President Obama and White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe have adopted contradictory rhetoric regarding President Obama’s proposed tax increases, which the president has touted as “tax reform.”
Plouffe defended the tax increases during an interview on Fox News Sunday, when Chris Wallace asked Plouffe how the president’s plan can be reconciled with Obama’s statement two years ago that “you don’t raise taxes during a recession.” Plouffe responded that “the president would like to do tax reform . . . But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.”
Plouffe’s recognition that tax increases on the wealthy do not amount to “tax reform” seem to put him at odds with Obama’s defense of the tax increases as an example of tax reform:
Wallace pointed out to Plouffe that “the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of federal income taxes. Meanwhile, 46 percent of households pay no federal income tax at all.” Plouffe countered that “you can manipulate the statistics in any way you want,” and also said that “they are making a ton of money” while “we have inequities,” presumably in the tax code. And then Plouffe offered what would qualify as an argument for tax reform, except that Plouffe is admittedly not pushing for tax reform:
Wallace interjected, “Because 70% isn’t enough?”
