Obama on raising taxes during a recession back in August of 2009:
Obama two years later while the country struggles to stay out of a double dip recession:
President Obama will call for a new higher tax rate on millionaires to ensure they pay at least the same share of income in taxes that middle class families do.
…
The plan will be called the “Buffett Rule” in reference to billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has long called on lawmakers to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans.
In the mean-time, ABC is doing a little fact checking:
President Barack Obama makes it sound like there are millionaires all over America paying taxes at lower rates than their secretaries.
“Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires,” Obama said Monday. “That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that.”
The data tells a different story. On average, the wealthiest people in America pay a lot more taxes than the middle class or the poor, according to private and government data. They pay at a higher rate, and as a group, they contribute a much larger share of the overall taxes collected by the federal government.
There may be individual millionaires who pay taxes at rates lower than middle-income workers. In 2009, 1,470 households filed tax returns with incomes above $1 million yet paid no federal income tax, according to the Internal Revenue Service. That, however, was less than 1 percent of the nearly 237,000 returns with incomes above $1 million.
And so the sleight of hand from this administration continues. Obama is banking on the premise that his lies are going to be believed by most of America.
Thankfully, his snake oil is no longer selling.
