President Obama unveiled the details of his jobs plan last week, including a proposal to offset the new government spending with tax hikes. It’s a bizarre strategy for a president who says he wants to create jobs. As the above chart from Heritage’s 2011 Budget Chart Book illustrates, Americans are already grappling with the prospect of massive tax increases. If the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire on Dec. 31, 2012, and more middle-class Americans have to pay the alternative minimum tax, taxes will reach unprecedented levels. The president’s budget …
Budget Trickery The President also employs budget trickery on spending. He first assumes that Iraq spending will continue indefinitely at 2008 levels (which was never going to happen, according to the military’s own Joint Campaign Plan), and then calculates $1.5 trillion in savings against that baseline. If you eliminate that gimmick, President Obama increases spending by nearly $500 billion over ten years – not even counting the $634 billion health care reserve fund The budget proposes $1.133 trillion in regular discretionary spending in 2010, and claims that is a 7 percent …
