Comments on: Obama To Let Bush Tax Cuts Expire

By: ExiledIndependent

ExiledIndependent — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:07:25 +0000

So, wait, if taxing the wealthy more is a bad idea in a downturn, what makes it a good idea in 2011? Taxing the wealthy shouldn’t matter, right? It’s the taxes on the middle class that really matter, based on what we heard during the campaign. This dude is making it up as he goes along….

By: Jimmy the Dhimmi

Jimmy the Dhimmi — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 02:42:25 +0000

This is, of course, a good sign, but only in that Obama isn’t doing what he said he was going to do (which I predicted!), at least not now. It didn’t take the right wing for Obama to promise raising taxes on the rich, and then “spreading the wealth around” by giving 1000$ rebate checks to people who don’t pay taxes. Or raising capital gains taxes to 30%, or increase taxes on businesses that expand overseas, or create a “patriotic corporations list,” or promise to bankrupt the coal industry, or even create a mandatory civil security force complete with uniforms and barracks.

He has rolled back on all of these promises since he has gotten elected, and as Mike pointed out, even before that. If eventually Obama decides to carry out all of these campaign promises, would then he become the socialist boogeyman the right-wing painted him as?

It seems that you are implying exactly that i.e., because he is only letting tax cuts expire rather than raising them, he is not a socialist boogeyman. I would assume ,then, you are saying, if he DID raise them – “boggedy boogedy boo!”

By: Alistair

Alistair — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 19:45:06 +0000

Well folks, if Obama does get off on a good start and is able to hold off rants from both the left and the right he’s going to win again by a landslide in 2012 whether it’s Palin, Hucklebee, Rudy G or Romney.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:17:37 +0000

Actually he was hinting at this even before the election. I first heard it on his interview with Bill O’Reilly, which the media ignored, and the Obama campaign was happy to get the political benefit of class warfare against the rich, while quietly leaving their options open to a more moderate policy.

But I too am glad to see him make this move. I just don’t think you can blame the right-wing for making him seem like a “boogeyman” for raising taxes on the rich. Actually I think its interesting that the tax issue has basically fallen off the radar after the election, given how big an issue it was before the election. It seem to me the policy proposals that occur before the election are just an audition, and aren’t really linked to what really happens after the election. But maybe I’m being too cynical.