Two Legacies: Bush's Tax Cuts vs. Obama's Tax Increases

When President George W. Bush’s name comes up in public policy conversations, it’s usually in reference to what’s known as the “Bush tax cuts.” 

If a president’s going to have a legacy, constantly being associated with tax cuts is a pretty good one.

It’s a legacy President Obama will never enjoy. If anything, we may be dealing with the “Obama tax increases” for decades to come—even though the president claims he hasn’t raised taxes.

In an interview with Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on February 6, 2011, Obama made the bizarre claim, “I didn't raise taxes once. I lowered taxes over the last two years.”  Politifact analyzed the first part of that claim and said, “The idea that Obama did not raise taxes is just plain wrong.” 

“Wrong” is a polite way of putting it. There are some 20 new taxes in ObamaCare alone, and that doesn’t count whether the coverage mandate is a tax, as it was declared by Chief Justice John Roberts and the Obama Justice Department.

And now the president wants to increase taxes on those he considers wealthy—individuals making more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000.

Of course, several of those tax increases intended for high-income workers will have an indirect impact on middle- and even lower-middle-income workers, like the increase in the capital gains and dividend taxes. And they will also hit small business owners.

And strangely, while the president claims his proposal would bring “a sense of permanence” to workers and businesses, he is only proposing a one-year extension of the Bush tax cuts—there it is again—rather than making those tax cuts permanent. Which raises the question, would the president extend those cuts if reelected, when he will have, to use his word, “more flexibility”?

While the president adopts the “tax cut” language—even though the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) claims his plan will raise $1.3 trillion over eight years—he accuses Republicans of being willing to raise taxes (i.e., let the Bush tax cuts expire) on the middle class in order to help the wealthy. But no one is fooled, and certainly not the CBO: Bush was a tax cutter; Obama is a tax increaser.

 Bush was reelected. We’ll see if a tax increaser can be also.