Dems Want Another Trillion in Tax Hikes to Pay for Big Government

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President Obama signaled in his budget released yesterday that Democrats intend to spend the rest of the year pushing for $1.5 trillion in job-destroying tax hikes:

OBAMA BUDGET INSISTS ON $1.5 TRILLION IN NEW TAX HIKES: “President Obama's proposed budget plan includes $1.5 trillion in new taxes, most of it coming from an item that has divided the White House and the Republicans throughout Obama's presidency: Tax cuts signed into law by President George W. Bush.” (David Jackson, “Obama’s Budget Revives Battle Over Bush Tax Cuts,” USA Today, 2/13/2012)

AP: “OBAMA’S BUDGET: GOVERNMENT STILL GETTING BIGGER”: (Andrew Taylor, “Obama’s Budget: Government Still Getting Bigger,” Associated Press, 2/13/2012)

REUTERS: “OBAMA UNVEILS BIG SPENDING ELECTION-YEAR BUDGET”: (Alister Bull and Laura MacInnis, “Obama Unveils Big Spending Election-Year Budget,” Reuters, 2/13/2012)

NOT A JOKE: NEW BUDGET IS “LADEN WITH STIMULUS-STYLE INITIATIVES”: “The president's plan is laden with stimulus-style initiatives: sharp increases for highway construction and school modernization, and a new tax credit for businesses that add jobs.” (Andrew Taylor, “Obama Budget: New Spending with Recycled Tax Ideas,” Associated Press, 2/11/2012)

These tax hike proposals are mostly just recycled from previous failed proposals over the last three years. The Democrats have repeatedly attempted to push these very tax hikes before, only to have them rebuffed, but Democrats aren’t giving up on their job-destroying tax increases quite yet:

PELOSI IN FULL-SPIN MODE, SAYS OBAMA’S BUDGET IS AN “INNOVATIVE BLUEPRINT”: “ ‘President Obama has laid out an innovative blueprint for restoring opportunity for all Americans and for constructing an economy that is built to last,’ Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., stated.” (John Parkinson, “Republicans Detest, Democrats Defend Obama’s Budget,” ABC News, 2/13/2012)

AP: “OBAMA BUDGET: NEW SPENDING WITH RECYCLED TAX IDEAS”: (Andrew Taylor, “Obama Budget: New Spending with Recycled Tax Ideas,” Associated Press, 2/11/2012)

“PLAN INCLUDES MANY PREVIOUS PROPOSALS FROM THE WHITE HOUSE THAT HAVE NOT BECOME LAW”: (Kim Dixon and Patrick Temple-West, “Factbox: Obama Seeks Higher Taxes on Big Business,” Reuters, 2/13/2012)

WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: NEW BUDGET “VERY SIMILAR” TO LAST YEAR’S BUDGET PROPOSAL: “ ‘This is a plan that's very similar. We put out a very detailed plan for $4 trillion, not $3 trillion in deficit reduction, because it's built on the $1 trillion of savings that's already been agreed to,’ Lew said.” (Jake Sherman, “Lew: Not Much New in Budget,” Politico, 2/12/2012)

A WALK THROUGH OBAMA’S HISTORY OF TAX INCREASE PROPOSALS

SEPTEMBER 2011: “OBAMA VOWS VETO IF DEFICIT PLAN HAS NO TAX INCREASES”: “President Obama called on Monday for Congress to adopt his ‘balanced’ plan combining entitlement cuts, tax increases and war savings to reduce the federal deficit by more than $3 trillion over the next 10 years, and said he would veto any approach that relied solely on spending reductions to address the fiscal shortfall.

“ ‘I will not support any plan that puts all the burden for closing our deficit on ordinary Americans,’ he said.” (Helene Cooper, “Obama Vows Veto if Deficit Plan Has No Tax Increases,” The New York Times, 9/19/2011)

THE PRICETAG? $1.5 TRILLION. (Helene Cooper, “Obama Vows Veto if Deficit Plan Has No Tax Increases,” The New York Times, 9/19/2011)

OBAMA OFFERED $467 BILLION IN TAX INCREASES TO PAY FOR STIMULUS 2.0: “The Obama administration is asking Congress to raise taxes by $467 billion over 10 years to pay for the President’s one-year $447 billion stimulus, which he announced during a speech Thursday before a joint session of Congress.” (Neil Munro, “Obama Asks Congress for $467-Billion Tax Increase to Fund Jobs Plan,” The Daily Caller, 9/12/2011)

APRIL 2011: OBAMA’S BUDGET REDO CALLED FOR NEW TAX HIKES: “President Barack Obama will lay out his plan for reducing the nation's deficit Wednesday, belatedly entering a fight over the nation's long-term financial future… [T]he White House looks set to aim its firepower on a more divisive topic: taxes.

“He also will call for tax increases for people making over $250,000 a year, a proposal contained in his 2012 budget, and changing parts of the tax code he thinks benefit the wealthy.” (Carol Lee and Damian Paletta, “Obama Puts Taxes on Table,” Wall Street Journal, 4/11/2011)

FEBRUARY 2011: FY 2012 OBAMA BUDGET FEATURES $1.5 TRILLION IN TAX INCREASES ON SMALL BUSINESSES AND JOBS-CREATORS: “All told, the new taxes total $1.5 trillion over 10 years — ranging from new levies on small-business owners and corporations to taxes on energy and banks. Passed as is, the Obama budget would make economic stagnation and 9% unemployment the status quo.” (Editorial Board, “Obama’s Gutless Budget Proposal,” Investor’s Business Daily, 2/14/2011)

A PATTERN OF RESURRECTING THE FAILED TAX INCREASES OF THE PAST: “President Barack Obama’s budget proposal resurrects a series of tax increases on certain corporations and the wealthy that were largely ignored by Congress when Democrats controlled both chambers. … Many of the tax increases were in the president’s previous budget proposals, offered when Obama could expect a more friendly reception from Congress. Lawmakers from both political parties, however, have been wary of limiting the ability of high earners to deduct charitable contributions out of concern it will hurt non-profit organizations.” (Meta Pettus, “Obama’s Budget Resurrects Reject Tax Increases,” The Associated Press, 2/14/2011)

JANUARY 2010: FY 2011 OBAMA PROPOSAL SOUGHT $2 TRILLION IN TAX INCREASES: “President Barack Obama's $3.8 trillion budget for the coming fiscal year raises taxes on businesses and upper-income households by $2 trillion over 10 years and cuts spending on programs with considerable political support, but will still leave the nation with $8.5 trillion in added debt over the next decade.

“The budget plan for fiscal 2011 calls for nearly $1 trillion in tax increases...” (Jonathan Weisman, “Wealthy Face Tax Increase,” The Wall Street Journal, 1/31/2010)

FEBRUARY 2009: FY 2010 OBAMA BUDGET INCLUDED A PLAN TO LET CURRENT TAX RATES EXPIRE: “Mr. Obama will also call for letting the Bush tax cuts on income, dividends and capital gains lapse after 2010 for individuals who make more than $250,000 a year. But while the top rate for income would rise to 39.6 percent, the top rate for capital gains and dividends would be 20 percent.” (Jackie Calmes, “Obama Planning to Slash Deficit, Despite Stimulus Spending,” The New York Times, 2/21/2009)

The tax hikes are bad news for a weak economy and the small business job creators who would be burdened by these new taxes:

FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF ECONOMIST CHRISTINA ROMER: TAX INCREASES HAVE A “LARGE, SUSTAINED AND HIGHLY SIGNIFICANT NEGATIVE IMPACT” ON GROWTH: “In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output. Since most of our exogenous tax changes are in fact reductions, the more intuitive way to express this result is that tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects. … Our baseline specification implies that an exogenous tax increase of one percent of GDP lowers real GDP by almost three percent.” (Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer, “The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks,” American Economic Review, June 2010)

2009: OBAMA CONCEDED THAT “THE LAST THING YOU WANT TO DO IS RAISE TAXES IN THE MIDDLE OF A RECESSSION BECAUSE THAT WOULD JUST…PUT BUSINESS FURTHER IN A HOLE”: “In August 2009, on a visit to Elkhart, Indiana to tout his stimulus plan, Obama sat down for an interview with NBC’s Chuck Todd, and was conveyed a simple request from Elkhart resident Scott Ferguson: ‘Explain how raising taxes on anyone during a deep recession is going to help with the economy.’

Obama agreed with Ferguson’s premise – raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea. ‘First of all, he’s right. Normally, you don’t raise taxes in a recession, which is why we haven’t and why we’ve instead cut taxes. So I guess what I’d say to Scott is – his economics are right. You don’t raise taxes in a recession. We haven’t raised taxes in a recession.’ …

‘So he’s absolutely right, the last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up – take more demand out of the economy and put business further in a hole.’” (Stephen F. Hayes, “Obama vs. Obama,” The Weekly Standard, 7/11/2011)