PolitiFact can't even carry Obama's water on this one and the Truth-O-Meter rates Obama's statement from an interview on superbowl Sunday with Bill O'Reilly, where he said "I didn't raise taxes once", as completely false.PolitiFact goes on to show examples of where Obama did raise taxes.
The idea that Obama did not raise taxes is just plain wrong. He signed legislation raising taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products soon after taking office; that money goes to pay for children's health insurance programs. The law went into effect in 2009. He also signed the health care law, which includes taxes on indoor tanning that went into effect last year. (Regular PolitiFact readers will remember our fact-check of reality TV star Snooki and her complaint about the new tax last year.)
The new health care law also includes a tax on people who decide not to have health insurance, as an incentive for them to get coverage. The tax phases in gradually, starting in 2014. By 2016, the tax would be $695 per uninsured person up to a maximum of three times that amount, or $2,085. The law includes exemptions for people who can't find affordable insurance, and a few other special circumstances.
More significantly, the health care law includes new taxes on the wealthy, starting in 2013. Individuals who make more than $200,000 and couples that make more than $250,000 will see additional Medicare taxes of 0.9 percent. They will also, for the first time, have to pay Medicare taxes on their investment income at a 3.8 percent rate. (Current law is that all workers and employers split a 2.9 percent Medicare tax; the self-employed pay all of it.)
The small percentages may not sound like a lot, but those taxes are expected to generate $210 billion over 10 years, or just over half of all the new revenues the health care law authorizes. Other provisions include new fees on health insurance companies and prescription drug manufacturers, and a new tax on high-cost "Cadillac" health insurance plans.
PolitiFact concludes after showing evidence contradicting Obama's statement:
Obama said, "I didn't raise taxes once." But we've documented numerous instances when he has. He's has signed off on small tax cuts for most taxpayers, but that doesn't change the fact that he's also approved several tax increases. So we rate his statement False.
H/T Amy Proctor for the video below:
Amy also reminds people of Obama's words to Joe The Plumber, which completely contradicts his statement from the O'Reilly interview (shown above) that he doesn't wish to redistribute wealth:
PLUMBER : “Your new tax plan is gonna tax me more.”
OBAMA: “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success, too. I think that when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”
Amy has a few more tidbits so make sure you head over there and read the entire thing and watch the vids.
Wall Street Journal adds more:
The Presidency is demanding, and with the Egypt mess and his other duties, perhaps Mr. Obama has forgotten some of his tax achievements. Allow us to refresh his memory. In his historic health-care bill, for example, there is the new $27 billion "fee" on drug companies that is already in effect. Next year, device manufacturers will get hit to the tune of $20 billion, and heath insurers will pay $60 billion starting in 2014—all of which are de facto tax increases because these collections will be passed on to consumers as higher costs. Of course, these are merely tax increases on business.
More damning: According to Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) "Over 90 percent of the dollar value of the tax cuts Obama signed into law are only temporary. 100 percent of the tax increases Obama signed into law are, however, permanent … Permanent changes to tax law signed by Obama amount to a net tax hike of $618.7 billion."
ATR rates Obama's statement as "blatantly false."
Barack Obama conducts an interview on Superbowl Sunday and lies right into the camera and O'Reilly did not follow up as he should have, by asking the obvious question on how Obama can claim he didn't raise taxes as his own lawyers are fighting in court on Obamacare claiming that Congress has the right to force Americans to purchase health insurance by calling that mandate a "tax."
Going beyond the basic functions of the individual mandate, there have been many questions raised about the policy itself. On one hand, President Obama said that he would not raise “any form of taxes” on anyone making less than $250,000 a year and almost everyone agrees that this “tax penalty” is indeed a tax. This is despite repeated and public claims from President Obama and his advisors that it is absolutely not a tax.
On the other hand however, since the passing of the bill, numerous states have sued the federal government claiming that it is unconstitutional for the government to force citizens to purchase health insurance. In their legal defense, the administration’s lawyers claim that the mandate does not violate the Constitution because it is a tax. This doubletalk from the Obama administration has been going on since the start of the Obamacare debate.
NYT:
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.
Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.
While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax.
“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”
O'Reilly missed his shot at cornering Obama and forcing him to either admit the individual mandate is a tax thereby contradicting his own previous statements or declare it is not a tax which would blow his lawyers' arguments in court over the issue.
Bad on O'Reilly!!
Obama must think Americans are stupid and gullible if he thinks they will believe his words "I didn't raise taxes once" over the truth of his actions.
I guess in 2012 we will see if he is right or not about the gullibility of the voting public.
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