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Top Obama advisor: Tax hike? Maybe.
By: J.P. Freire
Associate Commentary Editor
11/02/09 3:24 PM EST
Worth noting from Jarrett's Sunday interview is this line:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: “So he will not -- bottom line, he will not violate that commitment, is what you're saying?”
VALERIE JARRETT: “What I'm saying is that he is confident that a bill that's going to be passed is going to be consistent with his parameters, yes.”
What does that sentence mean? Why not just a simple "Yes"? Why is this qualified?
Well, if you just heard a record scratch, that's because on Sept. 12, 2008, candidate Obama made this pledge:
“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.”
And on Oct. 3, 2008, Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden said:
"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised," Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."
Then again, the president's understanding of the definition of a tax is fairly, uh, flexible as in the clip below.
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