WASHINGTON: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” so goes Santayana’s Law of Repetitive Consequences. One thing you can’t criticize President Obama for is unwillingness to follow the example of Republicans. In 1988 presidential candidate George H. W. Bush pledged, “Read my lips, no new taxes.”  After Bush was elected he backtracked on his promise, which contributed to the undoing of his presidency.

Candidate Barack H. Obama promised in 2008 that those making less than $250,000 per year would not see “one dime” in tax increases:

“I can make a firm pledge,” he said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. “Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

He repeatedly vowed “you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime.” Breitbart

The NIP wonders if Obama remembers what happened to President Bush when he ignored his own promise not to increase taxes. Today Obama appears non-chalant about his promise to confine tax increases to “fat cats”:

President Obama says he will be “agnostic” about whatever his reduce-the-federal-debt commission recommends — including the idea of higher taxes for households making less than $250,000 a year.

“What I want to do is to be completely agnostic in terms of solutions,” Obama told Bloomberg Business Week in interview excerpts released today. “I want everybody to sit down and work off of a common base of facts.”

The question dealt specifically with households making less than $250,000; Obama promised during his presidential campaign not to raise taxes on that group.  USA Today

The problem arises because Obama’s socialist agenda has increased spending at such an unprecedented rate that even if he increased the top marginal tax rate 90% he still wouldn’t be able to balance his budget.

One thing Obama has in common with George H. W. Bush is that both turned to tax increases to pay for Democratic spending on entitlements, but now Obama’s spending on entitlements has skyrocketed. President Obama’s budget projects deficits in the trillions for as far as the eye can see.

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