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Remember all those mainstream news reports before the election about how President Obama's expansive spending plans would require massive tax hikes on everyone, not just millionaires and billionaires? Neither do we.
But somehow after the election, reporters are finally admitting that Obama's budget numbers simply don't add up and that new taxes on the middle class — including a European-style value added tax — are "inevitable."
New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter, for example, wrote this week that the $620 billion in tax hikes on the rich that Obama secured as part of the fiscal-cliff deal are "hardly enough to stabilize the nation's debt in the next 10 years, let alone deal with the long-term budget deficit."
Fortune senior editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote last week how "steep deficits and mountainous debt will rise even after the new revenue is counted."
An article on CNBC's website in early January noted that the fiscal-cliff deal "merely masks the bleak long-term outlook for the country."
These stories go on to say that there's no way Obama can finance his ambitious plans without raising taxes on everyone.
The Financial Times ran a piece shortly after Obama signed the fiscal-cliff deal noting "that maintaining a basic welfare state . .. implies higher taxes for the middle class as well as for the rich."
Targeting The Middle
CNN reported that while "President Obama wants to balance spending cuts with tax increases ... experts say he can't do that without hitting the middle class."
That story quotes Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby saying that "it's hard to make the numbers work" if you exempt "the middle class from any pain."
Hmm.
As we recall, Obama endlessly promised the country that he could spend — sorry, "invest" — more on roads and education while cutting the deficit simply by trimming some fat out of government programs and asking "millionaires and billionaires to pay just a little bit more."
No one in the mainstream press seriously challenged Obama on this at the time, even though it was painfully obvious to anyone who looked at the budget forecasts that Obama was peddling fiscal snake oil.
No Spending Cuts
Obama's own budget showed that his plan trimmed 10-year deficits by just $2 trillion.
And a Congressional Budget Office review of that plan showed deficits shooting back up after 2018.
So now that Obama is safely back in the White House, it's apparently OK for reporters to be honest with the public and talk up the "inevitability" of new taxes on the middle class.
But somehow after the election, reporters are finally admitting that Obama's budget numbers simply don't add up and that new taxes on the middle class — including a European-style value added tax — are "inevitable."
New York Times columnist Eduardo Porter, for example, wrote this week that the $620 billion in tax hikes on the rich that Obama secured as part of the fiscal-cliff deal are "hardly enough to stabilize the nation's debt in the next 10 years, let alone deal with the long-term budget deficit."
Fortune senior editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote last week how "steep deficits and mountainous debt will rise even after the new revenue is counted."
An article on CNBC's website in early January noted that the fiscal-cliff deal "merely masks the bleak long-term outlook for the country."
These stories go on to say that there's no way Obama can finance his ambitious plans without raising taxes on everyone.
The Financial Times ran a piece shortly after Obama signed the fiscal-cliff deal noting "that maintaining a basic welfare state . .. implies higher taxes for the middle class as well as for the rich."
Targeting The Middle
CNN reported that while "President Obama wants to balance spending cuts with tax increases ... experts say he can't do that without hitting the middle class."
That story quotes Concord Coalition Executive Director Robert Bixby saying that "it's hard to make the numbers work" if you exempt "the middle class from any pain."
Hmm.
As we recall, Obama endlessly promised the country that he could spend — sorry, "invest" — more on roads and education while cutting the deficit simply by trimming some fat out of government programs and asking "millionaires and billionaires to pay just a little bit more."
No one in the mainstream press seriously challenged Obama on this at the time, even though it was painfully obvious to anyone who looked at the budget forecasts that Obama was peddling fiscal snake oil.
No Spending Cuts
Obama's own budget showed that his plan trimmed 10-year deficits by just $2 trillion.
And a Congressional Budget Office review of that plan showed deficits shooting back up after 2018.
So now that Obama is safely back in the White House, it's apparently OK for reporters to be honest with the public and talk up the "inevitability" of new taxes on the middle class.
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