From the very beginning of his first campaign for the White House, President Obama had repeatedly promised to end the Bush tax cuts on all families earning more than $250,000 a year. And for about the first 48 hours of 2013, when Bush tax cuts expired at midnight on December 31st, he succeeded. But Obama had also promised not to raise taxes on the middle class, and of the $4 trillion tax hike that kicked in on January 1st, $3.2 trillion of it benefited the middle class. Obama couldn’t let that happen.

So he reneged on his multiple campaign promises and agreed to a new tax cut that restored the Bush rates for all Americans up to $450,000 of family income. In order to portray the deal as a “win” and not a “loss” for Obama, White House aides were dispatched to feed the media quotes portraying the Republican vote for tax cuts as a historic vote for tax hikes. Obama “broke the Republicans’ backs on a 20-year pledge” not to raise tax rates, one White House official told Fox News. “It is one of the most consequential policy achievements of the last couple decades,” the official said.