tax breaks for oil companies and hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners."

--"You can't reduce the deficit to the levels that it needs to be reduced without having some revenue in the mix."

However, Mr Obama appears to be just a tad bit contradictory:

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And above is video evidence of this, in an interview with MSNBC's Chuck Todd in August of 2009. To acquire the exact quote, please fast forward to the 5:20 mark.

The specific (outside) question to Mr Obama: "Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy."

The specific answer by Mr Obama: "First of all, he’s right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.”

Further, Mr Obama said: “We have not proposed a tax hike for the wealthy that would take effect in the middle of a recession. Even the proposals that have come out of Congress – which by the way were different from the proposals I put forward – still wouldn’t kick in until after the recession was over. So he’s absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole.”

Just a wee-bit-o-hypocrisy eh, Mr Obama?

Because if the debt ceiling isn't raised by the August 2nd deadline, the globe will collapse in on itself and life as we know it will end.

The same thing Mr Obama said would occur if we didn't pass each and every Porkulus Package.

I'm still here.

And so is our staggering debt.

BZ