Here’s yet another sign that Obama’s promise of no middle class tax cut is about to go out the window:
To get the economy back on track, will President Barack Obama have to break his pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans? In a “This Week” exclusive, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told me, “We’re going to have to do what’s necessary.”
Geithner was clear that he believes a key component of economic recovery is deficit reduction. When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn’t do it.
“We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically,” Geithner told me. “And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
I’s pretty clear that Obama’s agenda precludes the possibility of significant, meaningful, budget cuts that will actually do something about the size of the budget deficit.
So, middle class, bend over and prepare to take it.
August 2nd, 2009 at 11:35 am
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August 2nd, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Do we really want to pretend a tax increase wasn’t coming regardless of who was elected? There’s only so much room to cut and iirc deficit was at ten billion before we even got into the whole bailout/meltdown thing. It sucks, and I didn’t appreciate that Obama wouldn’t talk to us like adults about it during the campaign (I voted for him) but it’s not like I actually believed the sugar-coated nonsense either of them were feeding us at the time. (Remember when McCain said he’d balance the budget in his first term?) It’s all a terrible bummer but where should we really focus our indignation? Are we actually willing to elect someone who doesn’t lie to us constantly during the campaign? I kinda doubt it. Don’t hate the player, hate the game … ? I’m not excusing politicians for bs’ing us by any means but this is one case where acting indignant just rings hollow to me. If we were honest w/ ourselves in the first, like I said, we should be ready to accept this was pretty much inevitable.
(neat comment-preview thing btw)
August 2nd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Er, I believe I mixed up the deficit and the national debt at one place there. (Can’t see my comment.) Obviously the double-digit figures are the debt. Whoops.