Obama Backing Away From Promise To “Roll Back” The Bush Tax Cuts
What’s this? The liberal messiah keeping in place tax cuts for the rich?
Heresy!
President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying an election promise – to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans – as part of his economic recovery strategy, a senior aide and an adviser said on Sunday.
David Axelrod, one of Obama’s closest confidants chosen to be a senior White House adviser, was asked if the tax cut could be ended later than Obama called for during the campaign. “Considerations will be made,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.”
Could this be a tacit admission from Obama that massive tax hikes are not what the economy needs right now? And that the promise of such may be exactly what’s making the market tank right now?
I think that’s exactly the goal here. Remember: Letting the Bush tax cuts expire would mean a massive hike in taxes on income from investment. And if there’s anything this economy doesn’t need right now, it’s prohibitive taxes on investing.
Obama may be the most liberal President this country has elected since Jimmy Carter’s failed term in office, but he’s no dummy. And he has a lot more ambition than ideological drive, meaning that he’s someone more than willing to put principles aside for the sake of gaining and maintaining power.
The only problem Obama is going to face, if this is indeed his strategy, is how to keep these tax cuts in place without appearing to support them. Remember, thanks to inept Republicans, the Bush tax cuts aren’t permanent. They’ll expire in this coming session of Congress unless Obama and his Democrats either extend them or make them permanent.
We should hope they do just that.
