Return to Washington Examiner Homepage
May 20, 2013 | 01:38 PM
politics
Washington D.C. weather

Norquist: Obama junks pledge to kill taxes on $250,000

August 10, 2012 | 2:18 pm | Modified: August 10, 2012 at 2:20 pm
Leave a comment

The nation's leading tax watchdog charged Friday that President Obama has dropped his promise to block new taxes from families making $250,000 or less.

Instead, said Americans for Tax Reform, the president in new campaign speech language is only promising to limit income tax hikes and only for a year.

The group, headed by influential conservative Grover Norquist, is drawing attention to a speech Obama gave Wednesday in Grand Junction, Colorado, where they say he rolled out a new phrase that should scare taxpayers.

"Obama has altered his 2008 'firm pledge' that no family making less than $250,000 per year would see 'any form of tax increase.' Obama has now limited the pledge to merely income taxes,' and only for next year," said ATR in a release.

Here are the operative quotes according to ATR:

-- On September 12, 2008, speaking in Dover, New Hampshire, candidate Obama said: "I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."

-- On Wednesday, August 8, speaking in Grand Junction, Colorado, President Obama said: "So if your family makes under $250,000 -- which, by the way, 98 percent of Americans do -- 97 percent of small businesses do, you will not see your income taxes increase by a single dime next year. That's my plan."

Asked ATR in a release: "Taxpayers may be asking themselves what other tax increases await them if President Obama is given a second term."

From WeeklyStandard.com

  • Ideological Revenue Service

    With three different scandals threatening to consume the White House last week—the Benghazi cover-up, the Justice Department’s seizure of the phone records of dozens of Associated Press...

    Read More...

  • The Real Scandal

    Everyone in Washington, except those in the crosshairs, likes a good scandal, and THE WEEKLY STANDARD is no exception. What’s more, in the case of the Obama administration, comeuppance is well...

    Read More...

  • When It Rains, It Pours

    There is no curse on the second term of presidents. When presidents lose credibility, when trust vanishes and their word is no longer accepted, they have only themselves to blame. That was true...

    Read More...