Obama Might Delay Killing Bush Tax Cuts

From the economic mavens at the Associated Press:

Obama: Recession could delay rescinding tax cuts

Sun Sep 7

WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama says he would delay rescinding President Bush’s tax cuts on wealthy Americans if he becomes the next president and the economy is in a recession, suggesting such an increase would further hurt the economy.

Nevertheless, Obama has no plans to extend the Bush tax cuts beyond their expiration date, as Republican John McCain advocates…

“I think we’ve got to take a look and see where the economy is. I mean, the economy is weak right now,” Obama said on “This Week” on ABC. “The news with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, I think, along with the unemployment numbers, indicates that we’re fragile.” …

The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s tax plan would benefit middle-income taxpayers more than McCain’s. However, Obama would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year also would see taxes rise.

McCain’s plan cuts taxes across all income levels. It would cut taxes for those in the top 1 percent by more than $125,000, raising their after-tax income an average 9.5 percent, the center concluded.

Apparently Mr. Obama never took any economics courses — or even any ones in logic.

If increasing taxes is bad for the economy during a recession, why is it good for the economy when we are not in one?

(And, of course we aren’t in one, having enjoyed 3 percent growth, which is better than any other industrialized country in the Western world.)

The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama’s tax plan would benefit middle-income taxpayers more than McCain’s.

Please note how the Associated Press continues to hawk this report from the Democrat front, The Tax Policy Center, as if it is objective fact. It isn’t.

From Discover The Networks:

Brookings Institution

Brookings has been involved with a variety of internationalist and state-sponsored programs, including the Global Governance Initiative, which aspires to facilitate the establishment of a U.N.-dominated world government, based in part on economic and Third World considerations. Brookings Fellows have also called for additional global collaboration on trade and banking; the expansion of the Kyoto Protocol; and nationalized health insurance for children. Nine Brookings economists signed a petition opposing President Bush’s tax cuts in 2003…

The Brookings Institution’s President since 2002 has been Strobe Talbott, who served as President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State. The Board of Trustees features Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of John Kerry; Zoe Baird, failed Clinton appointee for Attorney General…

And the Urban Institute is even more far left Democrat Party organ. Again from Discover The Networks:

Urban Institute

In 1980, UI called for socialized health care in the United States, and in 1982 began a running critique of the Reagan Administration under its Changing Domestic Priorities Project; the critique ran to 26 volumes, with research paid for by the Ford Foundation.

In 1990, UI put together a similar critique of the administration of President George H.W. Bush. In the wake of the Los Angeles riots in 1992, UI became a leading policy-center apologist for urban black violence, focusing on societal and economic, rather than moral and criminal, factors in its analysis of the riots.

In 2001, UI and the Brookings Institution began collaboration on a Tax Policy Center (TPC) to discredit President George W. Bush’s tax cut plans, which UI claimed disproportionately and unjustly favored “the wealthy.” …

Making a case for taxpayer-funded system of socialized medicine, another May 2006 UI report concludes that “public insurance appears to offer the best financial protection from high out-of-pocket expenses and financial burden for low-income families.”

In a June 2006 report on immigration and government tax revenues, UI concludes that: “Immigrants in Washington, D.C. pay their fair share of the region’s tax bill. The most educated foreign-born earners actually pay more in taxes than natives; the lower skilled contribute too.” This report makes no distinction between legal immigrants and illegal aliens, the latter of whom it refers to as “unauthorized immigrants.”

But the professional propagandists at the Associated Press foist the press release from these groups as an “unbiased” study.

Still, it’s nice to have Mr. Obama sounding more like Mr. McCain these days.

Instead of the other way around.