The first claim is about the health care law, A.K.A. "Obamacare". Only ONE Supreme Court Justice, Roberts, called it a "tax". The others didn't really address that classification. Many don't consider required insurance a "tax".
Conservatives counter that since Roberts cast the "deciding vote", that it should be classified as a "tax". However, that's almost like making the player that made the final winning shot the MVP of a basketball team regardless of what the other players contributed. "Deciding vote" is not an official category, nor an objective one.
The second claim is about the expiring Social Security (SS) payroll tax cut. The SS tax cut was originally designed as a temporary tax CUT as part of the 2009 stimulus package. It was intended to expire, and that's exactly what happened. I've seen no evidence that the GOP has pushed to reinstate it, by the way, so to say that Obama "owns" the increase is disingenuous. All of DC owns it.
Further, Obama's no-new-middle-class-tax pledge stated "new taxes". The payroll tax that was cut was not new, only the temporary reprieve was new. Thus, it is outside of the pledge. That makes two problems with conservatives' SS tax claim.
And, by some interpretations, his promise was made in the scope and context of the 2009 budget, not "forever and ever".
No comments:
Post a Comment