WaPo - "As deficit commission meets, Obama doesn't rule out new taxes" - OH NOES!

[TomCADem]

Let the misinformation begin! Some folks are saying that the President's refusal to rule out tax increases means that we will be getting a VAT next year! Others, such as the Nation, say that the end of Social Security is nigh! OMG! OMG!

The President has not ruled out turning people into Soyent Green as means of reducing the deficit, therefore that must also be in the offing! :crazy:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/27/AR2010042702275.html

President Obama said Tuesday that "everything has to be on the table" for a new commission examining the federal deficit, a position that raises the possibility that he could revisit the most expensive provisions of his new health-care law or backtrack on his pledge not to raise taxes for the middle class.

Speaking to reporters before the first meeting of the bipartisan commission, Obama warned that he would not answer questions about specific recommendations the panel might make.

"I'm not going to say what's in. I'm not going to say what's out. I want this commission to be free to do its work," he said.

In recent interviews, Obama and other administration officials have left the door open to tax increases, even for those earning less than $250,000 a year. The president has also explicitly agreed to consider changes to the hard-fought health-care law, said Alan K. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming who is serving as co-chair of the 18-member panel of lawmakers and presidential appointees.

[SunsetDreams]

1. Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcLCoTcgL4Y

No soundbite

[laughingliberal]

2. I'll just bookmark it and we'll take a look come December. nt

[bluestateguy]

3. A VAT has about as much chance of passing Congress as a single payer national health care system

It's a nice little idea for think tankers and economists to play around with for their own edification, but back here in the real world it is Dead Before Arrival.

[TomCADem]

6. Damn It! What About Soylent Green? I Demand That President Rule It Out!!!

The President has not expressly ruled it out, so thus it is safe to conclude that it being considered by the deficit commission, and will form the cornerstone of deficit reduction strategy. We need to take a stand! It is made from people! People!!!!

<>

:crazy:

[jeanpalmer]

4. What does it say

that he put the health care law on the chopping block only weeks after it was passed and signed? The ink was barely dry.

I wonder which part of the health care law is on the chopping block - the benefits or the tax increases? Hard to believe the Catfood Commission will scale back the tax increases, since it's goal is to raise revenue. OTOH, federal spending under the law will consists almost entirely of insurance subsidies. So if something's going to be cut, it has to be the subsidies. Wonder what the recommended cut will be?

[burnsei sensei]

5. I'd rather see an entire battery of new taxes

than change Social Security one iota.