Barack Obama has not ruled out tax increases on the middle class

  I haven’t written anything yet on the SEC’s decision to indict Goldman Sachs yet, but I have been reading about it while trying to sort it out. Today I read this article about Barack Obama denying that there is a link between his announcement that he is going to go after Wall Street and the timing of the indictment.

  Again, I am still not ready to write about the SEC’s indictment of Goldman Sachs, but I did find a quote about taxes on the middle class by Barack Obama that I found interesting.

  He reiterated that he gave most Americans a tax break in the stimulus bill and said that he still hoped to avoid more taxes on the middle class.

  First of all, he did not give most Americans a tax break as he claims. What he did give to the middle class was a reduction in withholding taxes from their paychecks– on average, $13 in 2009 which will be reduced to $8 this year. This is a huge difference, as many Americans found out when they filed their taxes earlier this year. Many middle class Americans when they filed their tax returns  found out that they were not getting back nearly as much money as they usually do, while many Americans that usually get back a small return found out that they actually owed money this year. This was due to the fact that while Barack Obama cut the amount of withholding taxes, the tax brackets remained unchanged. That means that while people’s tax rates remained unchanged, they did not pay enough money in weekly taxes to cover the tax that they owed. This was not a tax break. I know this first hand.

  But anyway, back to the Barack Obama quote that got my attention in the article I liked to above.

 I believe that we should be able to make sure that we don’t burden middle class families further,” he said. “Having said that, I’m also going to wait for the fiscal commission to provide me what their best recommendations are

  While he stated that he “did not want to burden middle class families and further,” he also stated that he is going to wait for recommendations before he makes any final decision. He has not ruled out tax increases on the middle class. While he does not want to raise our taxes, he has not ruled out the possibility of breaking one of his biggest campaign promises. If the committee recommends rasing taxes on the middle class Barack Obama is going to consider this option.

  This was an opportunity for Barack Obama to reiterate his campaign promise not to increase taxes on the middle class, but he failed to do so. Middle class tax increases may very well be on the table and I for one don’t doubt for a second that we are going to see our taxes increased.