The President’s Debt Commission, tasked with reducing the deficit by 2013, released its recommendations this week and took a final vote on the plan today, the same day the November jobless numbers were released. The White House is no doubt hoping the Commission’s trillion-dollar tax hike trap will distract from the country’s bleak economic outlook: the latest unemployment statistics show the jobless rate at a staggering 9.8 percent; the nineteenth consecutive month jobless numbers have been above 9 percent.
This stands in stark contrast to the threat levied against taxpayers last year, when the White House warned unemployment would top 7.9 percent without passage of the “stimulus” bill. Instead, the White House created a commission to impose job-killing tax hikes in the name of deficit-reduction. By focusing on the consequence of spending—the deficit—rather than reining in the explosive growth in government over which President Obama has presided, the White House hoped to distract from its abject failure to create jobs or spur economic recovery through government spending.
“Thinking the “stimulus” would give him carte blanche to grow government and increase taxes, the President was forced to switch tactics after it became evident the “stimulus” was a complete failure,” said Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist. “Using the deficit as his next rhetorical tool was a clever tactic, but it didn’t fool taxpayers. While President Obama barely waited two weeks to sign his first tax-hike into law, the Debt Commission’s deficit-reduction mission gave him the excuse he’d been looking for to continue to increase the burden on taxpayers. Unfortunately for the White House, neither the Debt Commission nor taxpayers are buying his deficit distraction.”
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