Are you worried about Obama raising your taxes more than he has already?
Are you worried about Obama breaking his "firm pledge" not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 in a BIG, blatant way?
Read Robert Gibbs' lips:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. President Barack Obama maintains his "clear commitment" to not raise taxes on middle class families, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Monday.
After Obama's advisers appeared to leave the door open to a middle class tax hike over the weekend, Gibbs told reporters he was reiterating the president's promise not to raise taxes on those that make less than $250,000 a year.
Gibbs is a joke.
As reporters pressed him, he just said that he was reiterating Obama's tax pledge.
Reiterating it doesn't mean Obama pledges to stick to it.
Obama made a clear commitment. No kidding.
The issue is will Obama break that promise, too.
Video.
Transcript
Q Robert, in terms of what Geithner and Summers had to say yesterday, it really wasn't too much of a hypothetical back and forth. It was about the -- do they think it's possible to do deficit reduction. But that's not a -- that's --
MR. GIBBS: Well, we can quibble about whether the word "possible" --
Q No, that's not what the word "hypothetical" -- is it possible to do everything the President wants to do without increasing revenues from the middle class?
MR. GIBBS: Right, and I want to just state again clearly here that the President has made a very clear commitment to not raise taxes on middle-class families, period.
Q But if economists, including the President's own economists, don't necessarily think that it's possible to do so without raising taxes on the middle class, how is that dealing candidly with the American people?
MR. GIBBS: Well, again, Jake, there are a series of things that have to be done. I think you'll actually hear an announcement from Treasury later this afternoon about how much money has to be borrowed versus what they thought was going to have to be borrowed and what will have to be borrowed as a result of financial stabilization.
In terms of cutting the amount of money that's needed, again, I think the President has been clear on this. The first thing that we can do -- the most important thing that we can do right now is get our economy growing again. We know that the deficit -- part of the reason that the deficit is up right now is that the economy has slowed down so much that tax revenues -- because it's what happens in an economic slowdown -- have regressed a lot. I think the President -- obviously we're going to have to make some decisions down the road on some of the President's legislative priorities and some of the things that Congress wants to do to evaluate how we move back towards -- on a path toward fiscal sustainability.
Q So did Geithner and Summers go off script or were they sort of testing the temperature out there of what something like this would --
MR. GIBBS: I don't know. I know the President has been clear about his commitment on it.
Q So there is no -- there's no real scenario there, as the administration sees it, where middle-class taxpayers might be hit with a hike? There's no scenario right now --
MR. GIBBS: The President has been clear, very clear.
Q Could I make that even a little more precise? The President, as you well know, is -- not just middle class, but he's been very precise about it: no family --
MR. GIBBS: Let me be precise.
Q Go ahead.
MR. GIBBS: Let me be precise: The President's clear commitment is not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year.
Q So any implication anybody drew from Geithner and Summers yesterday to the contrary is flatly wrong?
MR. GIBBS: I think the President has been clear. I think you heard him reiterate it not that long ago right outside this room in the Rose Garden.
Q But you can understand why people took what they said yesterday as Geithner and Summers trying to open the door a little bit?
MR. GIBBS: Well, I hope you'll take my reiteration of his clear commitment as an update.
Q So they were not -- the door is closed? They did not open the door at all?
MR. GIBBS: I am reiterating the President's clear commitment in the clearest terms possible, that he's not raising taxes on those who make less than $250,000 a year.
Q Did he speak to them about the fact that they did raise this little bit of a --
MR. GIBBS: We talked about a number of economic issues this morning in the Oval Office as part of the daily briefing.
Q So is everybody going to be on message now, that absolutely no tax cuts [sic] for families --
MR. GIBBS: Promising that everybody is going to be on message may be a bar that's too high for me to leap over.
Q But that's the goal -- everybody is on --
MR. GIBBS: The goal is to get the economy moving again. The goal is to get our government back on --
Q Without any tax cut [sic] for any family making less than $250,000 --
MR. GIBBS: Our goal is to get our government back on a path toward fiscal sustainability; to lay the long-term foundation for economic growth. And let's also -- one point that I forget that I think is important in this: Within the very first month of the President taking office, 95 percent of Americans received a tax cut. That's everybody in the middle class.
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