After speechifying VP Joe Biden into a restful sleep on Wednesday, President Obama began what Bill Kristol at the Weekly Standard has dubbed Obama's Orwellian Deficit Reduction Tour to "Discuss his Vision for Bringing Down our Deficit Based on Shared Responsibility and Shared Prosperity". This plan, of course is a plan that looks pretty much like his big spending 2012 budget proposal, except with more tax increases added in. Obama proposes to appoint a commission to tackle future deficit reductions, despite having already had a deficit commission whose recommendations the President has chosen to ignore.
What the President refuses to acknowledge publicly is that raising taxes on the rich cannot close the deficit. While he seeks to raise tax rates for those making $250,000 per year, if we took everyone who makes at least $100,000 per year and taxed them at 100%, that would only add $1.5 trillion in revenue. Our current year deficit is $1.6 trillion. So either he knows that the deficit cannot be taxed away on the rich & he fully intends to raise taxes on the middle class too or he just doesn't really care about the deficit & is in campaign mode.
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| Note the scalpel |