Obama's Secret Tax: Budget Assumes 25 Cent Per Gallon of Gas Tax Hike Starting in 2012, Rising to 40 Cents Per Gallon Down the Road

Last week the CBO dismissed numerous claims made by Obama in his farcical budget.

Among the various bullshit items was a claim that his billions for Chief Engineer Woo-Woo Biden's hobby would not increase the deficit, as they'd be paid for by a completely unnamed "bipartisan funding" source.

A bipartisan funding source for a deranged old man's pet obsession? Doubtful.

But what was Obama thinking when he included the vague reference to a "bipartisan funding" source? Strangely, although he couldn't specifically name the source of the funding, he was pretty specific about how much "funding" he'd see: $328 billion.

That's pretty specific, isn't it? Not $300 billion, not $400 billion... nice round numbers indicating guesses. Not even $325 billion, which at least would be a guess to the nearest quarter of a hundred billion dollars.

Nope. $328 billion. Very specific. Not rounded or guestimated.

Isn't it strange than in speaking of a vague, undefined "bipartisan funding" source you're able to plot out such a specific "revenue enhancement" flowing from it? It's almost as if Obama knows exactly what he wants this "bipartisan funding" source to be but is concealing it from the public.

Well, Keith Hennessey did so calculation -- turns out that $328 billion can be had via a 25 cent per gallon tax hike on gas, rising with inflation.

$328 B is a lot of money. You may think you know what this line refers to: a gas tax increase. That’s what I thought. As a rough rule of thumb, the government would raise about $1B per year for each penny per gallon increase in the tax on gasoline and diesel fuel. If we match the numbers in the OMB table, it looks like about +25 cents per gallon in 2012, growing to maybe +34 cents by 2021. That’s roughly equivalent to a 25 cent per gallon increase, indexed to inflation. [Edited-- his previous estimates were eliminated.]

Coincidence? Yeah, I don't really believe in coincidences.

Meanwhile, you will not be shocked to learn that Dear Reader has decided not to lead on Social Security, but instead to let other people lead, and then come in later after more courageous leaders have prepared the field.

This despite the fact that Obama stated that he "rejected" the "conventional wisdom" that a politician could only "hedge, dodge, and spin" on Social Security.

He specifically vowed to lead on the issue for a change.

He lied.

And yes, he's also lying about raising taxes. Shock, huh?

Bigger Point: There is no way to pay for Obama's European-sized welfare state by taxing the "rich." You can tax the rich at 100% rates and it still is not enough.

You have to go where the money is: The middle class, which dwarfs the rich in population size.

So that's where Obama is going -- all of his previous lies to the contrary.

posted by Ace at 04:09 PM

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