Obama promised not to increase "ANY" taxes for 95% of Americans - Oops!

National sales tax debate begins to stir
from the UPI
Published: May 27, 2009

WASHINGTON, N.Y., May 27 (UPI) -- Some key U.S. economic advisers have said a federal sales tax should be considered an option to help balance the books and pay for healthcare reform.

An unthinkable political option in years past, a budget deficit projected at $3.1 trillion over this year and next and a trillion dollar extension of national health coverage proposed by President Barack Obama have pushed a so-called value-added tax closer to serious national debate, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee Kent Conrad, D-N.D. has declared that "a VAT and a high-end income tax have got to be on the table."

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has expressed cautious support for a national sales tax. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag has hired Ezekiel Emanuel, a strong proponent of a value-added tax as a consultant on healthcare reform, the Post said.

Orszag spokesman Kenneth Baer said the system, considered a regressive tax, "is popular with academics but highly controversial with policymakers."

"People are beginning to recognize that the mathematics of the current system are just unsustainable," said Yale Law professor Michael Graetz.

"A VAT has got to be on the table if you want to do something big and serious," he said.

Barry: What Part of NO more money is available, do you not understand???

Given the current state of the economy and the projected deficits based on the budget currently in place, how does Obama justify implementing new programs and making monumental changes to existing programs, knowing full well that the subsequent impact will bury this economy and possibly guarantee a depression? It's absolutely financial suicide!

We better start calling our Congressional Representitives and Senators and head this off at the pass.

Obama's enormous ego and unlimited arrogance just embolden him to basically say to us that he doesn't care what we think. He's going to do what he has always planned to do and he dares anyone to try and stop him.
Rees

When his budget estimates were just blown out of the water by the CBO, how can he say his Agenda is still on track?

from My Way

By ANDREW TAYLOR
March 22, 2009

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama's budget would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than four times the deficits of Republican George W. Bush's presidency, congressional auditors said Friday.

The new Congressional Budget Office figures offered a far more dire outlook for Obama's budget than the new administration predicted just last month - a deficit $2.3 trillion worse. It's a prospect even the president's own budget director called unsustainable.

In his White House run, Obama assailed the economic policies of his predecessor, but the eye-popping deficit numbers threaten to swamp his ambitious agenda of overhauling health care, exploring new energy sources and enacting scores of domestic programs.

The dismal deficit figures, if they prove to be accurate, inevitably raise the prospect that Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress would have to consider raising taxes after the recession ends or else pare back his agenda.

[my comments - Obama wants to get his programs in place and all the users addicted, so he can then turn around and say, "Gee, the economy is much worse than we anticipated. Unless we make severe cuts to each person's favorite program, we'll have to raise taxes." We know from history that there won't be anyone that wants their ox gored. The end result will be higher taxes. Wow! What a surprise!]

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

White House budget chief Peter Orszag said that CBO's long-range economic projections are more pessimistic than those of the White House, private economists and the Federal Reserve and that he remained confident that Obama's budget, if enacted, would produce smaller deficits.
Even so, Orszag acknowledged that if the CBO projections prove accurate, Obama's budget would produce deficits that could not be sustained.
[what if the CBO is right and Orszag is wrong? The CBO has a better track record.]
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