Heritage’s Brian Riedl has pulled together a list of how the White House plans to increase taxes by nearly $1.4 trillion over the next ten years. See it here.
He also has this spot on comment, “In his recent address to Congress, President Obama promised that ‘if your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.’ Yet even before the budget was released, he signed into law a 62-cent tobacco tax increase that does not exempt lower-income smokers. His budget proposes a $646 billion cap-and-trade tax that energy companies would immediately pass on to all consumers, including those earning less than $250,000. Consequently, President Obama’s budget would raise everyone’s taxes.”
Sure, we might be picking at semantics in saying cigarette taxes or energy taxes will raise everyone’s taxes. But 1) it is true, and 2) the general point is that taxes often times have indirect effects. Raising the income tax of someone over $250,000 decreases their disposable income, decreasing their consumption, which could affect jobs and hurt those under the arbitrary threshold. Its just bad all around.