When I say President Obama is becoming more like Bush I am generally referring to things like these flip-flops we are seeing all to often. The latest one involves the “cadillac plan” tax on health care:
President Barack Obama signaled to House Democratic leaders Wednesday that they’ll have to drop their opposition to taxing high-end health insurance plans to pay for health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans.
In a meeting at the White House, Obama expressed his preference for the insurance tax contained in the Senate’s health overhaul bill, but largely opposed by House Democrats and organized labor, Democratic aides said. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private.
House Democrats want to raise income taxes on high-income individuals instead and are reluctant to abandon that approach, while recognizing that they will likely have to bend on that and other issues so that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., can maintain his fragile 60-vote majority support for the bill.
Lee Stranahan has put together this video of then candidate Obama denouncing these type of taxes, as they were the cornerstone of John McCain’s health care plan:
You see, Senator McCain would pay for his plan, in part, by taxing your health care benefits for the first time in history.
And now President Obama is supporting just that. Add this to the now growing list of flip-flops on healthcare, including the public option and mandates, and we see a very bad trend developing – one that the Democratic base isn’t going to tolerate.
I am wondering why President Obama now supports this idea. Could it be because he comes from the Senate, so he has a bias towards their plan? Maybe he thinks that this is the only way to secure the 60 votes in the Senate. Whatever the reason, the most troubling part is that President Obama keeps moving further away from the House plan, which more mimics what candidate Obama campaigned on.
As for rather this is a “lie” from Obama or not, I’m with Bob on it. I won’t really call it a lie, yet. Now if President Obama decides to do an interview and say that he always supported the “cadillac plan” tax, then yes, we are into the lying category.