This weekend on CNN Robert Gibbs, a surrogate for President Obama, said Obama was 100 percent committed
to letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making above $250,000 a
year. Given Obama’s track record on his tax related campaign promises, I
have a tough time believing his team on this issue, and I’m likely not
alone. When it comes to keeping his tax promises, Obama’s record falls
somewhere between poor and abysmal.
Most important is his comically bad record on identical promises he previously made about the Bush tax cuts. Obama spend years campaigning on his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000. Yet for his first two years in office Obama completely failed to achieve this goal. Obama could have easily ended this tax break using reconciliation when he still had very large Democratic majorities in Congress. Not only did Obama fail to do that, but his team made no serious effort during those months when they stood the best chance of succeeding.
After basically ignoring the promise for two years, Obama was forced to deal with it when all the Bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire. At that critical moment, instead of sticking to his promise, Obama completely folded. Not only did Obama give in to Republican demands to extend them all, but in his public statements afterwards he seemed to imply he would have to fold if the GOP used the same tactics again.
His past failure on this exact same promise should be enough to destroy Obama’s credibility for the second go around, but this is not the only big campaign tax promise on which Obama completely reversed himself.
Read more: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2012/07/09/obama-has-a-serious-tax-credibility-problem/
Most important is his comically bad record on identical promises he previously made about the Bush tax cuts. Obama spend years campaigning on his promise to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000. Yet for his first two years in office Obama completely failed to achieve this goal. Obama could have easily ended this tax break using reconciliation when he still had very large Democratic majorities in Congress. Not only did Obama fail to do that, but his team made no serious effort during those months when they stood the best chance of succeeding.
After basically ignoring the promise for two years, Obama was forced to deal with it when all the Bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire. At that critical moment, instead of sticking to his promise, Obama completely folded. Not only did Obama give in to Republican demands to extend them all, but in his public statements afterwards he seemed to imply he would have to fold if the GOP used the same tactics again.
His past failure on this exact same promise should be enough to destroy Obama’s credibility for the second go around, but this is not the only big campaign tax promise on which Obama completely reversed himself.
Read more: http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2012/07/09/obama-has-a-serious-tax-credibility-problem/
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