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White House: Obama is “very interested” in raising taxes by executive order


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Bonnie Kristian, Rare Contributor

Posted on 2015-03-03T16:40:43+00:00" title="This date and/or time has been adjusted to match your timezone" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">March 3, 2015 10:40 am


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AP

Speaking to reporters on Monday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest suggested that President Obama is considering raising taxes unilaterally. Townhall reports (emphasis added):

“The president certainly has not indicated any reticence in using his executive authority to try and advance an agenda that benefits middle class Americans,” Earnest said in response to a question about Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calling on Obama to raise more than $100 billion in taxes through IRS executive action.

“Now I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement, there is not, at least that I know of,” Earnest continued. “But the president has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goals. So I am not in a position to talk in any detail at this point, but the president is very interested in this avenue generally,” Earnest finished.

Let’s just hope that the President is simply getting a little too into the third season of House of Cards and will slow down on the whole bypassing Congress thing once he finishes his binge watch.

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Bonnie Kristian is a columnist at Rare, a contributing writer at The Week, and a communications consultant for Young Americans for Liberty. You can find more of her work at www.bonniekristian.com or follow her on Twitter @bonniekristian
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Read more at http://rare.us/story/white-house-ob...taxes-by-executive-order/#uBLJLw4iYkq5qdGf.99

 

This is what happens when a narcissistic, egotistical community organizer is elected.

 

Next.

 

I wonder what the Democrats are going to do when our next president tries to lower the tax rates without their approval!

 

Your OP is highly edited. Below is the relevant part of the briefing, with emphasis in bold:

Q: Thank you. I wanted to ask about Orrin Hatch. He, in an interview with The New York Times over the weekend, said that the President’s corporate tax reform proposal was, “pretty well dead” to him. And he said that neither Republicans, nor corporations would go for it because they’d essentially be paying taxes that they’ve already paid internationally. This has been something that obviously the President has outlined repeatedly as kind of a top priority for him, working with congressional Republicans -- to hear the top Senate Finance Committee Chairman come out pretty strongly against this plan, I’m wondering what your reaction is to it and where that leaves the President’s efforts on this.

MR. EARNEST: Well, nobody in this building is surprised to hear that there is a senior Republican in the Congress indicating that he stands squarely with well-connected, wealthy corporations when it comes to the tax code. That’s consistent with the kind of the strategy that we’ve seen Republicans try to advance for decades now. Republicans are squarely on the side of corporations and the President is squarely on the side of middle-class families.

And there is a different of opinion when it comes to this. But the President has put forward his own ideas about how he thinks that we can get this done. It’s a pretty common-sense proposal where we can actually close some loopholes that only benefit those wealthy and well-connected corporations that apparently are close friends with Senator Hatch.

And we can use that revenue to invest in the kinds of projects that benefit everybody -- certainly will continue to benefit those corporations when they are landing at a new airport, or moving their goods on a modern rail infrastructure, or moving those goods on a modern superhighway. That’s clearly and consistent with the interests of the business community, but more importantly, it’s consistent with the interests of middle-class families in this country. It’s going to create jobs in the short term. It’s going to make sure that we have more economic growth over the longer term. And that’s what the President is focused on.

And so it’s not surprising to me that somebody who is focused on looking out for big business in Washington might have a difference of opinion when it comes to the President’s tax policies.

Q Well, implicit in sort of that antagonism toward Senator Hatch, is this a concession? There’s a plan that you guys have --

MR. EARNEST: He called our plan dead on arrival. I thought I was pretty nice to him in contrast.

Q Well, I mean, this is a plan that you’ve had for many years. And so I’m wondering if it doesn’t seem to be getting a warm reception on the Hill, do you guys also see this as more of a signpost than anything that has a legitimate chance of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress?

MR. EARNEST: Well, there has been an effort to put some more details and to add some tweaks to this to try to be more specific and to try to be clearer about what our policy goals are. But, ultimately, those policy goals are about expanding economic growth and creating jobs for middle-class families. And this tax approach is consistent with that.

The truth is there are other Republicans who have had somewhat better things to say about this approach in general, where there are some Republicans who have indicated that this could be an area of compromise, even if they haven’t whole-heartedly embraced our specific proposal.

And this is something that we’re going to continue to talk about. It’s going to require some compromise on both sides, as we’ve talked about quite a bit over the last couple of months. Ultimately, if we reach a tax reform agreement, it’s going to include some things that the President doesn’t like. It also will include some things that presumably congressional Republicans, particularly those like Senator Hatch that are close to wealthy corporations, they probably won’t like either. But the question is whether or not we can actually try to find some common ground in the middle that would allow us to advance the interests of the American people.

One example of this, again, is a well-thought-out but robust investment in infrastructure in this country. That’s something that would benefit everybody and surely that’s something that both Democrats and Republicans could come together around. So we’ll continue to see where this goes.

Q Bernie Sanders, maybe on the other side of the aisle up on Capitol Hill, has suggested that the White House could raise as much as $100 billion through using executive action to close corporate loopholes. If your plan is kind of running into resistance with Republicans on Capitol Hill, is that an idea that you guys would embrace towards sort of all those holes that you just outlined?

MR. EARNEST: Well, for any sort of possible executive actions along those lines, I’d refer you to the Treasury Department. But the President certainly has not indicated any reticence about using his executive authority to try to advance an agenda that benefits middle-class Americans. Now, I don’t want to leave you with the impression that there is some imminent announcement -- there’s not, at least that I know of.

Q Is it something under consideration? Have you guys been looking at the tax codes --

MR. EARNEST: Well, the President has asked his team to examine the array of executive authorities that are available to him to try to make progress on his goal. So I’m not in a position to talk about any of those in any detail at this point, but the President is very interested in this avenue generally.

Link: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Josh Earnest, 3/2/15

 

The OP's version is different from the actual wording.

OP:

Actual quote:

Why the subtle change in wording? To rile the base. "Closing corporate loopholes" sounds too benign to use for riling the base. "Taxes" and "IRS" though, are very effective. It's easier to manipulate the base when you use words that anger them. It's an effective, but deceptive, means to manipulate people.

And notice the subtle change from "as much as" in the original briefing to "more than" in the OP? Manipulation of information like this may be subtle, but it's also effective.

 

I neglected to mention one other subtle change in wording: The OP says that Sanders is "calling for" this, while the briefing says "suggested".

It's important to view the actual dialogue when the republican blog-o-sphere starts on a rampage about something like this. If you don't, you're allowing yourself to be manipulated by people. Our country deserves better than to be manipulated by the few. Be honest, and inform yourselves of the truth, not the hyperbole.