Tax Lawyer's Blog

Yesterday I wrote that Democrat and long time left-winger Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC said that the Democrat’s proposed healthcare bill is a tax increase bill.

Here’s what I said:

I am watching Lawrence O’Donnell on Morning Joe talk about how all of the attention the media is focusing on shrill morons like Joe Wilson, Pete Stark and Alan Grayson will help Democrats pass a healthcare bill that will greatly increase taxes.

O’Donnell said that the Democrats are coming up with creative ways to increase taxes that no one has ever tried before and the public doesn’t know about it because the media is obsessed with the idiots.

NewsBusters has more details in Lawrence O’Donnell Outs New Taxes in Healthcare Bill.

Now here comes the New York Times (a day late and a dollar short) saying that Republicans are lying when they say that the healthcare bill contains significant tax increases:

First came the warnings that government would take over health care and panels of bureaucrats would decide when America’s elderly should die. Then came assertions that President Obama would force reductions in Medicare spending that would cut off the elderly from favored doctors and critical lab tests.

In recent days, Republican leaders hoping to derail Mr. Obama’s health care effort have seized on a new line of attack: that the proposed overhaul is a vehicle for a barrage of hidden and not-so-hidden tax increases, and a violation of Mr. Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Of course, the Times (and Obama and the Democrats) are smart enough to know that middle-class tax increases won’t fly with the public:

But the overall tax issue that Republicans have turned to clearly appears to have potential resonance. The poll found that 51 percent of Americans said the country should guarantee universal health care; but that figure dropped to 36 percent when respondents were asked if they would still support universal health care if it meant their taxes would go up.

The electorate’s loathing of tax increases is precisely why congressional democrats are doing what their friend Lawrence O’Donnell says they are doing: Hiding creative tax increases in the fine print of the bill.

Unfortunately for the Times and for the left nobody has to make up the fact that Democrats intend to raise taxes in order to fund healthcare reform because it’s all right there in the bill.

Maybe that’s why Democrats don’t want you to read it.

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