Obama may delay tax-cut rollback for wealthy

President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise - to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans - as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday.

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign strategist who was chosen to be a senior White House adviser, was asked if the tax cuts could be allowed to expire on schedule after tax year 2010 rather than being rolled back by legislation earlier. "Those considerations will be made," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Bill Daley, an adviser to Obama and commerce secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the 2010 scenario "looks more likely than not."

President George W. Bush's tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010. After that they would revert to 2001 levels, when the top individual tax rate was 39.6 percent.

Obama has called for reducing taxes for the middle class, but requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay more than the current top rate of 35 percent.

His aides' comments suggest Obama may be wary of imposing any additional tax burden at a time of deep crisis, despite the outlook for record budget deficits and mounting national debt. He may also be seeking to bolster Republican support for his recovery measures.

Webmaster's Commentary: 

At first read, this article will probably piss you off. Not even in office and already Obama is caving on his campaign promises.

BUT, note that nowhere in this article is there a statement by Obama himself. So, one of two things is oging on.

1. Obama's advisers are simply putting out their own agenda, hoping to create a public expectation of what Obama will do in office, in order to coerce certain policies upon him; to box him in politically. If that is the case then Obama needs to get his people back under control.

Or...

2. Obama is using his advisers to float some trial balloons to see what campaign promises he can drop without losing his huge margin of support coming out of the election. If this is true, then Obama has just betrayed a fatal weakness! He thinks America voted for him. personally. We did not. We voted AGAINST continuing the policies of the past that got us into this mess, and we expect and demand change with this new administration.

So far, Obama is looking more and more like business as usual, and if indeed Obama simply picks up where Bush leaves off Obama will quickly find that the frustration and pent-up anger currently focused on Bush will quite easily transfer onto himself.

Posted on Nov 23, 2008 at 11:07
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