As Scott notes below, President Obama seems poised to introduce a Value Added Tax (VAT) probably after the November election. But didn’t Obama promise during the campaign that under his presidency, families making less than $250,000 per year would not experience an increase in their taxes? And doesn’t the VAT add to the tax burden of every American family?
The answer to both questions is: yes. However, Obama now characterizes his tax pledge as applying only to income taxes. Thus, in his weekly radio address of April 10, 2010, Obama said: “And one thing we have not done is raise income taxes on families making less than $250,000; that’s another promise we’ve kept.”
But Obama’s claim about what he promised is false. Speaking in Dover, New Hampshire on September 12, 2008, Obama said this:
I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.
Thus, as Robert Gibbs later admitted, Obama’s tax pledge “didn’t come with caveats.” But it does seem to have come with an undisclosed expiration date.
Here is the video of Obama taking his bogus pledge in New Hampshire.
VIa Americans for Tax Reform.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.