ATR President Grover Norquist sent the following letter [full text] today to Congressman Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.)
On behalf of Americans for Tax Reform, I am pleased to support H.R. 4064, the “Keeping Promises to Taxpayers Act.”
When President Obama ran for office in 2008, he repeatedly promised the American people that he would not raise “any form” of taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year.
It took President Obama only sixteen days in office to violate that oft-repeated promise when he signed into law a measure raising the federal excise tax on cigarettes. The average cigarette smoker makes less than $40,000 per year according to industry data.
More violations of this promise followed in the jobs-killing Obamacare law. H.R. 4064 repeals all these tax increases on families making less than $250,000. President Obama’s promise was broken by him, but it would be kept by passing H.R. 4064 into law.
Specifically, your bill repeals the following tax increases:
- Obamacare’s employer mandate
- the “Cadillac Plan” excise tax
- the “Medicine Cabinet Tax”
- the “haircut” for medical itemized deductions
- the “flex account” tax
- the health insurance and prescription medicine excise taxes
- the excise tax on medical device manufacturers
- the tanning tax
- the increased costs of self-insured plans
- the tax hike on early withdrawals from HSAs
- the hike in the federal excise tax on tobacco
Repealing these tax hikes simply enforces the promise President Obama made when he was running for president. As such, all pro-taxpayer Congressmen should vote for H.R. 4064.