ATR’s John Kartch wrote at AmSpecBlog (The American Spectator). “Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the White House council of economic advisers, looked like a deer in the headlights as he tried to defend Obamacare during his testimony to the House Ways & Means Committee last week…Throughout his campaign, President Obama made a ‘firm pledge’ that no family making less than $250,000 would see ‘any form of tax increase’…But Obama's signature on the healthcare bill enacted over two dozen new or higher taxes, at least seven of which hit Americans making less than $250,000…So Goolsbee was called in to testify before Ways & Means as part of its first Obamacare hearing of the 112^th Congress…It wasn't pretty, as Goolsbee obfuscated, fibbed, and chuckled.”

Peter Roff at U.S. News notes that “Obama's Corporate Tax Cut Could Be a Tax Hike.” Obama asked Republicans and Democrats to simplify the tax system, “‘and use the savings to lower the corporate tax rate for the first time in 25 years—without adding to our deficit.’  The key phrase here is ‘without adding to our deficit.’ While it was startling to hear a liberal Democrat like Obama concede that the corporate income tax rate in the United States is the highest in the developed world, it is almost certain that the plan he has in mind will cause the effective tax rate—what corporations actually pay—to go up rather than down… If Obama is serious, if he wants to restructure the corporate tax in ways that promote savings and investment, research and development, and economic growth, then he has to come with a plan to keep more money in the system rather than pull it out in the form of increased tax payments…Americans for Tax Reform, the nonpartisan, pro-taxpayer organization headed by Grover G. Norquist, has put forward a series of principles for the White House to follow if it wants its corporate tax cut to have a stimulating effect on the U.S. economy”

From The Weekly Standard, Grover Norquist’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights has contributed to hope for the fiscal future of Maine.  High taxes, “starting with Maine’s decision to impose a sales tax in 1951” has led to fiscal turmoil for this state.  “The results include: no private job growth in a decade, a ranking by Forbes as America’s least business-friendly state, and an increase in welfare dependence…As newly inaugurated governor Paul Le-Page sums up the preconditions for the GOP victory: ‘High taxes, unreasonable regulation, high unemployment .  .  . and the stars were aligned.’…A few political groundswells helped move those stars into position. In 2006, antitax forces led by longtime citizen activist Mary Adams, a grandmotherly, northwoods Grover Norquist, succeeded in placing a Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative before Maine voters. The proposal would have capped any increase in state and local government spending by the amount of inflation and population growth unless voters approved it directly.”