What's the value of a politician's word? Breitbart gives us a clue in this report on President Obama's recent tobacco tax hike:
"I can make a firm pledge," [candidate Obama] said in Dover, N.H., on Sept. 12. "Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes."
He repeatedly vowed "you will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime."
Now in office, Obama, who stopped smoking but has admitted he slips now and then, signed a law raising the tobacco tax nearly 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes, to $1.01. Other tobacco products saw similarly steep increases.
This is one tax that disproportionately affects the poor, who are more likely to smoke than the rich.
"Listen now," he said in his widely watched nomination acceptance speech, "I will cut taxes-cut taxes-for 95 percent of all working families, because, in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class."
An unequivocal "any tax" pledge also was heard in the vice presidential debate, another prominent forum.
"No one making less than $250,000 under Barack Obama's plan will see one single penny of their tax raised," Joe Biden said, "whether it's their capital gains tax, their income tax, investment tax, any tax."
Okay, you say. So the Democrats broke their promise, nothing new about that, but people don't have to pay the tax. After all, no one has to smoke. Yes, but suppose everyone stops smoking, or at least many do. The revenue this tax is supposed to raise is to be used to expand medical care coverage for uninsured children. If people stop smoking where will the funding for this program come from?
Those of you making less than $250,000 may be the first to hazard a guess.
RLC